Cyber bullying: The scourge of our Nation |22 March 2017

First and foremost, what is cyber bullying? www.inbrief.co.uk describes cyber bullying as “the attempt by one or more minors to threaten, intimidate, belittle or make fun of other minors using a mobile phone or computer, and can be a criminal offence. This must take place between two minors, if an adult is involved it is considered harassment, stalking or sexual grooming, not bullying. Cyber bullying is considered as bad as any other kind of bullying in the real world”.

In Brief goes on to further detail the various methods whereby cyber bullying can be carried, which are:

Via mobile phone

Using a mobile phone to send abusive or threatening text messages, video messages, photo messages and phone calls. This includes anonymous text messages sent using Bluetooth technology and distributing phone video footage of physical attacks on people, or happy slapping.

Via e-mail

This includes abusive or threatening e-mails sent to a single target, or to a group in order to encourage or incite others to take part in the sending of abusive e-mails or phone messages to individuals.

Via instant messenger and chat rooms

The use of instant messaging or chat rooms to send abusive or threatening messages or to encourage others to send abusive or threatening messages to individuals.

Via social networking sites

Creating profiles or contributing to pages on social networking sites that abuse or threaten individuals. Also, the posting of images or e-mails of others on social networking sites without their expressed permission, or assuming the identity of others by getting hold of their account details and sending or posting messages on their behalf.

Via interactive gaming

The use of games to abuse or threaten others. This includes locking people out of games, spreading rumours about others, adding the e-mail addresses and profiles of others to gaming mailing lists, or hacking into other’s accounts.

Sending viruses

The use of viruses sent to others to corrupt or delete information on their personal computer.

Most, if not all these methods have been exploited in Seychelles, but not as much as the contemporary widespread method of social networking. In a modern day world where technology is at an all-time rise, Seychelles has fallen in line alongside the rest of the world with the trend that is Facebook which has been both a blessing and a curse to our little island Nation.

You may at this point ask yourself, “why a curse? If it helps connect and share information?” Dear readers, Facebook has become a curse in the sense that it is utilised as a cyber bullying and harassment platform. Heinous acts carried out by children and adults of the male and female variety towards each other on a daily basis range from sexual to violent threats, as well as belittling the victims based on factors such as race and sexual orientation to political affiliations. Whereas many are bold enough to attack others using their own profiles, the real problem lies with those who use ‘fake profiles’.

Users of fake profiles can easily be identified by their lack of proper profile pictures, where they tend to use quotes or images of celebrities or just random images found on the internet. Their names also tend to be words or phrases put together or random names picked out for one reason or another. These fake profile users embed themselves within various Facebook groups for the purpose of attacking others and having no ramification brought towards them. Fake profile users come from all walks of life and more often than none, the people behind these profiles may surprise you. For example, that little lady who preaches about peace, love & God from sun up to sun down, offering blessings upon blessings to her many Facebook friends turns out to be hateful homophobe who spends her time terrorising members of the LGBTI community, sharing child pornography, defaming her ex-husband’s new wife and contributing to political victimisation and slander, by using a “Fake Profile” under a made up name and random photo.

So, how do we deal with cyber bullying? Do we have the means to deal with it? Do we have laws in place to tackle this issue? What about the concerned authorities? The Ministry of Education? The Police? SNYC? NCC? Members of the Assembly, etc…? Where do we go to talk about this? And why aren’t we talking about this as much as we should? For something that affects the Nation as a whole, it would be in the best interest of the country to not only promote awareness but know if we have laws in place to deal with the matter. Seeing as many Seychellois people are unaware of their rights and the law in general, methods should be put in place to further educate the people. But again, where do we go? Where does the responsibility lie and where do we begin?

During a talk with UK based Seychellois IT consultant,Alvis Nourrice, he had this to say:

“Bullying is not specifically a criminal offence, but internationally there are laws that can apply in terms of threatening behaviour or menacing communications. Some cyber bullying activities could be deemed a criminal offence under a range of laws. Unfortunately here in Seychelles, our legislation lacks many of these that can help cover up such abuse.

Therefore the only way to prosecute a cyber bully would be under a delict (harm by words that cause harm to feelings) and this would be tried as civil case rather than criminal case as is the case abroad.

There are legislations/acts used in the UK to prosecute cyber bullies but are not present in our local penal code. Such as:

• Protection from Harassment Act 1997;
• The Malicious Communications Act 1988;
• Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003;
• The Public Order Act 1986;
• The Education and Inspections Act 2006 (EIA 2006) – this act provides for staff and teachers to confiscate items from pupils, such as mobile phones

Hence, the law needs reviewing. How do authorities deal with it? As in almost every other IT issues, there are several different methods used to solve any one problem. Same is the case for investigating cyber bullies.

In countries where the social media are registered as businesses such as the UK, USA and certain European countries, the government are able to impose certain conditions onto them which forces the social media platform to cooperate and hand over information to assist in cyber bullying case. In the UK this means that a culprit can be identified within 24 hours as the minute a case is submitted to Cyber Investigation Body, they will submit a request to the platform involved (be if Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp etc) within 3 hours and give them 12 hours to respond. And once they do get back (usually with the IP address and email address of the culprit) the investigating body have a choice of either:

Coordinating with ISP (internet service providers) to connect the IP address to the user who owns the internet account, addresses and all;

Or using tools (softwares/apps) that allow them to trace all other activities that have been done and are currently being done from that internet connection (be it access to social media via other accounts, e-mail sent, site viewed and purchases) so as to identify the user.

In cases where the Investigating body has no power of authority to demand information from the platform/website itself (because they are hosted ad operate abroad), the authorities have tools/software/apps that they can use to identify the bullies’ IP address. This may take longer as often a few days and even weeks as it will involve tracing all or as much of the activities done by the cyber bully online to get clues.

Every time you visit a website or make a posting, your ISP (internet service provider) has an electronic note of your activity. Even if you create an anonymous e-mail address like Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo, you can still be traced. In countries such as the UK, ISP has a legal obligation to hand over such information on demand by authorities to help identify criminals (including bullies). Unfortunately in Seychelles, we are yet to have a proper Cyber Investigation Unit of the Police that could apply legal pressure on ISP to commit to their social responsibility of helping to identify criminals and culprits of bullying.

To deal with cyber bullying in Seychelles, we need a Cyber Investigation Authority and ISPs need to start upholding their responsibilities in safeguarding user as well as assisting the Cyber Investigation Authority.”

So you see, although it may seem like a lot to do, it remains a necessity nonetheless, as our little country grows, we are exposed and influenced by the many evils of the world, and the only way to get by is by tackling the issues head on.

Contributed