New e-Safety Commissioner to target online bullying

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Children who are being bullied online will soon have more protection with the appointment of Australia's first e-Safety Commissioner.

It's believed that as many as one in three kids at school have experienced some form of cyber bullying, and the problem is growing.

Under legislation passed earlier this month the new commissioner's office will be able to demand social media sites take down offensive material, at the risk of fines and court action.

The man who set up the AFP's (Australian Federal Police) High Tech Crime Centre, Alastair MacGibbon has been given the job of top cyber cop and He joins me now in our Canberra studio.

Alastair MacGibbon, welcome to the program.

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Good morning.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: How big is the problem? Can you give some examples of what's going on and the effect that it's having on kids and families?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Well, the Government study published last year showed that about one in five Australian kids aged between eight and 17 were affected in some way by cyber bullying per annum, and that same survey said that the problem was getting worse.

And you don't need to talk to too many mums and dads or teachers to actually find the majority of the population would agree that behaviour online is degrading and that cyber bullying is particularly damaging to kids.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: How do you change online behaviour?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Well, I'm not new to this. I've been in the change the online behaviour game since the early 2000s, which in internet terms is quite a long time.

It's not easy. It's not easy to change people's behaviour online but I don't think that means we don't try. We need to equip kids and parents and other people who care for children with the right skills to behave properly, the right techniques when people abuse them online so that they can hopefully walk away.

And then we need to build a safety net and the Enhancing Online Safety of Children Act is designed to create that safety net, so that should a child suffer severe and serious attacks online that affect their well-being, after they've complained to those same social media services, they can come to the office.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: They then complain to you?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Absolutely.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: And what do you do about it?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Well, in the first instance we'll go back to those social media sites and ask them to take down the material.

The Government intentionally created this as a light touch regime, so that those social media sites will voluntarily become part of the regime but if they fail to act then they will be moved to a regulatory regime which will allow me to fine them for not acting.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: So those are the big companies like Facebook and the like - Twitter obviously, but how do you deal with the individuals, the trolls, those sorts of people who are out there doing, actually physically doing it online?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Yes, and somehow the internet brings out the best in many of us and those same people are often behaving quite sensibly and rationally offline, online somehow they don't. The bill put in by Paul Fletcher actually allows an end user notice, essentially a notification to the person that is posting the material requesting them to take down that material.

If they don't then the office can go to court to seek and injunction and if that person fails to then act, they're in contempt of court.

So you don't necessarily want to be going out and finding kids, but if they breach these social norms then they, and adults, have to be brought to some form of account.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: I mean this is the, I guess this is the problem line isn't it? Because the legislation specifically talks about 'serious threats', 'serious intimidation', 'serious harassment', 'serious embarrassment' but that's a subjective call that you're going to have to make. I mean, how do you distinguish between what might be normal kid banter for instance and something that's a lot more sinister?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: Look, a really tough question so we would usually use the reasonable person test. I'll make sure that I consult very widely with child welfare groups, child psychologists and others to make sure that we have the right system in place - because this system isn't in place now. The first step of the office will be to work out the way we operate when we get those complaints.

Because what affects Michael, may not affect Alastair and what affects Alastair may not affect Michael. We need to make sure, though, that we look after the interests of the child but none of this really replaces the role of the family, replaces the role of other people who are in direct and physical care of children on a daily basis.

What we're there for is to try and create that safety net should the rest of the system fail and try to buttress that system and help ensure that social media sites actually do respond to the complaints that their users are making.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: It is pretty hard now for parents because before we used to think well, you know, you get the computer, you put it out in a public area in the house, you can sort of monitor what your child is doing but that's all gone now with mobile phones and that sort of connectivity that kids have?

ALASTAIR MACGIBBON: I was reminiscing about this the other day. In the early 2000s when we set up the high tech crime centre - which seems like such a long time ago - the advice we give to families is to keep the computer in the lounge room or in the kitchen and you can monitor what your kids are doing while you're cooking dinner.

The reality these days is we're one of the most connected societies on earth and our children have access to devices that are connected to the internet at all times, and if they're not then their friends are, so we need to really be equipping those individuals with the skills and the internal tool sets and the robustness to be able to have good conversations online and to realise all of the great benefits that can come from mobile and internet connected devices without the down sides. But I'm not nae as to how hard that task is.

We'll do our best to help educate and prevent first and then help enforce social standards that the Parliament of Australia has said it wants through enacting this legislation.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Okay, well, all the best of luck to you. Alastair MacGibbon, thanks for joining us.