PRINCE WILLIAMS has urged leading digital companies, including Apple, Google, Facebook and Twitter, to join the fight against cyber bullying.
Source: Stuff.co.nz
Speaking at the technology conference Founder Forum in Watford, the Duke of Cambridge called on industry leaders to help tackle the growing issue, revealing that becoming a father has intensified his concern about the pressures on young people.
“From a young age I have detested bullying in all forms,” he said, people reports. “As Catherine and I started our family a few years ago, I was alarmed by the increasing reports of online bullying that were making headlines around the world.”
There is one issue that I want to ask for your assistance and energy, to help turn from a worrying challenge to an exciting opportunity,” he continued, “and that is how we protect children online.  From the girls developing eating disorders after being subjected to a campaign of abuse on social media, to the teenage boys who took their own lives following constant targeting – as a parent myself, I was appalled.”
“Children and young people use the internet more than almost any of us, but are too young, inexperienced or lacking in the maturity of adults to make the right judgments about what is and what is not safe.”
Whilst praising technological innovation, he added that he was concerned that social media had “transformed bullying from something that was not only the torment of the classroom and playground, but something that followed you home as well – to the one safe haven that children should have. To school-age children today, there is no difference between their online and offline lives. Bullying is bullying, wherever it happens.”
In his interview with Attitude, he said: “No one should be bullied for their sexuality or any other reason and no one should have to put up with the kind of hate that these young people have endured in their lives.”
Culled From Vogue, Written by:Â Katie Berrington
