COVID-19: Isolated youth online more than ever, increasing risk of bullying and other cyber crimes

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Ten years ago, a man in an online chat room lured 14-year-old Amanda Todd into exposing her breasts. Someone took a screen grab, and she would be relentlessly tormented by that image. It was sent again and again to her online “friends,” and to teachers and principals of several schools, as she unsuccessfully tried to outrun her stalker.

After enduring nearly two years of this cyber abuse, Amanda would post a shattering, nine-minute video to YouTube, entitled My Story: Struggling, bullying, suicide and self-harm, in which she relayed how utterly hopeless she felt, through a series of flash cards.

The video would go viral after she took her own life in her Port Coquitlam home in October 2012 and, her mother estimates, has now been viewed more than 50 million times.

Amanda was just 15 years old.

The death of her only daughter was devastating for Carol Todd, but she believes that Amanda made the video because she wanted the world to know the effects of her prolonged online abuse. So over the past eight years, she has honoured her daughter’s memory by accepting invitations to tell Amanda’s story in Europe, in many U.S. states, and across Canada, and has raised money for anti-bullying programs through the Amanda Todd Legacy Society.

“That’s the power of Amanda’s voice. Even though she’s not here, she’s still being heard,” Carol Todd said recently.

She believes society today has more knowledge about and more empathy toward the challenges Amanda experienced 10 years ago. There’s more information for youth about digital bullying, more advice for parents about how to help their kids, and more mental health resources.

However, despite the advances, there is no easy solution. Especially now, when COVID-19 restrictions mean youth are spending much more time online, for school, social interactions, sports and hobbies.

In an opinion piece published in this newspaper, Louise Bradley, the CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, cited some recent U.S. figures that showed a 70 per cent increase in cyberbullying in the past few months.

“Cyberbullying was an exploding phenomenon before the advent of lockdown and shelter in place. The threat it poses now is even greater,” Bradley wrote.

“As a society that is relying on technology as a veritable lifeline, we can’t turn a blind eye to the risks lurking everywhere from schoolroom chat boards to TikTok.”

One third of kids cyberbullied

Statistics generally show that one third of students in Kindergarten to Grade 12 say they have been cyberbullied, with most incidents happening in Grades 6 to 9, said Wanda Cassidy, a Simon Fraser University education professor and an expert on cyberbullying. It most frequently takes place on social media platforms, and largely involves girls jockeying for social status.

“It’s often accusing somebody of being gay or sending a dirty message or joke or pictures,” said Cassidy, head of SFU’s Centre for Education, Law and Society.

“The studies that have been done at K to 12 show that if you’re online more often, you’re more likely to participate in being a cyberbully and to be cyberbullied. So I imagine that there’s more going on now because students are at home more, they can’t get out, they’re on their devices 24/7.”

Although no 2020 research is available yet in Canada, Cassidy believes there are many COVID-related reasons behind a potential surge in online bullying: Youth might be uncertain about the status of friendships when they aren’t at school every day or might be anxious about being unable to buy trendy clothes if a parent has lost income during the pandemic.

Before COVID-19, the numbers were already alarming. Research done in the United States in 2019 surveyed nearly 5,000 students ages 12 to 17, and found 36.5 per cent reported being cyberbullied. The most recent figures from Statistics Canada from 2014 were that 17 per cent of people age 15 to 29 had been cyberbullied or cyberstalked.

The issue is not one that involves only children. Cassidy co-wrote the 2018 book Cyberbullying at University in International Contexts, which found one quarter of students and staff on four Canadian post-secondary campuses said they have been cyberbullied.

Indeed, people who contact Kids Help Phone for advice range from children as young as five to adults older than 25. The top two reasons for the calls have consistently been about mental health and relationships, said Jill Steger, a counsellor with the service for five years.

The difference since COVID-19 struck, she said, is the callers may no longer be able to use their normal coping mechanisms, such as going to see a friend or visiting a favourite place.

“Some of the things that we’re noticing a bit more up are things like social isolation, particularly with the pandemic. As well, we also hear quite a bit about thoughts of suicide,” Steger said.

Some of her clients feel helpless, for example, when they get dropped in a social media app by someone who they considered to be a good friend.

