The Ministry of Public Administration and Justice initiated the program called’ Internet never forgets’, in order to draw attention to cyberbullying. The first interactive lesson took place in Budapest, at the Gundel Károly Vocational School of Catering and Tourism this Monday.

Before the session, Monika Balatoni, Minister of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations stressed out, school violence, verbal and virtual harassment already claimed many victims. While it is a process difficult to halt, families, schools and the government should take part in mitigate the phenomena. As she said, the responsibility of families lie in the fact what pattern children learn at home regarding how they treat conflicts; while teachers are responsible for recognizing physical harassment and verbal abuse.

The government has a greatest responsibility. The child protection notification system should be strengthened and the youth be informed that is nothing to be ashamed of, they need to speak to someone when facing problems such as abuse. She noted that in 90 percent of cases, young people are ashamed of speaking about being ostracized and abused, or bullied, so families and teachers only recognise these serious issues when brutal acts happen.
Monika Balatoni elaborated on that in case of cyberbullying, it does not matter if the victim switches school or class community, even moves to another city; harassment permanently follows. According to surveys, 97 percent of kids around the age of 10 uses the Internet on daily basis and due to their age, they do not notice what lies behind an intimate-than-usual type of question. Furthermore, 99 percent of bigger children use social media for lots of hours a day.

As she said, this program is essential, because younger people who are regular Internet users, would not even measure that information shared with each other or  personal data and photos posted are not only accessible by anyone, but they remain saved forever, they could not be deleted, therefore information what was shared can be abused.

She reminded it is very common for high school students to bully and ostracize each other anonymously in posts and to exaggerate specific situations to an extent which against young people are not able to protect themselves.

According to surveys, those who are concerned are not speaking about being bullied, because in this matter they do not see parents and teachers as adequate partners; they think they would not been understood well. Monika Balatoni emphasized that now in Hungary every fourth child states that he or she have had some kind of encounter with molestation or bullying on the Internet, while the 87 percent of parents think that the Web has does not pose any threats against kids.

During the 90-minute-long programme, high school students with the help of three moderators can face what kind of consequences posting can have, how many times they violate others’ rights by using their photos without permission or gave away their private matters. Until March more than 3,000 students out of 30 high schools will participate in the programme.

Monika Balatoni hopes those, who take part in the programme, will use the Internet a more careful and tolerant way. She also said, from September in cooperation with the Adult Education Institute, special training for teachers will be available on domestic violence, use of social media, the lowered criminality barrier, school bribery and theft will also be spoken of.

Lajos Aáry-Tamás , Ombudsman of Educational Rights emphasized that children treat social media as a true space of living, they would like to be online all the time, therefore when they are ostracized there, it feels terrible for them, ‘like they would be dead’. He pointed out young people often do not ask for help, because parents would come up with the same solution what the virtual community has already done: they cut their children off by forbidding using the Web.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)