Kiwis make 300 calls to cyberbully helpline in first five days
About 300 Kiwis have called to a new hotline to report cyber hate and online “trolls” in its first five days.
Revenge porn, defamation and harassment have all been reported to New Zealand’s online watchdog NetSafe since the organisation launched its new anti-cyberbully service on Monday.
The move is a push to enforce the Harmful Digital Communications Act, passed by lawmakers last year to make cyberbullying a criminal offence. That includes any abusive text message, writing, photograph, picture, recording, or other material communicated electronically.
NetSafe executive director Martin Cocker is pleased victims of online abuse are stepping forward, with an average of 50 calls a day.
“About 40 per cent of our work appears to be related to what the law defines as Harmful Digital Communications.”
Cocker says most complaints fall into three areas — sexual content, including non-consensual pornography or “revenge porn”, harassment and defamation.
Anti-cyberbullying legislation means police can be engaged where necessary and court action can also be triggered.
Cocker says more than 80 people have been charged under the act but no cases were referred to police in the first week of the hotline.
“What’s reassuring is watching the team work through complaints with people and start to put resolutions in place.
“We’re only into the first few days but already have a number of cases now under way.
“We have had a few of them concluded where we’ve been able to assist people have harmful content removed, or the person who pro- duced it has said they will voluntarily remove it. That’s a good outcome.” NetSafe has boosted staff to 24. Cocker says half of those are manning its phones as part of the $3 million-a-year service funded by the Justice Ministry.
A string of high-profile Kiwis have been caught in social media abuse recently, including teenage world golf number one Lydia Ko — who temporarily closed her Twitter account, Warriors league stars Shaun Johnson and Manu Vatuvei — who was reduced to tears in a radio interview on the subject — and international netballer Cathrine Tuivaiti.