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An interview with Hack on Triple J
On August 29 2016 in Boulder, near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, a stolen motorcycle driven by a 14-year-old Aboriginal boy and a utility vehicle driven by a 55-year-old man collided. The boy, Elijah Doughty, was killed at the scene and the man charged with manslaughter. The man appeared in court the next day. Violence broke…
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The Facebook bullying of a child
A note from OHPI The Online Hate Prevention Institute routinely gets messages from the public requesting assistance on issues of bullying, racism, homophobia or other forms of online hate. We do tackle these attacks on individuals, but to safeguard the victims we don’t make details about this work public. We do, however, make an…
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How to identify a Facebook troll
A consequence of fighting online hate is that our Facebook page is often attacked by trolls. Some are looking to waste our time by flooding our page with irrelevant content. Others post unnecessarily incendiary content on our Facebook page with the aim of derailing a fruitful conversation. More often than not, the accounts are fake. We usually…
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Safer Internet for All #SaferInternetDay
Today is the Safer Internet Day. It is a day to talk about how to keep our children and young people safer on the Internet, and to encourage responsible use of online technology. We appreciate and understand the focus on children and young adults, when it comes to online environments. They are amongst the most…
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Children’s e-Safety Commissioner launches six-month report
The Office of Children’s e-Safety Commissioner released its first six-month report via a video yesterday. The Office was launched last year by the Federal Government to counter the rising levels of cyberbullying among children. It came into being on July 1, 2015 after lengthy discussions and debate, both in the parliament and outside of it. OHPI had also…
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WIN: misogynistic bullying account terminated
Yesterday we shared Carla’s tale of a misogynistic bully. Over 730 of you helped us share the story far and wide. Thank you for your support for Carla and of our work in exposing this hate. At the Online Hate Prevention Institute we have a policy against publishing the personal details, including names and photographs,…
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Report Spastic Ballet YouTube Video
In this briefing, we highlight the YouTube video “Spastic ballet” that has been online since August 20, 2009. It has been viewed more than 238,000 times and has received over a 1000 thumbs up (as against 290 thumbs down). The video has two men, who suffer from Cerebral Palsy, doing ballet. While it is unclear…
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Social Media Violence Against Women: Carla’s tale of a misogynistic bully
When people speak of bullying, all too often the conversation is limited to young people and schools. Yes, children and young adults do face bullying both in school and online, but they aren’t the only victims of cyber-bullying. Work place bullying is also a serious issue and can occur both at work and after hours…
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When does disagreement become hate?
At the Online Hate Prevention Institute we are regularly contacted by people who have been advocating for an uncommon position in various online spaces. Examples of this include climate change sceptics who engage in debate on environmental pages, parents against vaccination who engage in debate in threads on public health, anti-Islam campaigners who engage on…
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Crossing the line on political speech
Australia does not have a bill of rights, or a broad concept of “freedom of speech”. What we do have is a narrow concept of freedom of political communication. This is a right enforced by the High Court of Australia who ruled that it is implied by the wording of the Australian Constitution. Our implied…