Online hate, real-world damage

ON Aug 6, a mother of three took her own life in her Subang Jaya home in Selangor after being cyberbullied on social media. The 44-year-old reportedly received a barrage of hateful comments about her appearance and handbag collection when she uploaded some videos on TikTok.

Her case is far from an isolated one.

Cyberbullying is becoming an increasingly prominent problem not only around the world but also in this country – especially so, in fact: Malaysia ranked second in Asia (after India) in 2020 for cyberbullying among youth, according to a United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) report. And a survey by multinational market research firm Ipsos placed Malaysia at a shockingly high sixth place among 28 countries in the “Global Advisor Cyberbullying Study 2021”.

Just ignore the hurtful comments is often the dismissive advice given by those who have never experienced this particular pain.

But it’s not that easy to do with more and more people practically living online.

As M. Veera Pandiyan said in his column, Along the Watchtower, the old adage that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is no longer true in the age of the Internet.

Hate hurled onscreen can cause enough pain to push people over the edge, as happened with a 20-year-old woman who was found dead in her family home in Penang two years ago, leaving behind a note saying she couldn’t stand the bullying after a TikTok video of her and a Nepali colleague went viral and drew criticism on Facebook.

Causing someone emotional and psychological damage through words – sometimes to the point of death – is surely a crime and people should be protected against it by law. While legislation on cybersecurity already exists, there is no definite law against cyberbullying in Malaysia, which means victims have no way to get justice or protection.

More and more countries around the world are looking into enacting such laws while others have already put them in place: Singapore has the Protection from Harassment Act, the Philippines has Republic Act 10627 which deals with the issue, Canada has an Anti-Cyberbullying Act, and under Britain’s Malicious Communications Act, cyberbullying could result in six months or more in prison and a hefty fine.

It took decades but we finally came to understand that sexual harassment is not just people being pushy with their attention but an actual crime, and created the Anti-Sexual Harassment law.

We can’t wait that long to deal with a crime that is increasing in frequency and number of victims.

Malaysia needs to consider an anti-cyberbullying law now.

Those suffering from problems can reach out to the Mental Health Psychosocial Support Service at 03-2935 9935 or 014-322 3392; Talian Kasih at 15999 or 019-261 5999 on WhatsApp; Jakim’s (Department of Islamic Development Malaysia) family, social and community care centre at 0111-959 8214 on WhatsApp; and Befrienders Kuala Lumpur at 03-7627 2929 or go to befrienders.org.my/centre-in-malaysia for a full list of numbers nationwide and operating hours, or email [e-mail].