A 19-year-old girl took her own life after months of degrading treatment at the hands of work colleagues.

As a manager I have only once encountered a complaint of workplace bullying.

I took it very seriously because I immediately believed the person making the complaint.

She was a vulnerable type, fairly quiet, but always sincere. The person she complained about was the opposite and I had her under observation for a range of reasons to do with productivity, ethics and performance.

The complainant didn’t want me to raise the bullying allegation with the bully, because she feared for her physical and mental wellbeing.

My response was to sack the bully.

I consulted higher management and they agreed with my conclusion.

The bully had already been given one warning and I had enough reason to give her another.

I really needed three warnings and a few more months to sack her legally without unfair dismissal repercussions.

The risk of industrial consequences seemed a reasonable one to take given the gravity of the situation.

Everything was ultimately concluded as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The victim was very grateful to me, grew in confidence and went on to become a valuable, skilled employee.

It wasn’t summary justice on my part. I had sufficient information to believe the allegation was true, but not enough evidence to prove it, especially without the victim’s testimony.

So I followed my instincts and used commonsense.

It bothers me that unfair dismissal laws in Australia are an ideological football between Liberal and Labor.

The Liberals went too far with “Work Choices” and Labor has gone too far the opposite way in removing an employer’s discretion to dismiss.

This wasn’t the reason for what happened to Brodie Panlock, but certainly an employer with concerns about workplace bullying has limited options, especially when the bullying is one on one, psychological, verbal and subtle.

Categorised under “Organizations – clubs and societies”, the group was called “People who think Joe is annoying”. There was a photo of Joe wearing his cricket club cap, with a red line drawn through his head.

The description read: “This group is for people who all agree Joe is an annoying tool.”

Some of the early members published mildly insulting posts, nothing in isolation that would trigger a defamation action in the real world, but collectively … a recipe for depression or worse if they continued to aggregate.

I don’t know the legal definition, but the site was definitely vilifying its subject according to my understanding of the word: “To make vile; debase; degrade.”

Fortunately, some commonsense started to show itself.

One boy wrote: “wow u guys really don’t understand do u. this guy has done nothing wrong. in fact i would say he ha helped people out. u realise that this is the weakest form of bullying and it is also a criminal offence. u cant ignore me by deleting me messages cos im just gonna keep posting them. delete this now before u get urselves into to much shit. trust me i would.”

A local man who discovered the group entered the discussion: “ok everyone who thinks this is a funny joke – think about this….. think about what kind of impact this kind of thing can have on someone, I attended a funeral of a young gentleman only 2 days ago who happened to be the victim of bullying … so just imagine if this was about you, your brother/sister, best friend, team mate or other family member … seriously you should all be aware what this can do to people, you should all be ashamed of yourselves for being involved in this group, remove yourselves and this group. its the right thing to do.”

The heat was on the perpetrators. A couple more posts targeted them:

“freeking disgraceful by all involved, all of you need to have a look at yourself, i echo what A and B (names removed) have said and have felt sick since heard about this group was hoping it was a urban myth. Your generation has experienced enough pain and grief without inflicting it someone else who too be honest is honest and would do anything for any body and i emphasise anybody!! really disappointing stuff and makes me wonder what makes you tick and your sense of humour well that’s debatable. Oops, the group creators did a runner. They removed themselves from the group, but left it live and open to comments.”

One lady observed: “I hope that you wankers realise that most the people that have joined this group are the ones telling you what tools you are. Leave the poor kid alone. Oh would you look at that all the admins have left the group, guess they couldn’t hack the crap from all the normal people.”

Someone who knew the creators chipped in: “The group getting deleted tonight. Weren’t you a kid before? They make mistakes. Think stuff is funny and all that shit, they just need an adult to tell them its wrong and not called for them to realise the effects it has on others. I know for a fact the person is scared shitless and doesn’t know what to do.”

Well, it would appear you can’t delete a group if the administrator removes himself as a member. Catch 22. The administrator had to find a deep hole to hide himself in, or come clean, rejoin the group and close it.

Genuinely contrite, or perhaps under some pressure from others, the creator made this post:

Apart from the creator acting stupidly, this whole incident raises a number of issues.

1) Should children be allowed free access to social media websites? No.
2) Should Facebook or any other social media be allowed to publish whatever it likes? No.
3) How do you regulate social media? That’s hard.

In my view, authorities need to urgently examine the regulation of popular interactive websites, such as Facebook.

It is not acceptable that mainstream media are subject to laws and responsibilities, while so-called social media have free reign.

Vilification is a terrible act at any time, but coming in the wake of a local death attributed to bullying, it’s reckless and reprehensible.

Most newspapers are now active online and seek to maintain standards of commentary that conform with societal standards.

The speed of publication and its inherently interactive nature makes for a more dynamic environment, but standards are maintained. Facebook however, in this case at least, abrogated its responsibility as a publisher.

The mechanisms for others to report a distasteful page or comment failed.

Trawl the web and it’s not too difficult to find flame posts, personal attacks and vilification galore.

The task of taming this giant beast is nearly impossible. In most cases, the authorities and those vilified are helpless to act.

I genuinely believe this issue ought to be on the agenda for world leaders to discuss at the United Nations and the G8 summit.

Not the attack on a South Australian teenager, but how to regulate social media without surrendering freedom to publish responsibly.

Wikipedia is a model that should be looked at, ie community editors.

Perhaps every website publisher should have to sign a code of conduct with the webhost and risk automatic closure if the code is breached.

Yes, that will require legislation, bureaucracy, appeal mechanisms and controls. Impose a tax at the hosting level.

They are some options off the top of my head that don’t involve filtering.

The media reports today that footage of local children fighting on school grounds and in public places has been published on YouTube.

It appears likely the young people involved knew they were being filmed, which implies consent.

However, the consent of a 15-year-old carries little weight when the consequences are so serious.

The video itself can become evidence in court, which could potentially lead to convictions and a criminal record.

And how will those young people feel in 15 years time when their own children are made aware of Dad’s youthful indiscretion, recorded for posterity on the web? It would be sad if a mature individual felt any pride in such behaviour.

As adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg says, banning mobile phones in schools is only part of the solution, but it’s a starting point.

Parents and children managed for more than 150 years without needing mobile phones to communicate.

Surely, if there is an emergency, a concerned parent can ring the school and the student can be contacted.

If a student must have a mobile phone for security reasons after school, it can be deposited in a locker or at the school office during the day.

Such measures won’t stop fights being recorded, but at least there will be fewer such incidents during school hours.

There can then be a more concerted effort to address the societal issues, such as desensitisation to violence.