Officials work to counteract cyberbullying in San Mateo County

Cyberbullying has become an increasingly concerning issue on and off school campuses and a coalition of San Mateo County officials are looking to reduce the prevalence of online harassment of children, whether through partnerships or pressure.

“I am very concerned about cyberbullying and how it affects our students, which is why our school district has joined the mission to end cyberbullying — because we recognize the harmful effects it has on our students’ well-being,” Dr. Darnise Williams, Sequoia Union High School District superintendent, said.

Williams was joined by state Sen. Josh Becker, D-San Mateo; Ravenswood School District Superintendent Gina Sudaria; and other officials for a press conference Monday to announce their collaborative mission to address cyberbullying. The approach — convince social media platforms to adopt a more robust system for removing online content deemed to be forms of cyberbullying or force them to through state legislation.

Social media platforms already have processes in place for addressing and removing certain types of content from hate speech to nudity. But officials during Monday’s conference noted those requests take time to review, leaving school communities to grapple with the negative effects of an online post while it remains up.

Thanks to a sustained push to provide mental health resources to students, children across the county have greater access to support now than when social media platforms first began to appear, but Williams said legislation addressing cyberbullying would be another proactive approach to supporting students.

Under a more robust approach, officials would like to see platforms expedite the removal of harmful content if contacted by a school administrator, Becker suggested.

“This bill would be a powerful tool for school districts, as we would now have the ability to hold tech companies accountable,” Williams said. “By being able to remove cyberbullying content in real time, we now have the ability to fight back against content that, if left unchecked, can cause massive emotional trauma to students.”

State officials are not new to pursuing online protections for children. The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, approved by the state Legislature in August and signed into law in September, requires tech companies to implement strong privacy settings for children users and greatly restricts the type of data tech companies can collect from children and how that data can be used.

Still, platforms, as designed, have changed the prevalence of bullying, Becker said, noting a coalition of south county officials including law enforcement personnel and school leaders alerted him to the issue. Given that many children are finding their way online at younger and younger ages, Becker said criticisms that once remained at school follow children home.

“Bullying used to be in the schoolyard and when kids came home they would get some respite from it and now it’s not the case,” Becker, a father of two, said. “This is having other kinds of effects, not even just on the kids but the whole school.”

Beyond bullying, Becker noted online platforms have also been used to traumatize whole school communities through threats of violence.

Becker said he was optimistic social media companies would be enthusiastic collaborators, noting he recently spoke with representatives from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, but has yet to discuss the issue with those behind other popular platforms like TikTok, Twitter or Snapchat.

“This kind of stuff is not really a First Amendment kind of situation. It’s stuff where people agree it should be taken down. It just takes a long time and that damage is already done,” Becker said. “They want to try to address it.”