Tom's Blog - Beat the Bully

It is possible to take on cyberbullying - and win.

During my time writing for Girlfriend magazine, I have received a tonne of emails from readers. But none have affected me as much as one I received from a 14-year-old girl from Brisbane, Samantha Fletcher.

It read, "After reading your article in the Girlfriend Magazine about 'Click Safety,' I decided I would search my name in Google and see what came up. I was devastated when I saw my name and some of my details posted on a psycho page." I searched Samantha's name in Google, and the first result was entitled 'Dating Psychos - Samantha Fletcher.' This website was set up in America, and lets people insult and hurt their ex-partners.

How horrible. Samantha said she asked the administrator of the website to remove the offensive content, but he replied that she needed to pay him $20!! But the most shocking thing was that not one word of the content had an element of truth in it. A page of lies, lies that hurt. Samantha said it would have  been made up by some girls at school who had bullied her the year before.

On a Sunday soon after, I rang up the biggest paper in Brisbane to tell them about it. They were pretty shocked, and come the next Tuesday, a big picture of Samantha was placed on page 5, accompanying her story for millions to read. All that day her mum was on radio stations talking about it, and it made national TV that night. Pretty quickly, the horrible profile about Samantha was completely removed, and the next day the Administrator was forced to remove all the profiles of people under 18. Samantha did not just help herself, but many other people as well.

Samantha was really happy about the outcome - as was I. And what she did should act as inspiration for all of you - she turned an experience of devastation, something bad, into something very good. So if nothing else, let Samantha's story act as a beacon of hope to any of you that are suffering from bullies on the net, that instead of suffering in silence, to do something about it.

Remember to be nice on the net, to save bullying content, and not respond to the bully, but block and delete them. Tell your friends, report it to the administrators, and if you feel confident, give the media a call. The nation wants to hear your stories as well.

Email me @ tomwoodpublic@gmail.com

What do you think? Have you taken a stand against online bullying? Or been a victim? Have your say on our comments board below.