Classroom blitz on the dangers of ‘baiting out’
A CHILDREN’S charity will teach schools about the dangers of pupils sharing nude images – amid the terrifying rise of a social media cyberbullying trend.
Child safety groups are warning that the craze, known as ‘baiting out’, is leading to intimate pictures being shared online and the shaming of unsuspecting teenagers.
Bait out pages, found on social media sites including Instagram and Snapchat, mock and humiliate young women who are often branded ‘skets’ [promiscuous] or ‘hoes’ [prostitutes].
To join the groups, users are told to share sexually explicit images, videos or sexual gossip.
Founders of the groups cynically calculate that some children are so desperate to join that they will supply almost anything that is asked – even if that image is then circulated even more widely to humiliate them.
But the craze can also involve youngsters – typically girls – being ‘named and shamed’ in videos shot in the street or shopping centres that are then shared on websites such as YouTube.
Those leading the trend, such as those known as ‘Van Banter’ and ‘Baithead’, have become online celebrities, with many youngsters looking up to them.
Police and schools are now so concerned that from September, charity Childnet will pilot a scheme in secondary schools in which they work with teachers and provide lesson plans to make it easier for them talk to pupils about the issue.
The charity, which has spoken to scores of young people as part of its research into the topic, will also help teachers understand more about wider online sexual harassment.
The scheme comes as Kent Police revealed that, in the space of one month, more than 40 children in the Thanet area had sent nude images of themselves and fallen victim to a ‘bait out’ group.
One group – which dates back several years – routinely names school children and describes activities they have engaged in.
One post describes a sexual encounter between two girls, accusing them of being ‘dirty lesbians’. The girls named and shamed were in Year 9, meaning they were just 13 or 14 at the time. Years on, the details are still available to be seen by anyone on the internet.
A Childnet report, part of a wider European project called Project-de-SHAME, found 13 per cent of British youngsters had sent a nude picture to a girlfriend or boyfriend.
In all, 13 per cent of those polled, aged just 11 to 16, had photographed themselves partly or fully naked. Half had gone on to share the image. Rose Bray, of Childline, said young girls feel ‘upset and betrayed’, wracked with guilt and self- blame. They think they have nowhere to turn, fearing their parents would be ashamed of them.
She added: ‘They might have shared an image with someone they thought was part of a trusting relationship and actually have ended up having that image shared wider.
‘Or situations where young people have felt pressured to share an image in the first place… The person they were dating made them feel like it was an expected part of being their girlfriend, and actually a person was never comfortable doing that, but chose to do that as part of their relationship.
‘It felt like a grown-up thing to do, it felt like that is what everyone at school was doing.’
She added: ‘Having feelings like that can have a massive impact on their emotional wellbeing and their mental health.’
The NSPCC’s associate head of online safety Andy Burrows said: ‘It’s very troubling if young people are being coerced, bullied or manipulated into sharing explicit images of themselves, which could then disappear into closed or secret online groups where complete strangers can see and comment on them.
‘That’s why the NSPCC wants it to be as easy to have an image of yourself taken off the internet as it was to post in the first place.
‘We also need the Government to step in and regulate social networks so that grooming and bullying behaviour online is identified and properly dealt with, to help clean up the ‘Wild West Web’ that young people are currently faced with.’
Childnet boss Will Gardner said: ‘We want everybody to better understand this issue and to help support and input a collective response.
‘Part of the challenge is to bring people up to speed with what young people are doing… There is this knowledge gap that we need to be challenging and addressing.’
‘Sharing explicit images’