Digital journalist warns returning students to prepare for online bullying after eight rape threats a day

Updated

A digital journalist is warning parents to prepare their children for bullying on social media as they start the new school year with fresh laptops and mobile devices.

US-based video games journalist Alanah Pearce, originally from Brisbane, regularly receives abuse and rape threats online and said she had several ways of dealing with trolls.

"Sometimes people will send me a message on Facebook and if it's a particularly bad thing I will go to their profile, I'll look through their Facebook [page] and find their family, their work or their school and I'll send them a screenshot of what has been sent to me," she said.

"I'm basically telling someone who I think is an authority figure in that person's life what this person is doing online, so there can be some real [consequences]."

Primary school boy threatened rape

Ms Pearce said she received eight rape threats in one day last week.

She said contacting parents of the offenders was the most effective way of dealing with them.

Once people start to put how depressed they are or how ugly they feel online, then that will attract the trolls. That's why they say 'don't feed the trolls'. Dr Rachael Sharman, University of the Sunshine Coast

"One person in particular I contacted and showed her a rape threat her son had sent me, and he was a very young boy as well; he was only in primary school," she said.

"[His mother] made him hand in his device and took his internet privileges off him for a while.

"[She also] called a meeting with parents at the school to help parents get educated on how kids should act online normally."

Ms Pearce said she struggled to deal with online bullying when a school student but had taught herself to be more resilient.

She suspected trolls were essentially seeking attention so teaching children to ignore them could be very effective.

"Kids care about followers, which needs to be drilled out of them," she said.

No visible reactions, so no consequences says expert

University of the Sunshine Coast lecturer in psychology Dr Rachael Sharman agrees with Ms Pearce's technique of reporting trolls to their parents.

"Part of the issue with social media is you're disconnected; you don't see reaction, so there are no consequences," she said.

"If a 12-year-old boy walked up to a woman and told her he wanted to rape her, he wouldn't get away with it."

She said research had shown many Facebook users struggled to make real relationships offline.

"They've got friends online but don't know how to approach a real person in the real world," Dr Sharman said.

"It's very tricky for the average person, let alone someone on the computer."

Dr Sharman said parents should be aware of their child's social media activity depending on their age.

"I believe the computer or digital device should be in a public room in the home, just to make sure they're not becoming involved in troll [with trolls]," she advised.

She said people who published emotional problems on social media should be particularly concerned about online bullying.

"Once people start to put how depressed they are or how ugly they feel online, then that will attract the trolls," she said.

"That's why they say don't feed the trolls."

Advice for children and parents

Ms Pearce offered the following advice for parents and their children when using social media:

Learn to care less what your followers on social media think

Only follow your close friends on social media rather than everyone in the class or at school

Keep a private profile for people you trust

Parents should actively manage a child's page

Consider using a nickname rather than a real name and do not add a location or an age

Do not respond to trolls

Document every abusive message

Beware of additional content stored in photographs

Give usernames to the school so they can monitor social media

Topics: social-media, secondary-schools, family-and-children, women, primary-schools, maroochydore-4558

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