0:00:01 > 0:00:06including racist abuse. Social networking sites have changed the
0:00:06 > 0:00:09way we talk to one another. But what happens when you're the one
0:00:09 > 0:00:15being talked about and you don't like what's being said? There's
0:00:15 > 0:00:20been many times where I've cried myself to sleep. I'm very scared
0:00:20 > 0:00:28and I've never, ever said that. I like to think that people think I'm
0:00:28 > 0:00:33strong. Tonight on Panorama, hunting the internet bullies. Who
0:00:33 > 0:00:37they target... You guys have ruined my life. Why they do it. Loads of
0:00:37 > 0:00:44people are doing it. It's purely to get some kind of reaction to people.
0:00:44 > 0:00:48And what happens when we confront them. Facebook is an open forum.
0:00:48 > 0:00:58You're entitled to your own opinion. Some of the it racist. People have
0:00:58 > 0:01:04
0:01:04 > 0:01:09been convicted for doing less than In 2010, Cher Lloyd went from being
0:01:09 > 0:01:13anonymous teenager to pop star. She reached the final four of the X
0:01:13 > 0:01:18Factor. It was a dream come true. After her very first appearance on
0:01:18 > 0:01:22the show, she noticed something remarkable happening on her
0:01:22 > 0:01:28Facebook profile. Within minutes my Facebook page exceeded the amount
0:01:28 > 0:01:30of friends you could have. It was excitement for me. I just kept
0:01:30 > 0:01:33clicking "confirm" because I couldn't believe how many people
0:01:33 > 0:01:39wanted to be my friend. Since the X Factor she's sold over 400,000
0:01:39 > 0:01:46singles. But there was a price to pay - nasty, sometimes racist
0:01:46 > 0:01:50comments posted about her online. Her mother is of Roma origin. That
0:01:50 > 0:01:57was used to attack her and it continues to this day. I must get
0:01:57 > 0:02:06at least ten tweets a day saying that I'm a dirty pikey, yeah. I
0:02:06 > 0:02:13must get that. Why do they say that? Erm, I think because they
0:02:13 > 0:02:16know it's going to get to me or because they know they can. There
0:02:16 > 0:02:22has even been a death threat to a member of her family. There's been
0:02:22 > 0:02:27many times where I've cried myself to sleep. I'm very scared and I
0:02:27 > 0:02:31have never, ever said that because I like to think that people think
0:02:31 > 0:02:38I'm strong. Because if they don't, they might not think I can do it.
0:02:38 > 0:02:45But I am in some ways, but I think some days I just wish that people
0:02:45 > 0:02:52would leave me alone for a little bit, wish for there to be a hole to
0:02:52 > 0:02:56suck me in. You've been really affected by this, haven't you?
0:02:56 > 0:03:00never thought that I could talk to anyone about it, because I didn't
0:03:00 > 0:03:03feel like I needed to. I thought that I'd be strong enough to get
0:03:03 > 0:03:13through it on my own. I think that's the worst thing you can
0:03:13 > 0:03:17possibly do. In the last five years, social networks have become a fact
0:03:17 > 0:03:22of life. Facebook now has 30 million users in the UK. That's
0:03:23 > 0:03:29almost half the population of the country. But for some, the runaway
0:03:29 > 0:03:35success of social networking has come at a cost. Natasha McBryde was
0:03:35 > 0:03:3815 when last year, she was bullied not on Facebook but on a smaller
0:03:38 > 0:03:43social networking site. Tash came home from school one day, floods of
0:03:43 > 0:03:46tears and saying that she never wanted to go back to school again.