“Instead of being able to talk to this friend at school, or ask them what’s going on, I might just be axed out of the conversation. And that can be incredibly stressful for a lot of young people,” she said. “We also talk to youth about different platforms like Instagram, or online gaming platforms, where there can be things like cyberbullying happening.

“It’s definitely a huge risk, I would say, right now.”

Sextortion on the rise

Also on the increase, according to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, is sextortion — when someone threatens to send compromising photos or videos of you to other people, often demanding money or more sexual content.

In August, the Surrey RCMP issued a warning that sextortion was escalating in that city, from 32 cases in the first quarter of the year to 77 in the second quarter. Police logged another 45 cases in July, August and September, Cpl. Elenore Sturko said.

“Six of these (45) victims were between the ages of 12 and 18, with Snapchat and Facebook being the primary platforms that were used for the communication,” she said, adding the remainder of the victims were mostly 19 to 30.

Some suspects have the photos because they were once in romantic relationships with the victims, while others lure the victims into doing something sexual online — just as happened to Amanda. In other cases, strangers demand money by claiming they’ve obtained images by breaking into victims’ computers, although Sturko said many of those are scams, as Surrey RCMP has found no evidence yet of hacking.

Children today are very technologically savvy, often more so than their parents, the officer said, encouraging families to talk openly about what platforms kids are using, and with whom they are interacting.

“That’s where kids can be vulnerable, because there’s a level of grooming that takes place by predators,” Sturko said. “You have someone who’s talking to them online, through, for example, a gaming console, coaching your kid how to download apps, and how to take photos to send to them.”

Jennifer Charlesworth, B.C.’s representative for children and youth, recently heard from parents of a 10-year-old girl who had been the victim of sextortion. She worries about kids during this time of frequent isolation.

“They want to be liked, they want to have friends, but they’re not able to participate in the typical kinds of social activities that all of our children need,” Charlesworth said.

“There are online predators who are extremely sophisticated, using everything from Instagram to other forms of social media. And so we are concerned about young people being groomed for exploitation, and they’re being encouraged to share photos, and then nude photos and whatnot. And then the depth of shame is profound.”

For more information on sextortion, Charlesworth reached out to Merlyn Horton, the CEO of Safe Online, who for two decades has delivered internet safety presentations and webinars to schools, parent groups, youth organizations and others.

Horton said it makes “logical sense” that children are more exposed to dangers online right now.

“We have children that are at home, that are supposed to be online for school, and we have really stretched parents,” Horton said. “And they’re really missing out on peer interactions, so that’s sending them online too. And therefore, they’re not getting a break when the harassment or conflict occurs online.”

‘A serious problem’

In 2015, the children’s representative released a report on cyberbullying, partly inspired by Amanda Todd’s suicide, which found B.C.’s response to the problem was “fragmented” and more help was needed for victims and perpetrators.

At the time, the main tool to combat cyberbullying was the Education Ministry’s ERASE (Expect Respect and a Safe Education) program, which collects anonymous complaints from victims and sends them to school administrators. But the report said ERASE had a small budget and didn’t offer a “comprehensive response,” calling for more action from the education and justice ministries.

“The issue of cyberbullying continues to be a serious problem for us,” Charlesworth said. “I think this is something that we can’t take our eyes off of, because (being online) is so insidious in our world right now, particularly during these times.”

In an email, the Education Ministry said it made changes in response to the 2015 report, such as incorporating anti-bullying into the codes of conduct at every school board and into some curriculum. In Grade 3, for example, children learn about the “nature and consequences of bullying,” while students in Grades 4 to 10 are taught strategies to respond to bullying.

The ministry said it has a new digital-literacy framework for how teachers can address cyberbullying, bought new cyberbullying teaching resources, and improved ERASE.

In the past three years, online safety sessions were provided to 30,000 students and 3,500 parents. This school year, the sessions are offered virtually, and 470 students have participated since October, the ministry said.

The attorney general has not made cyberbullying an offence in B.C., but is considering whether to develop prosecution guidelines.

Solutions from the experts

Cyberbullying is mainly about “power and control,” said SFU’s Cassidy, and there are measures that can be taken to help both the victims and the perpetrators.

It starts with parents having tricky conversations with their kids. Cassidy’s research has shown that many parents didn’t know their school-age children were being bullied or were bullies.

