“UMU Fights Mobile Phone Cyber Bullying”

There have been numerous reports produced over the last couple of years about cyber-bullying and threatening behaviour by and to children via their mobile phones (GMTV, 2005; NSPCC, 2008; Cyber Bullying UK, 2009). These are additionally, worrying times for parents when they don’t know where their children are. One of the major concerns presented from an OECD report was security and children. Parents like their children to have a mobile phone so they can check where they are – however, the child’s inability to detect spam SMS and premium rate call numbers is causing increased mobile bills (OECD, 2007). In addition, mobile phone theft is at it’s highest for the younger age groups ‘around a quarter (24%) of victims of mobile phone theft were aged between 10 and 17 and nearly half (46%) were aged between 10 and 24’ (British Crime Survey, 2009).

Text Message Bullying – You can control it

Recent reports suggest children are increasingly victims of cyber bullying through the onset of digital technology and the more frequent usage of mobile phones (bullying.co.uk, 2009). According to a report by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, ‘cyberbullies use their mobile phones or emails to send sexist, homophobic and racist messages, or they attack other kinds of difference such as a physical or mental disability, cultural or religious background, appearance, or socio-economic position’ (dcsf, 2007). Unfortunately, ‘a key aspect of cyberbullying is that the victim has no place to hide from the perpetrator’ (anti-bullyingalliance.org, 2007), and therefore you, or someone you know, thought you were unable to escape the damaging effects of cyber bullying.

If you become aware this is happening, there are steps you can take to block messages and calls received on a mobile phone.

UMU’s SpamSafe is a simple to use application for filtering unwanted messages from both unknown and user specified numbers. The application puts them in a folder on your phone, and if it is necessary to involve the police in the bullying issue, then these are stored as evidence – without causing unnecessary distress.

For further information on how to deal with mobile phone bullying, please see Mobile Phone Bullying by www.bullying.co.uk and http://www.connexions-direct.com.