CHANGE IN LAW WILL TACKLE ONLINE BULLYING AND ABUSE

Yesterday I welcomed 30 recommendations from the Internet Content Governance Advisory (ICGA) Group, which include proposals to tackle bullying and abusive messages sent online.

Many parents are concerned about the effects of bullying and harassment of their children online and the wide availability of harmful content.

Changing Legislation

One particular problem from a legal side of things has been that abusive and bullying messages sent through social media websites like Facebook and Twitter were not specifically dealt with under existing legislation.

I welcome the specific recommendation from the ICGA today to amend the Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act 2007 to include ‘electronic communications’ for the first time in terms of sending ‘offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing’ messages.

This will be an added protection for children and young people online.

Local Online Safety Campaign 

In my own area earlier this year, I launched an online safety campaign with local young people. This included conducting surveys with students and hosting a public meeting for parents, youth organisations and students to discuss how we as a country should deal with these issues.

Hosting a Public Meeting in St Kevin's Secondary School in March

I made a submission to the ICGA group following this public meeting meeting specifically around improving education and information for parents and children from a younger age and about encouraging social media companies and service provides to introduce greater protections for young people.

Other recommendations

Some of the other recommendations today will go a long way to addressing those concerns, such as including internet safety and digital literacy in the primary school curriculum, launching the National Council for Child Internet Safety and an awareness campaign for parents giving them more information to ensure their children are safe online.

Minister Pat Rabbitte set up this group due to growing concerns from parents about harassment and bullying of their children at any time of day, on computers, tablets and the smart phones in their pockets.

Minister Pat Rabbitte has now set up an implementation group across several Government Departments to make sure each of the recommendations are brought in as soon as possible.

Parents want their children to feel safe online and these recommendations will go a long way to achieving just that.

More information: 

- The Internet Content Governance Advisory Group’s full report – including 30 recommendations for 5 Government Departments – is available here: http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Broadcasting/ICG/