Anti-social media: fighting to prosecute online trolls | 60 Minutes Australia

there's no doubt social media is great except for one thing the people who use their keyboards as weapons of hate but if you think tech giants like facebook and twitter are doing all they can to silence the idiots of the internet then you're in for a shock as you'll see not only do these companies welcome trolls they benefit from more of them it's as cynical as it gets but bullies it seems are good for business and if there's a buck to be made well who cares about the victims around the world a silent and sinister threat is wreaking havoc living anywhere but hiding in the shadows cowardly keyboard warriors and anonymous trolls and now we can reveal why facebook and twitter let them run rampant so if you're out there getting people angry it is effectively good for business it's good for business absolutely there's a totally direct correlation between how much time i spent on the platform and how much money the platform makes tonight on 60 minutes silicon valley insiders who helped create these social media mega businesses are now turning whistleblowers on an industry that's out of control do you now have some regrets in helping make this monster i do there's a real dark side to twitter that we didn't fully realize it's a dark side that cripples lives and livelihoods with victims sharing for the first time the devastating impact of trolling it's been hurtful to myself it's been hurtful to others it's been hurtful to people close to me as those who've been attacked fight back demanding cyber bullies be unmasked and put in jail you're not big you're not tough you're scum of the earth you genuinely want people locked up absolutely i do hello [Music] knew being an nrl coach was a lonely gig and that he'd need a thick skin it comes with the territory but while he always expected abuse from the stands he never thought the most vicious attacks on him would come from a crowd he couldn't see online trolls mounting a relentless campaign to destroy his reputation it's been pretty tough um particularly the last couple months in some ways it's like the wild west out there you know my situation went viral on social media you know defamatory comments um yeah my reputation was ruined in a lot of respects he's the hottest young coach in the nrl in 2018 seabold was hot property in the nrl having been named coach of the year at the south sydney rabbitohs at the end of the season though he was controversially poached by powerhouse club the brisbane broncos but some were left bitter by his appointment then earlier this year numerous social media accounts began spreading false rumors about siebold's private life suggesting it was about to cost him his job the main claim was that he'd been having affairs with a number of his players partners and that he'd been taking cocaine other messages suggested his wife had left him and one of his daughters had been self-harming [Music] do you remember the moment that you actually read them for the first time yeah the very last message on social media was the one that probably upset me the most because it spoke about my daughter it starts to really bring it home yeah it does yeah was that the hardest part for you that the impact that this was having on your family yeah yeah definitely yeah not just um you know like my mum and dad as well you know it's hard you for everyone to see that those messages some people watching this might think where there's smoke there's fire or was there any truth to those rumors no there wasn't no it wasn't i don't know what the motivation is i don't i don't understand that um but they obviously want to hurt myself and the others who were named in some way shape or form the messages were initially spread on facebook messenger and whatsapp before being amplified further on twitter but as the father of three discovered getting those platforms to stop the spread was pretty much impossible it was vicious wasn't it yeah it's vicious it's it's it's disgusting as i said um yeah there's no accountability that i can see in and around the social media platforms after weeks of people speculating about his personal life and his coaching position siebold eventually decided he needed to step away from the spotlight i think the final straw was um hopping back on a plane from sydney when i wanted to be with my daughter he quit the broncos it was really emotional morning um you know i'm not afraid of saying i cried in front of players because i care about them a lot [Music] but as he finished up at his job seabold had unfinished business elsewhere he wanted to get to the bottom of who had been behind the vile social media rumors that had been spreading about him but with laws as they stand at the moment there was little police could do so he took the extraordinary step of hiring his own cyber crime investigators to dig for answers a very interesting thing happened when it became public that you were now launching your own investigation into who was behind these messages some of these people just disappeared yeah they did 80 of the messages that were on social media platforms came down straight away so it obviously put um a bit of a scare across a lot of the people who were sharing what does that tell you about those people pretty weak do you now know who the trolls were behind the campaign against you yeah i've got quite a few names