Cyberbullying

Almost all cyberbullying incidents take place outside of school hours. As a student at SRRCC we expect online conduct outside hours to meet the standards of behavior we would expect in school time and all reports of cyberbullying will be investigated and taken seriously.

Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place over digital devices like mobile phones, computers, and tablets. Cyberbullying can occur through SMS, Text, and apps, or online in social media, forums, or gaming where people can view, participate in, or share content. Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else. It can include sharing personal or private information about someone else causing embarrassment or humiliation. Some cyberbullying crosses the line into unlawful or criminal behavior.

The most common places where cyberbullying occurs are:

Social Media, such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Tik Tok
Text messaging and messaging apps on mobile or tablet devices
Instant messaging, direct messaging, and online chatting over the internet
Online forums, chat rooms, and message boards, such as Reddit
Email
Online gaming communities

Some examples of cyberbullying can include:

Spreading malicious and abusive rumours and gossiping
Emailing or texting with threatening or intimidating remarks
Mobbing ( a group or gang that target specifically)
Persistent harassment
Intimidation or blackmail
Online stalking
Posting embarrassing or humiliating images/videos without consent
Posting private detail online without consent
Grooming ( enticing or goading online to self harm or commit a crime)
Setting up a false profile, identity fraud or identity theft
Using gaming sites to attack or bully

What do I do if my child is experiencing cyberbullying?

Support them

It’s important they do not engage in conversation with the perpetrator. Instead, seek help.

Help them to collect and save evidence

It’s important to be able to share evidence of what has happened. Although it will be tempting for your child to delete distressing messages, without proof, schools, service providers or the police are limited as to how they can respond.

Text and email. Make sure all text messages and emails are saved, and where possible, back these up elsewhere.
Social media. Most social media platforms have options for reporting abuse. You may want to screenshot and save images in case content is deleted before you can raise your concerns(e.g. with the school or the police).
Phone calls. If your child is receiving nuisance phone calls, document the date, time, duration and what has been said. Try to establish if there are any identifiable features such as voice description or background noise.

Who should cyberbullying and other online harms be reported to?

It’s important that you talk to your child about next steps. Your goal is for the bullying behaviour to stop and for your child to be able to enjoy life again.

These are your options for reporting content:

Reporting to platforms

Most social media platforms have options for reporting harmful content. If you are struggling to see how to report content or have reported content and are not happy with the action taken, then you can visit Report Harmful Content for more support. You may also have other options through the platform such as muting or hiding content, or blocking the perpetrator.

Reporting to the school

The school is committing to helping protect students from cyberbullying, even if it happens offsite, online or over the phone. Please ensure you make school aware of your concerns to initiate guidance and support. Almost all cyberbullying incidents take place outside of school hours. As a student at SRRCC we expect online conduct outside hours to meet the standards of behavior we would expect in school time and all reports of cyberbullying will be investigated and taken seriously.

Emerging Technologies – AI and VR

AI generated content and AI tools like chatbots, content generators and summaries are quickly appearing across popular online apps and services. There are also popular AI tools appearing like ChatGPT.

There can be many positives to the use of AI in helping to find information, making creative content and getting support quickly through chat functions. However, as with other areas of online use, it comes with risks to children as well.

For example, the content that children see might not be age appropriate, legal or promote healthy behaviours. They can also experience harms such as bullying and sexual abuse through the misuse of AI content generators to create realistic looking content intended to cause harm.

What are AI tools and AI generated content?

AI generated content

This is where an image, video or voice recording has been created using an online generator. These can be completely artificial, meaning none of the content is real, or they can be altered versions of existing real content.

AI content generators

These are the tools used to create AI generated content by entering a series of commands to generate new content or edit an existing image or video.

AI chat bots

These are chat functions where you are speaking with a bot rather than a real person. They will often only respond to short messages and will usually introduce themselves as a bot. However, the bots can often be given human names.

AI summaries

This is where a platform gathers and summarises information, usually found at the top of a page or search engine result. The AI will often take information from across a range of sources and list the sources within the summary.

6 top tips: how to support your children to use AI safely

1) Talk about where AI is being used

A good place to start is by having open conversations with your child about where they are seeing AI tools and content online. This is an opportunity to talk about the risks and benefits they are experiencing.

2) Remind young people not everything is real

You can remind them that not everything online is real and much of what we see may have been edited.

AI is continually evolving but there can be common indicators to show something is AI generated but remember it is not always obvious. Some of these indicators can be an overall ‘perfect’ appearance, body parts or movements appearing differently or not looking ‘true to life’.

3) Discuss misuse of generative AI

It’s important to address the misuse of generative AI to create harmful content in an age-appropriate way. Make sure that your child knows it’s not OK for anyone to create content to harm other people.

If they ever experience this or are worried about someone doing it, then they can report that. If you are concerned about how someone is behaving towards a child online this can be reported to law enforcement agency CEOP.

If a sexual image or video has been created, this can be reported via Report Remove.

4) Remind them to check sources

AI summaries and chatbots can be helpful tools to get quick answers to a question but it’s important to know it’s coming from a reliable source.

Sources should be listed and will often have links so they can be checked. If the source is not listed or is not a reliable source, it’s good to encourage them to check a trusted site for themselves.

5) Signpost to safe sources of health and wellbeing advice

We know young people will use the internet to get advice and answers to questions which could mean they come across advice from an AI bot or summary. It’s important they access safe information from reliable sources, so it can be helpful to make sure they know of child-friendly safe sites such as Childline.

Virtual Reality

The Metaverse seeks to link users to the internet as a Virtual Entity through the use of Virtual Reality Headsets. With more parents likely to buy their children VR headsets, this amplifies the danger children are exposed to online.

To help you understand this new, fast changing issue and to help keep children and young people safe when delving into these unregulated spaces, the NSPCC has published a guide to both the Metaverse and VR headsets. Their parents’ guide covers straightforward advice for families on how to keep children safe when using virtual reality, including to:

Make the headset a family activity, taking turns and playing with it together
Take some time to explore the headset before allowing a child to use it
Talk to children about how they use VR. Make sure they know that personal information should not be shared with people they don’t know
Get to know the safety features the device offers. Make sure the location is set to private, use parental controls and check that privacy settings are switched on
Set healthy boundaries and manage your child’s screen time.

To find out more please follow the link: Virtual Reality