‘Fear of missing out’ keeping girls and young women online despite sexism

Almost half of girls aged 11 to 21 in Girlguiding survey say sexism and misogyny makes them feel less safe

Girls and young women are seeing more unwanted sexual images and suffering more cyberstalking online, but still don’t want to take a break from social media because of a fear of missing out, a survey for Girlguiding has found.

“Fomo” is keeping more than half of 11- to 21-year-olds on apps such as TikTok, Snapchat and WhatsApp despite nearly one in five saying they have been being stalked online and more than a third saying they are seeing sexual images they didn’t wish to see, the survey of more than 2,000 girls and young women found.

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Bacchus Marsh Grammar: Victorian premier blasts ‘disgraceful’ conduct after AI fake nude photo allegations

Jacinta Allan says no place for ‘misogynistic conduct’ as police investigate allegations fake nude images of students circulated online

Victoria’s premier has said there is no place for “misogynistic conduct” in the state following allegations deepfakes depicting about 50 female students from a private school in regional Victoria were circulated online.

Police are investigating the “incredibly graphic” nude images which appeared to have been created using artificial intelligence and photos of the girls’ faces taken from social media sites, and then circulated online.

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TikTok received more requests to remove child bullying posts than any other social platform in Australia

eSafety commissioner received 795 requests to remove alleged bullying of children from various social media platforms in past 18 months, with 309 from TikTok

TikTok received more requests from Australia’s eSafety commissioner to remove posts that bullied children in the last 18 months than any other social media platform.

Reddit received the most reports of people’s images being shared without their consent.

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Can I Tell You a Secret, episode 1: the beginning – podcast

In the first part of a new series, the Guardian journalist Sirin Kale takes us to a small town in the north of England to uncover how one man began a decade of cyberstalking

In this new six-episode podcast, the Guardian journalist Sirin Kale investigates the story of Matthew Hardy, a cyberstalker who terrified people in his hometown and beyond for more than a decade.

His harassment would often start in the same way, a fake profile posing as a young woman with a simple message: “Hey hun, can I tell you a secret?”. This series attempts to untangle his web of deception to find out how and why he wreaked havoc over so many people’s lives.

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Albanese rallies against ‘fear and division’ at Labor campaign launch – as it happened

Anthony Albanese and senior Labor members speak at ALP campaign launch in Perth; Scott Morrison speaks at Sydney rally; Coalition outlines e-safety plan; Greens announce LGBTQ+ equality plan; Victoria reports seven Covid deaths; NSW reports five; South Australia reports two. This blog is now closed

Simon Birmingham is pushed on what the Coalition will actually do on the cost of living but there isn’t a clear answer. See this exchange with Insiders host David Speers:

Q: So essentially to get wages going is to keep doing what you’ve been doing for the last nine years?

David, our plan is a comprehensive economic plan and in contrast to the Labor party. We have outlined clearly plans for … that jobs growth. Jobs growth fuelled by lower taxes and tax relief for Australians that continue to be implemented in terms of lower income taxes, support for more businesses.

David, it is a plan that we’ve outlined in quite a lot of detail, compared to ...

If you look at this year’s budget, small business, a particular focus in relation to investment in technology …

The approach we’ve taken is to fix a particular problem in the housing market and that was the fact that you had to save, of course, for your deposit, takes months and months, years and years, to get that 20% deposit to avoid having to pay mortgage insurance, that was meaning that people were having to pay rent at the same time as saving.

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Australian government’s ‘anti-troll’ legislation would allow social media users to sue bullies

Laws would require companies to reveal users’ identities but experts say focus on defamation will not help curb rates of online bullying

The Australian government is set to introduce some of the toughest “anti-troll” legislation in the world, but experts say its focus on defamation will not help curb the rates of online bullying or cyberhate.

On Sunday prime minister, Scott Morrison, announced his government would introduce legislation to parliament this week that would make social media companies reveal the identities of anonymous trolling accounts and offer a pathway to sue those people for defamation.

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‘I blamed myself’: how stigma stops Arab women reporting online abuse

Women in the Middle East and north Africa say social codes leave them unable to talk about social media abuse as pandemic pushes sexual harassment off the streets

The first pornographic picture sent shivers of shock through Amal as she stared in horror at the phone screen. Until now, she had responded politely to the older man who had been messaging her on Facebook, hoping to deter his questions about her life with curt, one-word replies.

More lurid pictures followed, some from pornographic magazines, others of the man himself in sexual poses. “I started to blame myself and feel that I invited this because I had replied to him,” says the 21-year-old, who is a university student in Amman, Jordan.

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Top authors take to Instagram to defend teenage book lover

Callum Manning, 13, whose reviews were mocked by pupils, backed by Matt Haig and others

A 13-year-old boy who was taunted for his online book reviews has received messages of support from bestselling authors.

Callum Manning, from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, created an Instagram account last week to write posts about some of the books he had read. But he was left “devastated” after other pupils at his new school began to mock the reviews in a group chat he had joined.

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Facebook criticised after women complain of inaction over abuse

Amnesty says social media firm must do more to support users who report harassment

Human rights campaigners have called for action after a survey revealed that more than half of the reports that women lodge about harassment on Facebook are met with no action from the social media company.

The Survation poll, commissioned by the feminist campaign group Level Up, found that 29% of the 1,000 women who took part had been harassed on Facebook.

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