yeah i'd like to see some some people made accountable that's for sure coming up there's someone within the game pedaling these rooms around closing in on the culprits the time to ignore trolls is over the time to prosecute trolls is here and revealing the tech giant's dirty tricks they push right up to the point of inciting violence victims fighting back the trolls that call your snowflake and say harden up princess so sick of this victim-shaming [ __ ] that's next on 60 minutes anthony siebold's life is a lot less stressful now that he's moved back to sydney following a tumultuous time coaching the brisbane broncos which ended in a storm surrounding a vicious online trolling campaign targeting him the veteran coach is used to hits on the field but never foresaw the hits that would come off it went through some pretty dark times there a few weeks back because um the amount of hate the amount of defamatory comments um that was spread and people were happy to spread it was it was crazy really and that's not the australia that i grew up in yeah but this is australia in 2020 where thousands of people are bullied online with almost no consequences for the cowards behind it all however anthony siebold is one of the few that are lucky enough to have the finances to seek justice for themselves he's now taken the extraordinary step of hiring foreign cyber investigators to get to the bottom of who spread the damaging and untrue rumors claiming his personal life was crippled by affairs and drug taking after plenty of digging the cyber sleuths have managed to unmask a number of culprits this has helped identify there's someone within the game that has been peddling these rumors around yeah well there's someone who makes a living from our game who is part of this conversation who's added to the rumors who's then forwarded on you know through messages on social media platforms [Music] the person named in the report is an employee of new south wales rugby league we've got some very high profile friends from within our game seabolt has handed the damning findings to police in both new south wales and queensland as well as the nrl's integrity unit but at this stage no one has faced any consequences for spreading such vicious lies it's ironic isn't i mean these people have had a free-for-all calling you whatever they want online with no repercussions yet if you named them you'd be the one that the cops are punishment yeah that's exactly right that's that's what's so ironic about um all of this you know i can't sit here and tell you these names because you know essentially um you know 60 minutes could um be charged it's yeah it's crazy this is not about celebrities this is not about politicians this is about every single australian because this impacts every single australian the time to ignore trolls is over the time to prosecute trolls is here in five four three a very good morning to you welcome to the sunday footy show when it comes to online trolling few people cop as much as females working in the media and being a woman in the male dominated world of sport has made channel nine host aaron mullen even more of a target respect from your peers means more than almost now you go to any of the rugby league sites online and believe in me i don't go to them anymore but every single one was either that i was a woman that i was ugly that i look like a [ __ ] that i'd never played the game that i belong in the kitchen different footballers that i've had dolly answers with about bosses at channel 9 that i must have slept with it's just vile the trolls would call you a snowflake and say harden up princess of course i would i don't care what trolls think i am absolutely not a snowflake anthony sibol is not a snowflake the other tens of thousands of australians who are abused online are not snowflakes i'm so sick of this victim-shaming [ __ ] there is a shitload of stuff that i will accept there are certain things i won't accept that doesn't make me a snowflake aaron has joined anthony siebold in drawing a line in the sand when it comes to the scourge of bullying trent robinson has hit back at rooster's critics she'd put up with online abuse for years but one troll went way too far when aaron was pregnant with her daughter with sickening threats of violence and even worse this i wish you a [ __ ] stillborn and you die in the process hip hip hooray when you open a message saying i want your unborn child to die what does that do to you at that moment it just really hurts you really really hurts you and you you go to some pretty dark places i have an older sister who had a still birth carried a beautiful little girl to full term emily and to watch her bury her child and stand up with a little coffin and and say mommy loves you and she's so sorry to sit there and watch my sister go through that meant that my pregnancy was was fairly anxious throughout so to start to receive messages of that nature um really impacted me the constant attacks took such a toll that aaron was beside herself with fear and one night it came to a head we were lying in bed and were asleep it was like one or two a.m and it sounded like someone had like a window had smashed or someone it was just a massive big smash and i thought you know that he'd come in and he was going to try and do what he was saying he was going to do to my baby and that was kind of the moment i thought i can't do this anymore