0:03:46 > 0:03:49It was quite serious. It wasn't just a fall out with friends that
0:03:49 > 0:03:53she'd had and I believe that her mother did look into possibly
0:03:54 > 0:04:01transferring schools etc. So it shows the seriousness of the nature.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05What began as a disagreement in school soon went online. Panorama
0:04:05 > 0:04:09understands at the height of the problem there were 30 pages of
0:04:09 > 0:04:14critical comments about Natasha on one social network. Her father
0:04:14 > 0:04:17believes it contributed to what happened next. It was a perfectly
0:04:17 > 0:04:23normal evening. There had been discussions at tea. There had been
0:04:23 > 0:04:30a bit of a fall out with one of her friends and then at 9.30pm, she
0:04:30 > 0:04:38just walked out. Something had happened that she just decided
0:04:38 > 0:04:42enough's enough and yeah, she walked out of the house. Early the
0:04:42 > 0:04:48next morning, Shanie Erwin an officer with the British Transport
0:04:48 > 0:04:53Police was called to the scene of an incident on the railway line.
0:04:53 > 0:04:58About 2.30am on February 14th, a train driver discovered the body of
0:04:58 > 0:05:04a young female on the railway line, just further down here. It was just
0:05:04 > 0:05:09up here, yeah? Yes, just on the bridge here in front of us.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12first thing I knew about it was about 6.30am and suddenly, I got a
0:05:12 > 0:05:16phone call from my son James there had been an incident on the railway
0:05:16 > 0:05:23and the lines were closed and that we needed to go down to the local
0:05:23 > 0:05:27bridge. Natasha had committed suicide by throwing herself in
0:05:27 > 0:05:33front of a train. Earlier that evening, she had read nasty
0:05:33 > 0:05:39comments about herself online. Cases like this are still very rare,
0:05:39 > 0:05:45but cyberbullying is becoming more and more common. Earlier today, the
0:05:45 > 0:05:50charity Beatbullying released a major report which says that 28% of
0:05:50 > 0:05:5411 to 16-year-olds have experienced bullying or harassment online.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58research shows that cyberbullying, online bullying is relatively
0:05:58 > 0:06:02common. A large number of children receive abusive, vicious messages,
0:06:02 > 0:06:06have comments posted about them online, have hate pages set up
0:06:06 > 0:06:11about them online and for some, this happens relentlessly over
0:06:11 > 0:06:15months and months. Social networking means that bullying has
0:06:15 > 0:06:20become more intrucive. Where once it might have ended at the school
0:06:20 > 0:06:25gate, now it can happen around-the- clock. And when it comes to social
0:06:25 > 0:06:30networks, one site is now the daddy of them all. What social network
0:06:30 > 0:06:34site is the big one, where does it all happen? Facebook. Facebook.
0:06:34 > 0:06:40Facebook. For the vast majority of teenagers, Facebook is now just a
0:06:41 > 0:06:46part of life. But this isn't just any group of teenagers. They all
0:06:46 > 0:06:50work in their spare time for the charity Beatbullying. They're
0:06:50 > 0:06:53what's known as cybermentors. They give advice to young people who are
0:06:53 > 0:06:58being bullied online. What kind of things do you experience or have
0:06:58 > 0:07:02you seen on a day-to-day basis? I've seen many people get told
0:07:02 > 0:07:05they're not allowed to come to school, no-one loves you, your mum
0:07:05 > 0:07:11don't love you, you look like you've got a disease. So many
0:07:11 > 0:07:14horrible things. The cybermentors said they would like to take some
0:07:14 > 0:07:17of the issues they had up with Facebook but didn't know who to
0:07:17 > 0:07:25call. We recorded some of their questions and asked Facebook if
0:07:25 > 0:07:29they would answer them. Their director of policy, Richard Allen
0:07:29 > 0:07:34agreed. I tried to report a cyberbully and found out it was
0:07:34 > 0:07:39hard to do. My friends struggle with it as well. We feel the report
0:07:39 > 0:07:45button does not work. What are you going to do? Is there someone to
0:07:45 > 0:07:50speak to at Facebook if an incident of bullying happening. What happens
0:07:50 > 0:07:54when you press the report button, where does it go? The report goes
0:07:54 > 0:07:57into a system where it's categorised according to the
0:07:57 > 0:08:01seriousness of the offence. We've tried to improve the reporting tool
0:08:01 > 0:08:05to make it as accurate as possible in terms of categorising reports.