“A child doesn’t necessarily want to tell their mom or dad, ‘I just sent a horrible message to this person on Facebook’ or ‘I just sent this horrible Tweet,’ because then they think maybe their device will be taken away, or they’ll be grounded,” Cassidy said.

“But they probably behaved in that manner because of something else that’s going on. So have those lines of communication, and talk to their child about how are they feeling.”

Charlesworth added that parents need to be careful how they react if their children confide in them about being bullied or dishing it out, saying a negative response could drive those children away from their families and back to their online world.

“It doesn’t make kids bad or awful if they are either doing things that are inappropriate through bullying behaviour themselves or if they’re being caught up in all of this,” the children’s representative said.

“We try and figure out how is it that we’re going to help these kids through it. Because this whole online world can be great, but it can be really harmful as well.”

Watch for warning signs that something is wrong with your child, including a change in their routine or losing interest in things they usually love, such as the family pet or sports, she said.

Horton, of Safe Online, would like parents to set more rules before handing a phone or iPad to a tween or teen, such as no technology during meals, at bedtime or during car rides, because research shows those are times children speak the most to their parents.

She is a big proponent, too, of family media plans, a sort of contract that children and parents draw up about when, why and how much technology will be used. These plans can be created on several websites, including healthychildren.org and childnet.com.

Horton also recommended mediasmart.ca, which contains online safety checklists for children ages nine to 12, kids ages 13-17, and parents.

When children call or text Kids Help Phone about being bullied online, Steger suggests they find a trusted person with whom they speak openly, think about a different social media platform to use, and reminds them to occasionally do a favourite activity that isn’t online, such as walking a dog or painting a picture.

The counsellor recommends several websites, including needhelpnow.ca, which gives tips on removing sexual photos and videos from the web, as well as on cyberbullying and relationships with peers; Cybertip.ca offers a tipline to report online sexual exploitation of children; and kidshelpphone.ca has advice on issues such as cyberbullying and online safety.

Steger also speaks with teens about how they can block a person on social media, change their privacy settings, contact their phone provider for assistance, and even call the police.

The federal RCMP website explains when cyberbullying or sextortion is a crime, and also provides advice on what youth can do if they are a victim. Surrey RCMP also has a list of things that kids can do to protect themselves, including disabling their webcam when it’s not being used for legitimate reasons, creating complex passwords for devices, and never sending intimate photos to anyone or performing any explicit acts online.

Sturko, of Surrey RCMP, also noted the protectchildren.ca website includes tips on how youth can play games safely online, how parents can stay up-to-speed on the digital world, and how kids can send naked mole rat GIFS instead of compromising photos when someone is trying to sextort them.

Amanda ‘changed our views’

There is much more information available now for parents and youth, compared to a decade ago when Carol Todd tried unsuccessfully to get help for her daughter. Besides politicians, police, and support groups, she said, there are people such as Hollywood stars Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore who started Thorn to combat online child sexual abuse.

In October, Telus released the documentary Dark Cloud about “the growing epidemic of cyberbullying,” which features Amanda’s story.

Shortly after its release, a Vancouver teacher contacted Carol Todd to say she had shown her high school class the documentary, and the students were so moved they decided to do acts of kindness in their community.

“It gives me goosebumps, because this is how I envisioned Amanda’s story to evolve, to keep going positively,” she said. “I want people to look at her story, and think about how it changed our views.”

There is still more work to be done, of course. But Carol Todd believes her daughter played a major role in making people far more aware of cyberbullying and sextortion.

In 2014, the RCMP laid charges in Amanda’s case against a Dutch man, Aydin Corban, of possession of child pornography, extortion, internet luring, criminal harassment and distribution of child pornography. It is not clear, though, when he will be extradited to Canada, as Corban is serving an 11-year sentence for cyber blackmail in his home country.

Carol Todd, though, believes justice for Amanda has been achieved in a different way.

Shortly after her daughter’s recent birthday, someone decorated her memorial bench in a Port Coquitlam park with flowers in hues of purple, Amanda’s favourite colour.

The anonymous tribute was heartwarming, Carol Todd said, eight years after her daughter’s death.

“The justice part of it is Amanda is still out there in the news, in the documentary, in text books,” the grieving mother said.

“Her story truly is now a living legacy.”

lculbert@postmedia.com

Twitter: @loriculbert