{"id":4384,"date":"2018-09-25T13:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T09:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=4384"},"modified":"2018-09-25T13:01:12","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T09:01:12","slug":"facebook-under-fire-as-cyberbullying-scheme-struggles-to-hit-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2018\/09\/25\/facebook-under-fire-as-cyberbullying-scheme-struggles-to-hit-targets\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook under fire as cyberbullying scheme struggles to hit targets"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Facebook is facing calls to take concrete action on cyber-bullying after it emerged a scheme it is helping fund to protect children has been forced to push back targets.<\/p>\n

Last October\u00a0Facebook pledged to put $1.3m (\u00a31m) into a programme,run by the Diana Award and Childnet, to help put a \u201cdigital safety ambassador\u201d in every British secondary school by October 2019. The plan was for the charities to train pupils to be representatives who could help peers with cyber-bullying.<\/p>\n

There were about 2,000 schools involved, with Facebook\u2019s funds to help it reach another 2,500.<\/p>\n

The Daily Telegraph<\/em>\u00a0has discovered the programme has been implemented in just 461 schools. The date by which it is hoping to be in all British secondaries has been pushed back to March 2020.<\/p>\n

It is understood Facebook is concerned the charities will not be able to hit the targets it has set, and is assessing how it can boost numbers.<\/p>\n

O<\/span>ne problem is that too few schools are aware such a programme exists, and Facebook is weighing up whether to market the programme on its platform.\u00a0The Telegraph<\/em>\u00a0contacted more than 100\u00a0schools, of which five responded to say they had heard of the scheme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

A<\/span>ntigone Davis, Facebook\u2019s global head of safety, said the charities were \u201cthe experts so I think it\u2019s important to give them room to run these programmes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we do engage with them and we will think about ways to make sure people do know about this particular programme \u2013 that may mean going back and doing some ads in the UK to make sure people are aware,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Childnet said Facebook\u2019s involvement in the programme was \u201cpurely financial\u201d. Both Childnet and the Diana Award said they were confident they could hit their targets by March 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

F<\/span>acebook decided to allocate the funds to the existing scheme amid\u00a0growing criticism of how it deals with cyberbullying on its platform.<\/p>\n

A survey last year found 83pc of young people thought social media companies should be doing more. More than half of the 1,089 11- to 25-year-olds asked had experienced cyber-bullying.<\/p>\n

Alex Chalk MP,\u00a0who led a government inquiry into how social media companies could protect children, told\u00a0The Telegraph<\/em>\u00a0the \u00a31m funding had appeared to be a \u201ctokenistic gesture\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really welcome Facebook\u2019s efforts to face up to the issue of cyber-bullying and I think it\u2019s right that they are engaging with it but ultimately it\u2019s really important that the response is not tokenistic, that it\u2019s part of a coherent response which is transparent about the scale of the problem and transparent about the way that they\u2019re responding to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo say you\u2019re putting in \u00a31m is completely meaningless until you know the number of users and the number of people who are making complaints. If you put in \u00a31m and you\u2019re getting 10 million complaints, that wouldn\u2019t be putting in adequate resources.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n

\u201cFacebook should be saying \u2018I\u2019m not happy with what\u2019s going on on our platform, and people who are poisoning the debate amongst children, who are behaving in a way that\u2019s toxic should be suspended or removed from the site\u2019, and Facebook shows a marked reluctance to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

–<\/p>\n

Telegraph<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook is facing calls to take concrete action on cyber-bullying after it emerged a scheme it is helping fund to protect children has been forced to push back targets. Last October\u00a0Facebook pledged to put $1.3m (\u00a31m) into a programme,run by the Diana Award and Childnet, to help put a \u201cdigital safety ambassador\u201d in every British …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4386,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4384"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4388,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions\/4388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}