An investigation of more than 4800 Australian primary and high schools has revealed more than 10 per cent have a Facebook page on which students are taunting each other and teachers with abusive language and offensive pictures. Source: The Sunday Telegraph
STUDENTS at almost 500 schools are running Facebook sites dedicated to humiliating their peers as more and more children are forced to carry the incessant burden of cyber-bullying outside the school gates.
A News Ltd investigation of more than 4800 Australian primary and high schools has revealed more than 10 per cent have a Facebook page on which students are taunting each other and teachers with abusive language and offensive pictures.
Many of the posts are too offensive to reprint, but include graphic sexual discussion of students and teachers, shocking gore photos of suicide and accident victims, underage girls labelled ``sluts'', male teachers named as paedophiles and references to Nazism.
The majority of pages - many which carry the school's full name and logo - contain homophobic, racist and misogynist jokes and drug references.
Some of the most insidious pages, typically called ``burn books'' or ``goss pages'', name and tag students in vicious rumours, which are then ``liked'' and shared around other students' social networks.
Of 285 schools surveyed in WA, 38 had Facebook ``burn'' pages or similar. One Facebook page for Ballajura Community College school featured a photograph of a male teacher and female students overlaid with the logo of a pornography website, accompanied by snide comments joking that he was a paedophile.
The page, which accrued more than 600 fans since its launch in mid September, also featured photographs of students fighting, jokes about female Year 7s being "sluts'' and arguments between students using extremely offensive language, all underneath the school's official logo.
That page has since been deleted, however two others using the school's name still exist.
Acting principal Cheryl Townsend said in an emailed statement the postings on the website were absolutely unacceptable.
"We became aware of this page recently and have been actively involved in trying to remove anything from Facebook that we deem unacceptable and offensive in relation to the College, its students and staff.
"When we identify students who have had input into the sites we work with them, and their parents, to have the postings removed and to issue consequences, including suspension, based on their level of involvement."
Ms Townsend said parents had a key role to play in tackling cyber bullying as most online activity took place at home.
We have run a parent forum on cyber bullying and sent pamphlets home with our newsletter which included social media tips on privacy settings and staying safe online. We will continue working closely with parents and students in our efforts to stamp out this behaviour, she wrote.
Cyber-bullying expert Dr Barbara Spears, from the University of South Australia, said ``liking'' nasty Facebook posts was the new face of schoolyard bullying.
"Clearly, `liking' such pages contributes to the ongoing humiliation of others, and bystanders - those who contribute to bullying by not doing anything about it - are actively supporting it,'' she said.
Studies suggest 15 to 30 per cent of children are bullied at school, and around 10 per cent have been cyber bullied.
Dr Spears said bullying was not shifting from the schoolyard to the screen, but ``expanding'' there.
Constant access to technology meant "there is no escape'', she said.
Child psychologist and National Centre Against Bullying founder Michael Carr-Gregg said traditional playground bullies were taking their warfare online.
``What we're finding now is that a lot of these kids are using the technology to literally make other people's lives hell and the burn books are a really good example of this because so many people see it,'' he said.
Dr Carr-Gregg said vulnerable children could not brush off that kind of humiliation.
``For them, they've already got depression or they've already got anxiety so the gun is already loaded and the cyberbullying, the burn book, simply pulls the trigger,'' he said.
The most serious forms of cyber bullying can attract stalking, harrassment or defamation charges.
And it is illegal to use a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence under federal law, but a Federal Police spokeswoman said no minor had ever been charged.
She said parents should try to deal with cyber-bullying through schools and only go to police as a last resort.
Dr Carr-Gregg said too few people were charged over their heinous online behaviour.
``Some of these burn books can result in young people harming themselves so I don't think the law is up to scratch,'' he said.
"I think we need a social norm that says this type of behaviour is unacceptable and it needs to be enforced."
