Taking a Stand Against Online Trolls With #BeKind | This Morning

Tributes continue to pour in for Caroline Flack, who took her own life on Saturday after two nights off screen. Love Island also returned last night with

this

tribute from co-host and Caroline's friend Ian Stirling. We are all absolutely devastated by the tragic news that Caroline, a much-loved member of our Love Island family, has passed away. Our thoughts are with her family and friends at

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terrible time. Carolina and I were together from the start of Love Island and her passion, warmth and infectious enthusiasm were a crucial part of what we did. made the show connect with millions of viewers like many of you right now we are all trying to come to terms with what happened.

My only hope is that we can all try to be kinder, always show love and listen to each other. Caroline I. I want to thank you for all the fun times we had making our favorite show. You were a true friend to me. I will miss you. Cass. Well, in the weeks leading up to her death, Caroline was subjected to

online

abuse, which is sadly affecting. the lives of many people, whether famous or not, Lucy Alexander joins us for the first time this

morning

Salem this

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safer in October 2016, after bullying led her 17-year-old son Felix to take his own life, She then helped us launch our anti-bullying program Be Kind campaign, she is with us again today alongside cyber crime expert and former Scotland Yard detective Philip Gwyn Dale.

Good to see you both Lucy, this must be Carole's news. I must take you back to that day. It's amazing how triggering just you can be. I returned to that moment with enormous clarity, very quickly. My first thought was of her family. I know, I know and I felt really bad for them because I know exactly where they are right now and it's a really horrible place to be, but. you have moved on and found strength somehow. I don't know how amazing you've been in helping us launch our be kind campaign and I know you're also our anti-bullying camp and with what you've seen and about Carolina in the press and

online

trolling, how does that make you feel?

That's still happening and it's not just a kid thing, no, it's knowing that it affects everyone, it affects people of all ages, from all states, it doesn't matter if it's you. Whether you are in the public eye or not, we have provided a unique platform to express these negative opinions of people and it is multiplying extremely rapidly and it was because of harassment that I believe Felix took his life. Oh, it was for him. I felt really unworthy and miserable for many years and it affected him greatly. Lee, his mental health was greatly damaged. I know that parents whose kids are bullied online often say, "I just want you to get out of there, so I want to take away your iPad." take your tablet so I want to take your phone away from you, don't look at it, but you think that's not the answer because it also isolates them from their peers if you do that, oh absolutely and particularly, their age group much more than theirs. older brother and sister, that was the only way they communicated, there was very little face to face interaction, it was done a lot more online and when I was like, sure, that's it, the iPad is working, all the phones are working , he was like, you know, but why are they punishing me for something they're doing to me and that just excluded him even more?

It meant he was even less involved in real life. That's good, Phillip. um, you know, Lucy was saying what Felix says, why should he be punished for anything? That's what they did to me, what happens in the psyche of that world of social networks where if your opinion is not the same as someone else's opinion, you are the bad guy? What, what, what is it, but well, I think at the moment I think culturally things are quite challenging in terms of us seeming like extreme opposites and bricks, it's certainly been part of that in recent years.

I think in terms of

trolls

and online abuse quite often, that's what he's all about. "Etre is getting a response there, often, as you know in our experience, when we look at the people we're doing it with, often people were sitting at home and they got some kind of pleasure from getting a response from the people". So, you know, the discussion about getting off social media, you know realistically that if we all do that because we're being abused and harassed and threatened online, then they win with the people I really blame for all of this is for let the troll say.

It will say something and if you leave it unanswered it becomes the truth, it's like that, so if someone like me questions it, then it's the clickbait people online that create a story, make a story out of all these things, like this which is a loss. he loses situations, he loses if you don't challenge him and he loses if you challenge him, so the online organizations right there, the Daily Mail, the Daily Star, the online mail, all these people, you know exactly who you are and you're sitting there watching. this show now and you're looking for clickbait on this, surely they have to take some responsibility too, yes, but I think if you go back to the starting point, I mean, if you know that most of these people are going to have a larger, smaller audience than what you have. on social media, so if you respond to them, yes, you open them up to your entire audience, but what do they say?

A lie about you. Complete lie, but the problem is missing, but there is no audience and it disappears very quickly yes. you start interacting with them you will never win the argument it will become more and more hostile you are opening them up to your entire network actually Ron we are starting to legitimize some of their comments because other people will join in and Let's say we agree I under

stand

what you are saying. saying, let's take one of the YouTube outlets, they say we prohibit hate speech and harassment and use a combination of humans and technology to detect and remove it immediately.

We made several policy changes last year. The number of individual video removals for hate speech quintupled to over a hundred thousand videos between July and September 2019, and it's a drop in the ocean that's a factor in what you would say to that and what these big platforms say. What are they. I think the big challenge is that a lot of the damage is being caused by context-driven abuse, so yes, if something is really obvious, whether it's bad language or its childish export, all obvious things, it's very easy for Those companies pick it up where it is.

