Ban cyber-bullying clips, Johnson to urge websites
Debbie Andalo and Press Association
Tuesday April 10, 2007
EducationGuardian.co.uk
Alan Johnson: "Cyber-bullying is cruel and relentless." Photograph: AFP
Websites such as
YouTube and
ratemyteachers.com should ban video clips of teachers or pupils who have been the target of cyber-bullying, the education secretary, Alan Johnson, will tell a teaching union conference today.
Mr Johnson will tell the National Union of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) conference in Belfast that such websites have a moral and social obligation to take action on the new form of harassment.
He is due to say this afternoon: "Cyber-bullying is cruel and relentless, able to follow a child beyond the school gates and into their homes. "The online harassment of teachers is causing some to consider leaving the profession because of the defamation and humiliation they are forced to suffer."
New powers for teachers to confiscate mobile phones in the classroom, which came into force last week, will go some way towards preventing pupils from "maliciously" filming teachers or pupils during lessons, he will say.
But the education secretary will also say that websites could help to reduce cyber-bullying by refusing to accept the video footage in the first place, because "without the online approval which appeals to the innate insecurities of the bully, such sinister activities would have much less attraction".
He will tell the NASUWT delegates: "I am therefore calling on the providers of these sites to take firmer action to block or remove offensive school videos, in the same way that they have commendably cut ****ographic content. By removing the platform, we'll blunt the appeal."
The NASUWT is the latest of the teacher unions to call on the government to take action to stamp out cyber-bullying.
There have been similar pleas from the National Union of Teachers, and last week the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) urged Mr Johnson to hold talks with internet site owners to see what they could do to prevent pupils posting adverse comments or videos about teachers on their sites.
If that had little impact on reducing the cases of cyber-bullying, the government should bring in legislation to force websites to police postings on their sites more effectively, the ATL said.
Mary Bousted, the ATL's general secretary, said: "We are particularly pleased at the secretary of state's quick response to demands from ATL that the growing problem of cyber-bullying in our schools and colleges be tackled.
"We now urge mobile and internet providers to keep to their side of the bargain and better protect our members from this type of bullying by providing easily accessible complaints procedures to register concerns and ensure that this growing problem in our schools is stamped out."
The charity Beatbullying said sites should collate video clips which are used to bully individuals in case they can be used in any future criminal prosecutions.
A spokesman said: "The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) says that YouTube has a 'moral obligation' to delete offending video clips, however we argue that this moral obligation extends to reporting criminal activity to the authorities or at least storing the clips as potential evidence in a criminal investigation.
"Deleting this potential evidence could be interpreted as perverting the course of justice. YouTube would do well to modify its current policies before the state forces regulation upon them. "The most important thing for those involved in creating these offensive videos to remember is that if you upload a criminal or immoral video onto YouTube, you are leaving a digital fingerprint of your crime."
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