0:08:05 > 0:08:11Are you saying it's just too difficult, Facebook just isn't up
0:08:11 > 0:08:14to the job of answering phone calls? You're a multibillion dollar
0:08:14 > 0:08:19company growing every year. Companies that operate on the scale
0:08:19 > 0:08:23we do across the internet, it's incumbent on us to make sure we
0:08:23 > 0:08:27have systems in place to allow us to be safe and secure. The only way
0:08:27 > 0:08:31to do that realistically and maintain services that are free to
0:08:31 > 0:08:35the user, which is their expectation, is to put in place a
0:08:35 > 0:08:38large number of automated systems, backed up by trained staff to look
0:08:39 > 0:08:45at the most serious cases, which is what we do. To some of the experts
0:08:45 > 0:08:49in this area, that's not enough. All of us need to demand more from
0:08:49 > 0:08:55social networking sites and hold them to account to make sure that A,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58their sites are as safe as they can possibly be and B, that they
0:08:58 > 0:09:04actually work more and support organisations that deal with the
0:09:04 > 0:09:09consequences of what happens on their sites. Facebook does at least
0:09:09 > 0:09:17try to promote a real name policy. It urges users to post under their
0:09:17 > 0:09:21genuine identities. But on some smaller social networking sites, it
0:09:21 > 0:09:26seems the attraction lies in the fact you can post comments
0:09:26 > 0:09:30anonymously. At Reigate College in Surrey one site created havoc in
0:09:30 > 0:09:34the school. You all know from come together college that we won't have
0:09:34 > 0:09:39any student here who has been made to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome
0:09:39 > 0:09:43because of someone else making their life difficult. The website
0:09:43 > 0:09:48is called Little Gossip. You may not have heard of it, but they have.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52Can you put your hand up if you've been on Little Gossip, I mean just
0:09:52 > 0:09:57looked at it? Pretty much everybody. Can you now put your hand up if
0:09:57 > 0:10:07you've been named on it, if someone has commented about you? So quite a
0:10:07 > 0:10:12few. It works by allowing people to leave anonymous comments about
0:10:12 > 0:10:16anyone they like. That's bad enough, but it's all organised around
0:10:16 > 0:10:19schools and colleges, which makes it even easier for the people
0:10:19 > 0:10:25around you every day to see what's being written about you. No wonder
0:10:25 > 0:10:29this site has been called a recipe for cyberbullying. A quick look at
0:10:29 > 0:10:32the site for Reigate College reveals a list of horrendous
0:10:32 > 0:10:41comments about real named individuals. Like this one for
0:10:41 > 0:10:45When it comes to nasty design features, Little Gossip seems to be
0:10:45 > 0:10:49the site that has thought of everything. One feature mean that's
0:10:49 > 0:10:59your peers can vote on whether a piece of gossip about you is true
0:10:59 > 0:10:59
0:10:59 > 0:11:03or false. When you're giving them is your e-mail address. This man
0:11:03 > 0:11:07has re-- recently retired as head of Reigate. If there's a comment
0:11:07 > 0:11:13about you, it's a comment that says you're unpleasant, nobody wants you
0:11:13 > 0:11:16around, 38 people have said "true" and no-one's said "false", it make
0:11:16 > 0:11:24it's so much worse. It will build up the opinion that you're not
0:11:24 > 0:11:27wanted in that community. We wanted to find out more about Little
0:11:27 > 0:11:34Gossip. First, was to find the person who invented it and he
0:11:34 > 0:11:37agreed to talk to us. Ted Nash is now a 20-year-old app
0:11:37 > 0:11:42designer. Little Gossip was all his idea. But these days he has nothing
0:11:42 > 0:11:46to do with it. He originally set it up from his bedroom as a chat forum
0:11:46 > 0:11:50for his friends. What was the thinking behind it? I mean, how
0:11:50 > 0:11:54many people did you expect would be involved with it? There's no way I
0:11:54 > 0:12:00expected it to be as big as it was. It had 33,000 hits within the first
0:12:00 > 0:12:07hour. Ted Nash did set up controls so that people could report abusive
0:12:07 > 0:12:12comments and bullying. The trouble was once the traffic took off, how
0:12:12 > 0:12:16can one man cope with 60,000 pieces of gossip which come in. It got to
0:12:16 > 0:12:19a stage where I deleted everything coming through because it was too
0:12:19 > 0:12:22fast. I took the domain offline. Through those four days I was
0:12:23 > 0:12:29approached by a number of people who said, you know, can we take the
0:12:29 > 0:12:35site off you? Within days, Ted sold the site on. It was difficult to
0:12:35 > 0:12:42find any information on who owns Little Gossip now.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46Until very recently, it was hosted by a company called lease lease
0:12:46 > 0:12:50based in the Netherlands. Leaseweb says it recently stopped hosting
0:12:50 > 0:12:55the site and said it couldn't tell us who owned it. We did discover
0:12:55 > 0:13:02that it was recently registered with a Russian internet service by
0:13:02 > 0:13:05an anonymous person, who gave a contact number in Belarus, a
0:13:05 > 0:13:10Communist-style dictatorship in Eastern Europe.
