Facebooks plans to become a 'bully safe' environment

Facebook recently announced that they will be enforcing their site to be a ‘bully safe’ environment. They want to encourage their site to have a stronger sense of community and “create a culture of respect” for users.

However as Facebook currently have 500 million active users across the globe it does make you wonder if it is even possible to monitor the relationships between them? Do they even have the staff required to do so?

Although Facebook have never revealed the number of staff they employee to handle such complaints, I can’t imagine there team is large enough to closely monitor the Facebook activity of 500 million users.

Facebook revealed last week at an anti bullying conference at the White House, they intend to simply leave it up to the users of Facebook to monitor malicious behaviour between friends. Victims of bullying can feel safe that 'harmful banter' posted on the site can be easily flagged up by trusted friends and reported to Facebook.

The actions they are taking must be applauded as they are finally taking action against online bullying. I have no doubt that this will help reduce the amount of bullying on the site, however I do wonder how much good this will bring ‘real life’ bullying.

What happens after the incident has been reported and removed from the site? The problems that originated on the internet may be bought into real situations, be it in the playground or the workplace –there are no buttons to click ‘report problem’, posing the threat of physical abuse. Facebook said that the system was designed to encourage people to solve online problems "face to face" - this is certainly a statement for dispute.

Maybe the more logical solution would be for victims or friends of victims to alert Facebook to where the problem has stemmed (for example a school), so that the problem can be solved in a calmer environment where real action can take place.