The hardest thing is when the abuse and trolling is highly context dependent and therefore you can't do it simply by automation and you almost can't do it by humans either because you need evidence of why it is so offensive to you, secondly . I think the legislation in the UK is poor, this is terminology that is extremely offensive, so for something under the Communications Act to be illegal it has to be extremely offensive and those thresholds are quite high, this is what would happen to often when, certainly, when ironically I was working in Parliament and politicians were questioning me about it, you know, they would say to me: "I'm very offended" and I say "oh no, you don't agree with the law", so there is a problem there, if the public actually says our thresholds here and the judicial system says well, ours is here there is a problem, listen, I want to hear because often people say, oh, you know well if people are in the public eye, including politicians who choose to work in the public eye, sometimes you just have to do it.

Well, you know it comes with the job and we have Georgia Georgia TOEFL. Oh, tough as we like to call it with us today. Hi Toph, what type of trolling have you experienced? You know you can talk about it on daytime television and. How has that affected you? It's the worst. I mean, while you were talking I was thinking that I wake up on Boxing Day. I was so excited that I went on Instagram and the first message I read was: I hope you get cancer and die. It made me think about my life and the decisions I made.

I am a public person and I made that conscious decision. However, I had no idea what I was getting into with regards to opening myself up to the most disgusting dirty comments like that and you know, it worries me because I choose to internalize those comments because I'm so embarrassed and mortified by them and maybe sometimes I don't talk to them. friends and family because I'm so embarrassed and I think You know, we talk about this on a show like this, it's very important because we all need to expose the darker underbelly of social media, although there are brilliant things about it, but yeah, I think it's very important that we talk and have you ever done it?

Have you ever thought about thinking about just saying, I'm not going to go on social media anymore? Just look at it, yes, I did it that day on Boxing Day. I had 24 hours free and well, at the beginning of the 24 hours I felt absolutely horrible. and after 24 hours I felt amazing, but it's such an important part of my life as a 25 year old girl and I don't want to give it up just because some evil people send me nasty things. I under

stand

it and that brings me. I go back to Lucy because I know you talk to a lot of young people now and you said you know it with feelings.

He said: I don't want to leave the social environment because it is part of their social life that is new and they feel even more isolated. Yeah, so what's the response if there are parents watching saying my child is being bullied? I see what happens to them and I can't get them to leave their social networks. What do they say to young people? I think we have to start well. At the beginning, I think we need to start with young people in schools when they get their first mobile device or well before they are quite young, with an average age of 9 to 10 years old, now that they are just finishing primary school, so that you have to educate them. and help them work with them with the mobile device work through strategies to keep them safe helping them interpret the content they are going to see the genie is out of the bottle we can't put it back but we can educate young people about how to use it safely and kindly from very very early on, at least you have a better chance of getting it, and adults who can use it more safely and kindly, there are places where I think we'll probably never progress.

We will never make any progress, but we need to start at the beginning and work our way up so that as soon as they reach the young people that I speak to, I speak predominantly to secondary schools because that is my comfort zone. they get into it, they really do and they've worked really well with anti-bullying charities and they take control that they won't control. Do you find some of them that maybe have been part of the bullying? Yes, but once you talk to them about it, you don't. I don't realize it was as optimistic and intimidating as it was, they don't connect the dots, yeah, and sometimes they need a little help connecting the dots and I think bullies need just as much time and attention as the bullied because you can support the victim, but if you don't get rid of the problem then you are just perpetuating it, so you need to support them, why do they do it?

There is a reason why most people who are cruel have problems in their lives that have made them behave that way and if we address those problems then you will have hope again, what do you say get the school involved? Whether this happens at school or even outside, but it's the truth, a lot of these people are adults, full of adults, it's so relaxed. predominantly with you, yes when I look at their profiles I'm Jim I'm a loving father of two kids my family is my life and you know they'll do all this but Jim you're obviously stupid too life is hard but it's more hard when you're stupid and I'm just amazed at people and their profiles and why they think they need to get it right.

It's so hard to guess their 15 minutes of fame, although well, I use that they don't answer you, but I also believe. the problem is a minute sensor there are very few consequences yes the truth is you know when someone is prosecuted for this it is big news the reason is it is quite rare yes so yes we get results and yes, we prosecute, but not because it is not enough because the legislation is quite strict, so it is not like that to prosecute someone, the severity must be greater so that the police cannot get the legal authority to identify the person you know , so you know in terms of what we do interviews, we can do it because we don't have to comply with the same legislation, but the point is that there should be consequences if you misuse the Internet and at the time I did them, there are.