0:13:10 > 0:13:14This is the problem with regulating sites like Little Gossip, the sites
0:13:14 > 0:13:18users are in one country. It's hosted in another country. It's run
0:13:18 > 0:13:22from yet another country. The owners of the site don't have to
0:13:22 > 0:13:27tell anybody who they are or where they are. How on earth, do you
0:13:27 > 0:13:33regulate that? Anonymity is a big problem when it comes to
0:13:33 > 0:13:39cyberbullying. Getting offensive comments from people you know is
0:13:39 > 0:13:48one thing, but getting them anonymously is anotherment This --
0:13:48 > 0:13:53another. This is Formspring. You can ask questions and others answer
0:13:53 > 0:13:58them. Can can use their real name or anonymously. Natasha McBryde was
0:13:58 > 0:14:05bullied on Formspring. It was being abused by a lot of people in that
0:14:05 > 0:14:10they were sending anonymous postings to Tash with some quite
0:14:10 > 0:14:15vindictive and nasty things being said about her, which obviously
0:14:15 > 0:14:19undermined her confidence and made her naturally very upset. Because
0:14:19 > 0:14:22the comments were all anonymous Natasha didn't know who in the
0:14:22 > 0:14:26school she could trust and who she couldn't. Because she didn't know
0:14:26 > 0:14:30who it was and probable thri was one of her friends, she didn't know
0:14:30 > 0:14:36who to turn to. There was a bad apple amongst her friends, but she
0:14:36 > 0:14:41didn't know which one. Formspring is integrated with Facebook, so
0:14:41 > 0:14:45that it's easy for users to connect from one site to the other. Why is
0:14:45 > 0:14:51it that Facebook, which has a real name policy intergrates and link
0:14:51 > 0:14:55was a site like Formspring, which revels in anonymity? We are
0:14:55 > 0:14:59responsible for the content on our service. If a third party starts
0:14:59 > 0:15:02abusing or breaking the terms and conditions for the use of Facebook,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06then we'll make sure that they're not able to access our service. But
0:15:06 > 0:15:11we're not responsible for what they do within their own environment.
0:15:11 > 0:15:17But why Lincar to them? Why integrate to them? -- why link to
0:15:17 > 0:15:22them? Why integrate with them? people on Facebook can link to most
0:15:22 > 0:15:25of the internet. We can't a rule where you can't link to the
0:15:25 > 0:15:35internet. We asked Formspring for an interview. They declined. They
0:15:35 > 0:15:44
0:15:44 > 0:15:51For Natasha MacBryde's father, the crucial point is that anonymity on
0:15:51 > 0:15:54the internet can be dangerous. think the first thing is to remove
0:15:54 > 0:15:57the anonymity of people on social network sites because an awful lot
0:15:57 > 0:16:02of bullying is done because people can say it, because they think they
0:16:02 > 0:16:05will not be caught and therefore that's why they say what they like.