so i went to the police and look they were amazing but it's not easy for the police to to prosecute and to take action because initially there weren't enough messages then more and more kept coming and so there's a quota of how many times someone has to wish that your unborn baby dies yeah so you know and this is this is my point in that one message of that nature should be enough the man behind the campaign targeting aaron himself father of young girls continued the harassment until police managed to track him down and arrest him becoming a rare case where a troll is convicted albeit only receiving a suspended sentence but while police did eventually act erin claims facebook still didn't want to know about this disgusting behavior on its own platform they say that they're doing their best to try and curb this kind of behavior do you buy that no not on any level not on any level i reported these messages to facebook did you get a response yes and the response was that they were not considered offensive i don't report anymore because it's a waste of space it is a waste of time they are not doing their best not even close few people know the inner workings of facebook like tim kendall the social media executive was once responsible for monetizing facebook helping make it the 700 billion dollar business it is today i regret my role i was part of the team and and led the team that said look we're gonna we're gonna go with advertising as as the business model and i i believe that's what set us set them on this on this path tim was once friends with facebook founder mark zuckerberg but these days believes there's nothing friendly about what facebook is doing to society now tim is breaking ranks to lift the lid on why organizations like facebook don't crack down on cyber bullying and trolls that behavior actually drives engagement time online which leads to more revenue from advertisers so social media platforms don't necessarily want hate out there but what they do want is for any emotion to be surging within their users and that's good for business it's good for business absolutely they're spending more time in an emotionally engaged state and they're more prone to come back tomorrow and probably come back tomorrow for longer and there's a totally direct correlation between how much time i spent spend on the platform and how much money the platform makes so is that a driver basically if you can get people angrier they're going to stick around longer and that equals dollars it is it is because the business model is actually to push the margin on that as much as i possibly can and that's what they do they put they push right up to the point of inciting violence and that's when they'll take it down but hate speech is totally fine coming up there's a real dark side to twitter that's been weaponized no more excuses free speech argument is used too much as a crutch the demands for urgent it's making a sec and drastic action you genuinely want people locked up absolutely that's next on 60 minutes politics is an industry as brutal as any and few know that better than warren mundine the one-time alp president turned liberal party candidate his thick skin was forged by the fires of political brawls but even a stalwart like him is still shocked at how vicious the world of social media can be in the old days they talked about these lynch mobs that came after people with pitchforks it feels almost like the the modern incarnation of that doesn't it well it is they actually try and destroy your life and try and destroy you personally warren says he doesn't know why he's become such a loathed target online but the attacks on him have been relentless for years captain cook coconut warp an idiot uncle tom now the indigenous leader is revealing how this constant online abuse made him consider taking his own life this build-up of stuff you know like i was home that night and i was you know i've been pretty rough for a few for a while and i was just sitting at the table just scrolling through some of the media stuff i get and they just and you just go through all this uh you know this dreadful racist uh bigoted uh uh sexual attacks and innuendos and that and uh and then i just sort of just got up and just sort of said i just sick of this and just walked out and yeah how much do you think you're targeted just because of your race there's a lot of it actually it's it's really bizarre i was born in the 1950s i grew up the first 13 years of my life under the protection act and in a secret graded society i can tell you now i look back at that as a romantic society compared to the vitriol and the disgrace that is poured on me on on twitter or facebook or anywhere any social media the toxic dangers of social media are exposed in the new netflix documentary the social dilemma i always felt like fundamentally it was the force for good it features twitter's former senior vice president of engineering alex rota i don't know if i feel that way anymore he's revealed to us how like facebook twitter has turned a blind eye to trolling and hate speech there's a real dark side to twitter that we didn't fully realize and i think as time goes on it's becoming more and more obvious and it's not a place that actively polices hate and spam and abuse and it's been weaponized do you think that hate speech is often protected by this idea that it's just free speech i think that's exactly