Cyber bullying in South Africa an epidemic of unkindness
Author Marion Scher’s book Big Bully: An Epidemic of Unkindness examines the issue of cyberbullying and sextortion. Focussing on South Africa, she reveals the shocking extent of the problem, particularly among children, and the silence created by shame.
ACCORDING to We Are Social and Hootsuite’s recent study, the Digital 2022 Global Overview Report, South Africa has the most addicted internet users in the world, spending an average of 10 hours and 46 minutes a day online.
Of this time, 35% (2 hours and 27 minutes on average per day) is spent on social networks. This was taken from the 16-64-year-old age group, but in my research some of the most addicted users of this medium were under the age of 16. And according to a survey conducted by Digimune of South African parents to gauge their views and concerns around children and digital threats, it emerged that over 51% of children had been cyberbullied, and 54% of children had accessed inappropriate content via digital platforms.
So with cyberbullying being so rife today, I was surprised at the reaction my requests for interviews around this topic received. Appealing through colleagues, mental health professionals, schools, social media and more, I was receiving similar feedback – cyberbullying exists and it’s dreadful, but none of the victims want to talk about it.
At first I didn’t quite understand this, but after more research I realised the pain and anguish cyberbullying can inflict on someone, particularly a young person with limited life experience. So the approach, it seemed, was that it was far better to try and put the bullying out of your mind – which would be made harder by retelling and reliving those dreadful emotions, not to mention the embarrassment attached to becoming involved in such incidents.
Those I was able to speak to, and whose stories are retold below, were brave enough to share these dreadful encounters with me. Or perhaps I shouldn’t call them encounters, as a large part of the problem with cyberbullying is that your assailants are faceless.
I also spoke to those on the other side, who admitted they didn’t realise what damage their tweets or posts would do to those on the receiving end.
They wished they could take them back, but that’s the thing with the internet – once out there, you lose control of your words and images, and they can be copied and replicated without permission or any time limits. That in itself is a warning to think before you post, forward or repost.
We’re living in a social media whirl of seeing who can become a serious influencer, get the most followers, likes, shares, heart emojis, and hopefully sponsors knocking on the door to do deals.
Addiction these days does not necessarily have anything to do with alcohol or drugs – it’s more likely to refer to the number of hours people spend glued to their phones or devices, watching endless hours of Tiktok or going from one social media app to the next.
Mental health professionals are seeing more and more of this phenomenon, which is fast becoming a serious and difficult addiction to break.
According to Cayley Jorgensen, there’s no way to describe the popularity and addictiveness of platforms such as Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat, Twitter and others. “This has led to even more openings for bullying than ever. There are even confession pages, where you can post anonymous words about anybody on the page. This of course leads to a lot of mocking and bullying from which the spin-offs are a disaster, especially for a young person’s mental well-being.”
The results of this fascination and the power that social media has over people is the rise in mental health issues, often leading to people taking their own lives.
Once exposed in any way on social media these people, often very young, don’t seem to be able to shrug off the massive dark cloud someone else’s words about them has cast. The only way out for them is a final one.
Proof of this is evident on a regular basis in the media with headlines such as: “Girl, 13, commits suicide after allegedly being bullied on Whatsapp”, after a photograph was sent around her school via the messaging platform. The photo, it seems, had gone viral the previous week and she saw suicide as the only option to counter the shame. She was afraid to go to school on the Monday after the incident started, and her mother met with the school principal that morning. When the mother returned home, she found her daughter’s body.
Sextortion
A global issue, it’s not just South Africa that sees such incidents. Last year a 17-year-old American in his final year of school in Michigan fell prey to a social media blackmailer. What he saw on Instagram was a pretty girl who messaged him asking to exchange intimate images. At first he was sceptical but when he received a photo from her, he decided to take a chance. He should have stuck with his initial gut feeling, because shortly after the “pretty girl” received the photo, a demand of $1 000 was made with the threat that unless he paid up, the image he sent would go to all his online friends. Not having the $1 000, he sent $300 instead, which the blackmailer wasn’t happy with. The teen, now terrified, replied, “You win, I’m going to kill myself.” The
blackmailer responded, “Go ahead.” Within hours, this young man with his whole life ahead of him was dead by his own hand. A victim of what has come to be known as sextortion.