0:16:05 > 0:16:10And do you think anonymity played a big part in what happened to
0:16:10 > 0:16:16Natasha? Absolutely. Anonymity - for many people, it just gives them
0:16:16 > 0:16:24a chance to let off steam online. But for one internet subculture,
0:16:24 > 0:16:34being anonymous is a way of life. They are internet trolls. There's
0:16:34 > 0:16:34
0:16:34 > 0:16:41Trolls set out to provoke a reaction, often by upsetting and
0:16:41 > 0:16:44offending people as much as they can. You guys are bitches you know
0:16:44 > 0:16:47what, you don't phase me. Jessica Leinhardt, an 11-year-old girl from
0:16:47 > 0:16:52Florida, became one of the most- well known trolling victims of
0:16:52 > 0:16:57recent years. Her story shows what can happen when you inflame the
0:16:57 > 0:17:02global community of internet trolls. I'm more pretty than you, I have
0:17:02 > 0:17:06more friends. It all started when Jessi went online to post a video
0:17:06 > 0:17:10of herself, using her online name, Jessi Slaughter. I'm happy with my
0:17:10 > 0:17:15life, OK. If you can't, like, realise that and stop hating, you
0:17:15 > 0:17:19know, I'll pop a Glock in your mouth and make a brain slushy, OK.
0:17:19 > 0:17:24This video also went viral. Internet trolls thought that 11-
0:17:24 > 0:17:28year old Jessi needed a comeuppance. So they went to work. Malcolm
0:17:28 > 0:17:31Blackman saw what happened up close. Today, he's part of the activist
0:17:31 > 0:17:34group Anonymous UK, but when the Jessi Slaughter campaign was at its
0:17:34 > 0:17:42height, he was in close contact with the people who were attacking
0:17:42 > 0:17:47I spent quite a lot of time with several notorious world trolls
0:17:47 > 0:17:51online. I spent some time in their company. Obviously not in their
0:17:51 > 0:17:56personal company but online. I gained a modicum of respect from
0:17:56 > 0:18:00them for what I do. And they in turn over the time, I ran with
0:18:01 > 0:18:03their pack gained my respect. hating on me. So what happened to
0:18:03 > 0:18:08Jessi? Well, Jessi became the target of pretty much a worldwide
0:18:08 > 0:18:13viral hate campaign. It wasn't just the trolls. I mean, it became a
0:18:13 > 0:18:19vehicle for anyone to jump on to to really slaughter Jessi Slaughter.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23And if you hate me. The trolls got what they wanted. Jessi posted
0:18:23 > 0:18:28another video a few days later, this time in great distress.
0:18:28 > 0:18:32Remember, she's 11 years old. this is Jessi Slaughter I just need
0:18:32 > 0:18:39to tell you guys that you have ruined my life. My house has been
0:18:39 > 0:18:42torn. I don't be suicide. I am not. Jessi's father intervened as well.
0:18:42 > 0:18:47You guys have ruined my life. going to tell you right now. This
0:18:47 > 0:18:51is from her father. You bunch of lying no-good punks. But this video
0:18:52 > 0:18:54didn't stop the campaign, it just made it worse. By now, trolls were
0:18:54 > 0:18:56invading every aspect of Jessi's life hijacking her social
0:18:56 > 0:19:06networking sites, publishing her real address online, and even
0:19:06 > 0:19:07
0:19:08 > 0:19:13sending constant pizza deliveries to her house. I am torn. I have had
0:19:13 > 0:19:17emotional breakdowns one after the other. I guess the point is that
0:19:17 > 0:19:21the internet community is merciless in a sense. It is, yeah. It doesn't
0:19:21 > 0:19:24take account of age. It's just there are people there who are
0:19:24 > 0:19:27going to... Well, because they can literally get away with being...
