Revealed: eSafety watchdog issued zero formal notices to teen bullies

Teen bullies are being dealt with ‘informally’ by the online safety watchdog, despite an independent review four years ago calling for cyber-bullying offences to be treated seriously.

Australia’s online safety watchdog has not issued a ­single formal notice to teen ­cyber-bullies ordering them to remove harmful content, des­pite receiving special powers to do so seven years ago.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has had the power to issue “end user not­ices” since 2015 under the national cyber-bullying scheme but has not ordered any directive to young offenders, acc­ording to answers provided to a Senate Budget Estimates hearing in October 2021.

Ms Inman Grant told the hearing she had dealt with teen bullies informally and through less punitive measures.

“We’ve managed to achieve our goal of taking down seriously harmful content through other means. To show brute force for the sake of it is not proportionate,” she said.

The watchdog works with students, parents, schools, police and social media platforms to get content removed.

Tilly Rosewarne suicided in February, after years of bullying. She was just 15 years old.

“Issuing an end-user notice to a marginalised young person could have significant ramifications,” she told The Daily Telegraph this week.

The decision not to issue notices against teen cyber-bullies comes despite a 2018 independent review of the cyber-bullying scheme urging Ms Inman Grant to not let the ­vulnerability of teen offenders “outweigh the need to report the most dangerous cyber-bullying activity”.

But concerns are once again being raised that the soft-touch approach is not having a deterrent effect as more young kids fall prey to online abuse.

Federal Labor MP Michelle Rowland said she supported the eSafety Commissioner’s work, but called on Ms Inman Grant to explain why she did not use the power even once in seven years.

“It is incumbent on the commissioner to explain why, in ­almost seven years, not one ­exceptional case has arisen that would warrant the proportionate use of her powers to give an end-user notice to a person who posts cyber-bullying material, requiring them to remove the material, refrain from posting more and to apologise to the child they cyber-bullied,” Ms Rowland said.

Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, says she is counselling teen cyber-bullies ‘informally’. Picture: Supplied

Emma Mason, who lost her 15-year-old daughter Tilly Rosewarne to suicide after she was bullied and had fake nude images shared on social media, said enforcement agencies need to focus on deterrence.

Ms Mason said enforcement agencies needed to focus on deterrence to stop other children from suffering like Tilly.

“It provides no deterrence and undermines public confidence in the eSafety Commissioner.

“What is the whole point of that department or that commissioner when one of the important jobs they do is to be monitoring bullying through social media channels,” she said.

“If it’s all secret, and the only impact it has is on the offender, then it doesn’t have any general deterrence for the rest of the community.”

Ms Inman Grant said she had issued end-user notices to adult perpetrators, but supported “a more measured and proportionate approach” to child and teen perpetrators.

“When it comes to vulnerable children, we need to take a more measured and proportionate approach. Almost all youth cyber-bullying cases that come into our office tend to be peer to peer and an extension of conflict happening within the schoolyard and most of these cases are very complex, nuanced and require great care and time to resolve,” she said.

“Issuing an end user notice to a marginalised young person could have significant ramifications.

“In every case when we have intervened informally, we haven’t had any further reports involving the child posting the bullying material.”