Netsafe sheds light on COVID online harm

If the health and economic consequences of COVID weren’t bad enough, NZ’s online safety organisation reports a massive spike in unwanted digital communications and harm during and after lockdown.

According to a report by Netsafe released in December, COVID-19 also presented a challenging period in terms of online harm, with lockdowns creating “a perfect storm for people experiencing online harm like never before.”

Between 2 June and 7 July 2020, Netsafe, which was set up in 1998 as an independent, non-profit online safety organisation, carried out a nationally representative survey that asked New Zealand adults about their personal experiences of receiving unwanted digital communications in the previous 12 months and, if they had, when this had occurred in relation to the nationwide lockdown.

Unwanted digital communications, according to Netsafe, include “a range of online experience(s) mediated/facilitated by unsolicited electronic communication(s) that might or might not cause distress and/or harm to the person who deals with it (e.g. receiving spam, accidentally seeing inappropriate content, having rumours spread about oneself, being threatened online).

“As New Zealand’s lockdown got underway, the number of reports about harmful digital communications that Netsafe’s call centre received began to increase, with this trend continuing beyond the lockdown period,” Netsafe noted in a report factsheet. “Similar patterns were observed in the UK and Australia by organisations providing comparable support services.”

According to Netsafe’s research, the number of individuals suffering unwanted digital communications – encouraging people to hurt or kill themselves – increased. This is supported by data that illustrates how lockdowns impacted online harm and drove demand for self-help resources.

When the Lockdown period was compared to the same time in 2019, it was found scam reports were up 74 percent, sextortion 35 percent, romance scams 69 percent, intimidation 45 percent and the supply and distribution of objectionable material 66 percent.

Of participants who reported being a victim to at least one unwanted digital communication during the last year, 41 percent said it occurred during and/or after Lockdown.

Males (46 percent), those aged between 40 and 49 (59 percent) and New Zealand Europeans (44 percent), were most likely to have suffered online harm.

Around six in ten people with long-term disabilities who received unwanted digital communications, did so during and/or after the Lockdown period.

Some types of unwanted digital communications were more likely than others to be sent during and/or after lockdown. These involved trying to get the person receiving it to hurt themselves or share their intimate images or recordings without their permission.

Categories that attracted the largest numbers of online harm during and/or after Lockdown included encouraging people to hurt or kill themselves (65 percent), sharing intimate images or recordings without permission (65 percent), sharing violent or sexual content considered indecent or obscene (55 percent), and offensive comments about religious or political beliefs (54 percent).

Also above the 50 percent mark were physical threats and intimidation (53 percent), unwanted sexual advances (53 percent), and Stalking by monitoring a person’s online activity to intimidate or control them (52 percent).