Terms Against Bullying
Universidade Lusófona, ISCAL 260, Universidade de Madeira, Universidade de Évora, Universidade do Algarve, ISAL, Universidade Autônoma de Lisboa, Universidade Alberta, Queen Elizabeth's School
Issue 53 | December 2019
Agency
White Rabbit Budapest
Creative Team
Chief Creative Officers: István Bracsok, Levente Kovács Creative Directors: André Felix, Luis Paulo Gatti Copywriters: Daniel Bensusan, Rafael Bornacina, André Nunes Bueno, André Felix Art Directors: Luis Paulo Gatti, Kauê Barbosa, Marcos Mendes Tanaka, Shuzhan Yu Illustration: Shuzhan Yu
Production Team
Web Developer: Lee Monteiro
Other Credits
Client Service Director: Levente Bálint Account Director: Beata Stumpf Account Manager: António Gonçalves
Date
October 2019
Background
For parents and for young people, cyberbullying has been growing as a problem.
In the UK, half of all teenagers say they have experienced it. A recent study has suggested that bullied teenagers are three times more likely to commit suicide.
In Portugal, though cyberbullying is punishable by up to five years imprisonment when the offender is over 16 years old, victims are discredited or afraid to report it. Attackers remain free to use their smartphones as a weapon to spread hatred.
Idea
Nine universities in Portugal came together to try to combat the issue.
While researching it the agency team discovered that every mobile provider in the world has an anti-violence clause in their ‘Terms & Conditions’ that informs customers anyone using the service for bullying will, by law, have their contracts cancelled.
With this in mind, a website was created that allowed victims to anonymously report the aggressor’s number.
From www.termsagainstbullying.com, the report was forwarded to the mobile provider, putting them under pressure to honour their ts and cs.
The campaign went live in September, known internationally as the suicide awareness month.
Results
Nearly 170 operators in Europe, USA, Brazil and others 60 countries have signed up to the project.
Our Thoughts
What’s depressing about this campaign is the need for it. Social media messaging platforms do nothing themselves to deal with bullying, instead putting all the responsibility for dealing with it on the shoulders of its victims.
The genius of the idea is it shifts that responsibility onto the mobile operators. If they take action, then this will be the most effective way yet devised of dealing with cyberbullying. But that’s a very big ‘if’.
None of the mobile operators (nor the social media sites that publish the hateful messages) wants to lose customers and revenue. Still, let’s hope that one or two of them do put conscience before profit.