TikTok pages are exacerbating cyber-bullying trends among young Geelong students, with hundreds of thousands of instances of viewership of such content.

Cyber Crimes

Posted by AI on 2025-08-28 11:30:34 | Last Updated by AI on 2025-08-28 14:04:53

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The platform, increasingly popular among young Australians, has been highlighted as a concerning arena for the spread of harmful trends, including racist and sexist content and self-harm challenges.

Now, an investigation by The Geelong Advocate has revealed a further concerning trend in the cyberbullying of Geelong students in particular, with local youth both perpetrators and victims.

Among the most popular videos featured completely unfiltered and unmoderated racist taunts and insults directed at Geelong students of a particular race, with viewership into the hundreds of thousands.

One video, posted by a popular Tasmanian TikTokker, purported to celebrate the student's achievements but included a derogatory reference to their race and a reference to the suburbs in which they lived. It received over 320,000 views and thousands of likes and comments.

Another, posted by a Geelong student, showed themselves dressed in culturally inappropriate attire and making offensive gestures, with the location tagged back to a Geelong school. It received over 150,000 views.

The prevalence of the videos has prompted concern from experts and community leaders, who say such content is a dangerous reflection of broader community attitudes not being adequately challenged.

"It's a terrible reflection on our community that we haven't been able to educate or empower these young people to be better than this," said one expert, Dr. Margaret Fryda.

"These are the generations of Australians that will be leading us in 20 to 30 years. If we think this is okay, or that we can just laugh along with it or brush it off as 'they're just kids', we're doing ourselves a great disservice," she added.

The impact of such content on its targets can be devastating, with severe mental health impacts and, in some cases, resulting in self-harm.

"These kids are being absolutely torn apart. They feel isolated, they feel humiliated, and in some cases, they might not want to go to school or even be around their friends anymore," said Geelong-based psychologist Erin Kershaw.

"The worst part is that it so often starts from such a small thing: a comment or a post that's meant to be funny or clever but ultimately has such an insidious and damaging effect," she added.

The TikTok accounts involved with the spreading of bullying have now been deleted or made private, but screen recordings of the videos describing the actions of individuals of a particular race, sexual orientation, and religion, have been reposted across other social media platforms such as Instagram.

Police are investigating the reports and liaising with the school involved.

"These are clearly not matters that are acceptable or conducive to our sense of community, and any complaints will be investigated and acted on," said a Victoria Police spokesperson.

"We encourage members of the community, particularly those who may have been affected or victimized by such behavior, to come forward and report these matters to police."

The companies that operate TikTok in Australia were contacted for comment.

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