Sextortion: a fairly new word, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the practice of forcing someone to do something, particularly to perform sexual acts, by threatening to publish naked pictures of them or sexual information about them: a crime of the digital age.
I witnessed the fear of this racket first-hand when a colleague of mine was targeted by a scam that was going around a lot in 2020.
We were at the airport waiting to catch a flight, both going through our emails and social media when they looked up to me in horror with fear written all over their face. When I asked what was going on, they sheepishly showed me their phone. They had received an anonymous SMS telling them that, unless they paid over 10 000 bitcoin in the following 24 hours, all the porn pages they’d
downloaded would be revealed to their social media contacts. Luckily I had seen an exposé on this very topic on Carte Blanche a week or so before, so knew it was a scam. When I told them this, and that they should ignore it, I could still see the fear in their eyes. It was only a few days later when nothing had happened that they relaxed, realising how they were nearly relieved of a good deal of money.
Cyber stranger danger
For Dean Mccoubrey, founder of Mysociallife, an organisation set up to help learners and schools navigate the challenges of today’s technology and social media, these are not unusual stories. “We were told by our parents never to speak to strangers or go home with them, but the difference here is that kids can’t see who they’re online with. They are similar scenarios, but with the online situation parents feel lost, as they don’t understand the platforms their children are on. Very often it’s a case of having their heads in the sand, and we need to gently pull those heads out and create awareness. “I had a father call me while his son was being sextorted by an Indian crime ring. He’d heard me talking on the radio and desperately needed help – literally that instant. They’d contacted his son posing as a girl and asking him to expose himself, which he did. Now they were on the phone demanding money, otherwise they’d go viral to all his contacts. We were able to take control of this situation, but generally people panic and give these people what they want – money.
“These are the stories that no one wants to talk about, but we know they’re happening on a daily basis worldwide. Where there’s money to be made, the scamsters are on full alert, targeting not just naïve youngsters but people of all ages, with a common link – a fear of being exposed as vulnerable, stupid or, worse, as perverts or sluts to their peers.”
A common thread I found throughout my research was that when an adult or child feels they’re complying with someone online, that: a) they’re acting anonymously; and b) if they don’t do it, they’re not cool. Neither is true. According to clinical psychologist Liane Lurie, sexual bullying is firmly on the increase. “What people don’t realise is that this starts from the age of 12 and younger, where we see kids sending nude photos of themselves, particularly girls to boys. If they don’t, boys pressure them, while other girls think ‘it’s cool’. With apps like Whatsapp and now the very popular Tiktok, the growth of this behaviour is staggering. For kids, the fact that their parents are generally not present in their online environment makes this a lot easier.”
For Jorgensen, looking at this situation from a developmental perspective, it’s a tricky issue to deal with. “Teens are still very much in an impulsive state. If someone asks for something, they think, ‘I need to do this right now’. Their brains are still developing in terms of understanding consequences and long-term ramifications. After a girl has been bullied to where she sends a nude photo of herself, she will say to me afterwards, ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t want to do it, but I did…’
“A lot of girls, in particular, are feeling pressurised from judgement at school and want to feel accepted; so if I send a nude then this guy is really going to like me, and if someone else likes me I’m ‘worth it’. It’s similar to joining their peers to drink or smoke,” Jorgensen adds.
“We try to teach them to look at such situations as what you are in control of, and what you’re not in control of. Also, to understand that they are leaving a digital footprint online that won’t go away.”
Big Bully: An Epidemic of Unkindness by Marion Scher is published by Bookstorm and is available in all good bookstores and online. The recommended retail price is R290