The eSafety Commissioner has launched a new campaign to respond to the steeply rising number of young people’s image-based abuse reports advising them on what to do when things go wrong online.
Launching the SCROLL campaign, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said her office received more than 1,000 reports of image-based abuse in the first quarter of 2022, compared to just over 600 in the same period last year.
“Image-based abuse is just one of the many online harms that young Australians need to protect themselves from with support from eSafety, parents, teachers, police and online platforms,” Ms Inman Grant said.
“SCROLL is a campaign for Gen Z by Gen Z that aims to make young Australians more aware of what they can do, and the support that is available, when they experience strife online,” she said.
“At its heart, it’s about empowering teenagers to get the help they need to stay safe online, so they can keep doing all the things they love and reduce their risk of being abused, harassed or groomed for the purpose of sexual exploitation or extortion.”
Ms Inman Grant said the campaign, running across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, featured real stories and examples of how young Australians could protect themselves, where they could get help, and how they could support their friends.
The Commissioner said campaign covered cyberbullying, online consent and how eSafety could help to swiftly remove intimate images shared without permission.