0:19:27 > 0:19:30It's a great term, merciless it is, they can be thoroughly ruthless.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34Malcolm says he's out to work against trolls, but he admits he
0:19:34 > 0:19:40associates with them regularly, and he can even see why they do what
0:19:40 > 0:19:43they do. It's the thrill, it's the win, being able to claim a victory,
0:19:43 > 0:19:52being able to infuriate someone to the point where they log off or
0:19:52 > 0:19:55they disconnect their computer. To a troll, that is a win. For many,
0:19:55 > 0:20:00the worst kind of trolling happens on tribute sites to those who have
0:20:00 > 0:20:05died. It's surprisingly common - there's even a name for it RIP
0:20:06 > 0:20:08trolling. Just hours after her death, Natasha MacBryde's family
0:20:09 > 0:20:14were coming to terms with the idea that cyber-bullying may have played
0:20:14 > 0:20:19a part in her decision to commit suicide. But nothing could have
0:20:19 > 0:20:24prepared them for what happened next. Pretty much immediately after
0:20:25 > 0:20:28Tash had died, a tribute site was set up on Facebook. I had a phone
0:20:28 > 0:20:33call from a friend saying had I seen it because there was a
0:20:33 > 0:20:35particularly nasty comments being put up. What had been posted on
0:20:35 > 0:20:41Natasha's tribute website was a range of offensive and obscene
0:20:41 > 0:20:47remarks. Someone had even made an animated video of trains, using a
0:20:47 > 0:20:51picture of Natasha. How soon after her death were you reading this?
0:20:51 > 0:20:56That was within about 24 hours. you are in the initial traumatic
0:20:56 > 0:21:00stages of grief. I was still in a state of shock at the time when we
0:21:00 > 0:21:04are seeing this traumatic stuff being posted about your daughter.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10Some disgusting and disgraceful. When most people have seen in the
0:21:10 > 0:21:12media, horrendous comments to actually see about your daughter.
0:21:12 > 0:21:18Shanie Erwin of the British Transport Police was investigating
0:21:18 > 0:21:21the death of Natasha when told of the Facebook posts. I had never
0:21:21 > 0:21:23heard of the term trolling before so we worked with Facebook and
0:21:24 > 0:21:33YouTube and later with the internet service providers and enquiries -
0:21:33 > 0:21:36both those and others led us to Sean Duffy, a 25-year-old loner who
0:21:36 > 0:21:42suffers from Asperger's syndrome, was responsible for many of the
0:21:42 > 0:21:52posts. Panorama has obtained exclusive footage of his police
0:21:52 > 0:21:52
0:21:52 > 0:22:45Apology for the loss of subtitles for 52 seconds
0:22:45 > 0:22:48In the interview, Duffy gives a Duffy was charged under the
0:22:48 > 0:22:51Malicious Communications Act. It's a piece of legislation that
0:22:51 > 0:22:57predates the internet, but it's still one of the best tools the
0:22:57 > 0:23:03police have for prosecuting trolls. He was convicted and sentenced to
0:23:03 > 0:23:1218 weeks in prison. He served nine weeks. Most trolls are never caught,
0:23:13 > 0:23:15but we decided to try and track one down. We met a source who's
0:23:15 > 0:23:20familiar with the trolling community, and he gave us
0:23:20 > 0:23:26information about one notorious troll. The screen name of that
0:23:26 > 0:23:31troll is Nimrod Severn. On this pen drive is the evidence of what this
0:23:31 > 0:23:36troll Nimrod Severn has been up to. And really he's just popping up on
0:23:36 > 0:23:45loads of RIP tribute sites and leaving really offensive messages.
