Department and Facebook agree anti-bullying channel

The Department of Education and social media website Facebook have agreed to the establishment of a channel to allow school leaders to contact Facebook regarding cyber bullying on the site.

The two sides had what the department described as a “positive and constructive” meeting yesterday to discuss the increasing problem of cyber bullying using websites such as Facebook.

Afterwards, the department issued a statement in which it said: “Agreement was reached on a way forward to involve Facebook, the department, second- level school management and leadership bodies, including the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals (NAPD), to work together to tackle bullying in Irish schools and to provide an effective channel for school leaders to escalate concerns when required. Minister [Ruairi] Quinn is pleased with the meeting’s outcome.”

Earlier this year, Facebook was accused of being too slow to act after a page targeting a 16-year-old Cork girl at Coláiste Choilm in Ballincollig was left up on the site despite two weeks of complaints from teachers and students at her school.

At the time Facebook apologised saying it should have acted sooner.

Last night, Clive Byrne, director of NAPD said: “We welcome an opportunity to interact with Facebook and set up a structure which will hopefully help to alleviate the problem of bullying of students and staff on Facebook through postings. Schools are really, really concerned at the effect of cyber bullying and traditional bullying on school students. In the past Facebook has appeared to be unresponsive. This is a new dawn and we are looking forward to working to eliminate, insofar as is possible, the harmful effect of cyberbullying.”

A Facebook spokesman said: “We had a constructive and positive meeting with the Department for Education. We’ve agreed a way forward to work more closely with the department and key organisations in the Irish education sector to ensure young people and teachers have the best possible experience on Facebook, including knowing what to do in cases of bullying.”