Father develops world’s first Facebook bullying alert system

Mr Clarke, 48, said he hoped his system – called ‘Know Diss’ – will keep children safe from online bullies.

He said: ‘Bullying has now gone from the playground into children’s homes.

‘Kids feel safe sending an abusive message in their rooms. It is pretty awful.

‘Cyber-bullying is very topical at the moment, particularly following some tragic cases where young people have taken their lives because of it.

‘It is hard to believe but this software is the only one in the world to search through text on social networking sites to protect children.

‘Know Diss is a very simple concept. It is also a partnership between parent and child because one cannot sign up without the other.’

Mr Clarke, a consultant in pain relief at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital in Gloucester, joined forces with friend Alan Saul to design and implement Know Diss, which costs £12 for a yearly subscription.

Safety: Mr Clarke hopes his computer program, ‘Know Diss’, will keep children safe from online bullies

Together they trawled through sites such as Urban Dictionary and watched the television series Skins to build their comprehensive database of insults.

Mr Clarke’s program continuously searches through all text on Facebook accounts signed up to the service, including messages, picture comments and posts.

It uses a database of several thousands of words to identify bullying trigger words in a number of spelling variations.

Parents and their children must both sign up by email for the software to work. The child is then sent a link for them to click in order to download Know Diss.

When a bullying phrase is detected, it is copied and immediately emailed to the child’s parent or ‘Facebook guardian’ who can decide whether further action is needed.

An example of a ‘bullying’ phrase which would be picked up by the system is: ‘Go slash your wrists, fat boy’ or words such as ‘gay boy’.

Protection: Facebook said there were a ‘number’ of different ways users could protect themselves from cyber bullies

When triggered, Know Diss automatically sends an email to the
parent which reads: ‘The following text has been picked up on your
child’s Facebook account.

‘Go and have a look at it.’ 

Mr
Clarke of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire – who used his own savings to
fund the project – added: ‘We have an absolutely huge database which
includes spelling variations to make Know Diss as accurate as possible.

‘Children
may initially feel it is being invasive but it does not give the parent
the power to read everything on their profile, just the words which are
picked up by the software.

‘It is very simple. The parent can
read through the text which the software finds ‘bullying’ and decide
whether it really is, or just a joke.

‘They can also keep track of
whether messages come in a series. Bullying tends to operate in a pack
mentality online, one person posts and is followed by 50 others.’ 

Research
shows up to half of children have experienced cyber-bullying in the
past 12 months – half of those do not report it to an adult.

Mr Clarke, whose has three sons and a daughter aged between ten and 20, has already showcased Know Diss at local schools.

And exclusive Cheltenham College is already considering using it to tackle cyber-bullying among pupils.

Alert: When a bullying phrase is detected, it is copied and immediately emailed to the child’s parent. (Picture posed by model)

When a child is registered with Know Diss, a small logo will appear
on their Facebook wall warning posters they are signed up to the
service.

Mr Clarke added: ‘With me being a doctor I am always interested in prevention rather than cure.

‘Having
the logo on the site may prevent young people from cyber bullying
someone if they know the message will be picked up by a parent or
teacher.’

Currently Know Diss only works on Facebook, but Mr
Clarke hopes to hold talks with Twitter and other social networking
sites in the future.

A spokesman for Facebook said there were a ‘number’ of different ways users could protect themselves from cyber bullies.

He said: ‘One person determined to harass another will unfortunately find ways to do so, both online and offline.

‘On Facebook there are a number of measures people can use to stay safe.

‘We encourage people to use our reporting tools, accessible across the entire site, use our blocking tools to prevent unwanted contact, and visit our Safety Centre, which contains tips for young people and parents about how to use Facebook as safely as possible.’ 

Parents and children can register their email addresses at www.knowdiss.co.uk. The programme also works via smartphones.

Last year, Facebook bowed to pressure and provided a new application which allows young users to report suspicious behaviour.

It was announced in July that all users of the social networking site were to be able to access an advice centre from their home page to report suspected grooming or inappropriate sexual behaviour. 

It was the result of Facebook and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre joining forces.

In the past, Facebook had been accused of arrogant complacency in the face of soaring complaints about online paedophiles.

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