0:23:45 > 0:23:55But some of them are extremely On Boxing Day last year, Lancaster
0:23:55 > 0:23:58University student Anuj Bidve was murdered here. A memorial page was
0:23:58 > 0:24:02posted up for him on Facebook and within days Nimrod Severn posted an
0:24:02 > 0:24:05offensive comment. "Rot in kiss". But on the tribute site of US
0:24:05 > 0:24:15rapper Dolla, who was shot dead, he used one of the most racist terms
0:24:15 > 0:24:19
0:24:19 > 0:24:27We wanted to meet the person behind Nimrod Severn. And it turns out we
0:24:27 > 0:24:36were able to put a face to a name. His real name is Darren Burton. It
0:24:36 > 0:24:42We have managed to track down Darren Burton, we've got an address
0:24:42 > 0:24:46for him. He lives here, in Cardiff. We're going to go and try to find
0:24:46 > 0:24:56him today and ask him the big question which is why? How can he
0:24:56 > 0:24:58
0:24:58 > 0:25:04Hi, Declan Lawn, BBC Panorama. Can I ask you about the internet
0:25:04 > 0:25:09trolling you do? What do I suggest? Go away. But you are Nimrod Severn,
0:25:09 > 0:25:13can I ask you about it? Can I ask you how you justify it and why you
0:25:13 > 0:25:17do it? What I want to ask you, Darren, is have you ever thought
0:25:17 > 0:25:22about the people that you are hurting? Have you ever considered
0:25:22 > 0:25:26that? Have you ever considered it? Do you think about the effect it
0:25:26 > 0:25:32has on them? That's my question. Yeah. And what do I think? Yeah,
0:25:32 > 0:25:36what do you think? I think (BLEEP) 'em. That's what I think. Darren,
0:25:36 > 0:25:40how do you justify it? Justify what? The trolling. The trolling.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44How do you justify it? How do you justify the trolling? It's
0:25:44 > 0:25:48extremely offensive and hurtful for people. Is it breaking the law?
0:25:48 > 0:25:51Well, some of it is racist, so some of it is and some of it is clearly
0:25:51 > 0:25:54an incitement for racial hatred. You are entitled to your own
0:25:54 > 0:25:57opinion. Facebook is an open forum. Facebook is an open forum and
0:25:57 > 0:26:00you're entitled to your own opinion. Some of it is racist. If people
0:26:00 > 0:26:03don't like it then fair enough. There's things on there I don't
0:26:03 > 0:26:06like and I don't kick off, though. People have been convicted. People
0:26:06 > 0:26:09have been convicted for doing less than you've done. Like what? Nine
0:26:09 > 0:26:15weeks? People have been convicted. Nine weeks in jail? Yeah. What's
0:26:15 > 0:26:20that? So there you go, an internet troll. That's what they look like.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25The big question here is that the law seems unevenly applied. Sean
0:26:25 > 0:26:32Duffy wrote on Natasha MacBryde's RIP site and was convicted for it.
0:26:32 > 0:26:35Darren here does pretty much the Darren Burton told us before we
0:26:35 > 0:26:40went to see him that South Wales Police had already visited him
0:26:40 > 0:26:44about his trolling, but says they never took it further. So we asked
0:26:44 > 0:26:47South Wales Police about it. They acknowledged they had visited
0:26:47 > 0:26:50Darren Burton back in November 2010 to give him what they called
0:26:50 > 0:26:57suitable advice about his future activities on the internet and that
0:26:57 > 0:27:05at that time there was no evidence that a crime had been committed.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09But clearly it didn't stop Darren I think there is also a variation
0:27:09 > 0:27:11in how the law is enforced in different cases and the level of
0:27:11 > 0:27:16knowledge between police officers and between police forces, in terms
0:27:16 > 0:27:19of how to deal with cyber-bullying, varies greatly. There's just no
0:27:19 > 0:27:22joined-up approach to dealing with it, is there? There's no joined up
0:27:23 > 0:27:25approach. Perhaps what they need is some training. And some
0:27:25 > 0:27:28understanding and some confidence of how to deal with cyber-bullying.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31What actual protection the law, or the different laws, that are
0:27:31 > 0:27:36involved in this affords to the victim and what as a police officer
0:27:36 > 0:27:40you can do. Cher Lloyd told us she feels there's no point complaining
0:27:40 > 0:27:45to the police about the people who are making her life a misery and
0:27:45 > 0:27:51that there's not much she can do about it. Let's say you had become
0:27:51 > 0:27:59well known ten years ago, before social networks. Do you think you'd
0:27:59 > 0:28:06be happier about what you were doing? Yeah. I think that... I
0:28:06 > 0:28:12think I would be a lot happier. I'd be protected a lot more. A few
0:28:12 > 0:28:15comments to a young girl that's all When it comes to the social
0:28:15 > 0:28:22networking revolution, all of us are trying to keep up with a
0:28:22 > 0:28:29changing world. Most of us have no problems online, but some do. And
0:28:29 > 0:28:31when they do, they're not always Next week on Panorama: