| Reporting Inappropriate Messages |
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The vast majority of responsible social networking sites provide tools for users to mange their own profile. This includes giving users the ability to: Make their profile ‘private' Pages can be made ‘private' so that only people who have been accepted as ‘friends' can access them, or they can be ‘public', which gives anyone access to see what's on a page. Delete any comments or posts on their page Users can delete messages if they find them to be nasty, offensive or they just don't want them to appear on their page. ‘Block' users Users can effectively deny access to people formerly regarded as ‘friends' from seeing, reading, commenting on or posting messages to their page. Report Abuse This allows users to report any content, postings or comments that appear on their own page or other sites that they think contravene the terms and conditions of the site or which they consider to be illegal, offensive, harassing or bullying in nature. Social networking sites rely on users making use of these tools to effectively ‘police' the site as they don't have the capacity to monitor each and every profile every day. In general, they advise that nasty comments are ignored and deleted unless they are threatening or illegal, in which case they should be reported to the site administrators and, where applicable, the police. All members of social networking sites are encouraged to take responsibility for the content of their own page, and to use all available measures to reduce public access to their profile. Facebook and Twitter contain safety and advice pages for young people and for parents. These pages include very useful information and videos, which can be used to promote and prompt discussion between adults and young people to gain a better understanding of what constitutes bullying behaviour online and how to respond appropriately. Text Bullying As with social networking sites, responsible mobile phone providers will support people to stop text bullying. Any nasty or abusive texts should be saved as evidence for the provider. Numbers can be blocked from your phone so that you no longer receive texts, messages or calls from that number. In some cases the police will be able to help, but often they will need evidence of the number and will want to see the texts, so they must be saved. All providers have a contact number or email address you can use to alert them to the problem and discuss options. |