the argument that's used to protect it the free speech argument is used too much as a crutch to allow a ton of behavior that is not good for society alex believes one of the most dangerous factors twitter ignores is the prevalence of anonymous accounts which are rife when it comes to trolling innocent users can anonymity be dangerous yes i think anonymity does not bring out the best in people i think that people when they're hidden behind anonymity and no no consequences the worst aspects of trolling comes out and the more you can tie your behavior online to a real human being you act in a way that more approximates how you treat strangers in real life which is with decency and respect former facebook executive tim kendall is so disturbed by the downsides of social media these days that he's now developed his own app moment to help people step away from the online world do you think we've reached a bit of a turning point in society i mean it feels like for a decade the push has been for everyone to get on social media and now we've reached this moment in time where everyone's saying no actually we need to cut back i do i do and and uh you know i've done a lot of looking into the arc of cigarettes and the arc of public perception with with cigarettes i believe that we are going to wake up over the course the next five 10 15 years and and learn that overuse of social media is just incredibly corrosive to our own mental well-being and corrosive to society you know in a word it's making us sick the more we use it facebook and twitter refused to be interviewed for this story which probably isn't surprising given so many users are already accustomed to them passing the buck on the issue of online abuse but if they won't police their own turf then the onus is on the federal government to step in and there are now growing calls for them to toughen the laws surrounding social media use yeah i'd like to see it stop with me and i would hate someone else to go through what i've been through glad to be back in sydney and it's good to have the family back together again anthony siebold knows firsthand the carnage trolls can cause having been the target of a relentless campaign to undermine him earlier this year get your daughter's graduation today yeah uh it's going to be it's a little bit surreal actually how quick that's gone they're really proud of her but the father of three's newfound calm has indented his desire to fight for change and accountability online i'd imagine part of the drive for that is that making this a safer world for your daughters yeah definitely from a really negative situation a really hurtful situation if um you know going forward there is some legislation change then i think that's you know fantastic um you know legacy to to leave [Music] and anthony's definitely not alone in this fight oh ballet you'd never want eliza to go through what you've suffered in recent years no i wouldn't want anyone to to be honest uh and that's a big part of i guess the motivation to do this not not just for my little girl but you know there's millions of little australians who will grow into bigger australians and who should never be exposed to the kind of things that a lot of people have been exposed to tv host aaron mullen has been targeted by trolls for years but now is a leading voice for change even meeting with the prime minister recently to push for tougher laws on cyber bullying she believes anonymity must no longer be an option and offenders should be facing jail time you genuinely want people locked up absolutely i do you need to change the entire conversation the entire narrative and say hey johnny if you're going to troll do you care about going to jail for three years do you care about being on the front page of the paper and your wife and your boss seeing do you care about you being held to account and never getting another job do you care about your kids seeing this in five years time that their dad was an [ __ ] and bullied someone to the point where they nearly took their own lives do you care about that johnny yes you do because then johnny sees real consequences for his actions then johnny thinks twice about sending something then johnny stops it's not just johnny that stops johnny's mates everyone else stops as well because they go and and that's the most powerful thing you you prosecute five of these people five and the majority of the rest will stop if this story has raised issues and you need to speak with someone call lifeline on 13 11 14. hello i'm sarah arbo thanks for watching to keep up with the latest from 60 minutes australia make sure you subscribe to our channel you can also download the nine now app for full episodes and other exclusive 60 minutes content

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 190,038

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Charles Wooley, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Allison Langdon, Tom Steinfort, Ellen Fanning, Karl Stefanovic, Ray Martin, Sarah Abo, erin molan, anthony seibold, warren mundine, social media, anti social media, the social dilemma, facebook, twitter, impact of social media, social media mental health, trolls, trolling, online trolls, cyber bullying, legislation trolls, brisbane broncos, facebook psychology, scott morrison

Id: kOAcrvbKlco

Length: 26min 39sec (1599 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 11 2020