Indigenous peoples’ experiences of cyberbullying: An assemblage approach

A recent nationally representative survey by the Australia Institute (2019) found that 39% of Australians have experienced some form of cyber-hatred and violence, and that it has cost the Australian economy an estimated $3.7billion. ReachOut Australia’s research has shown that up to 380,000 young people were cyberbullied in Australia in 2018. As a result, they describe cyberbullying as a significant public health concern. A recent major review of existing scholarly literature on cyberbullying found there was a significant gap in knowledge around Indigenous peoples’ experiences of online violence, both in Australia and globally (Carlson & Frazer 2018). The Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown suicide has increased twenty-one percent in Indigenous communities in the last decade and Indigenous youth rates are three times that of non-indigenous youth. A recent cluster of child suicides has revealed a correlation with cyberbullying and racism. Five Aboriginal girls, aged as young as 12, suicided in the first two weeks of 2019, in what has been widely described as a national crisis.