Ms Sabine Frank:

We will clarify the position on YouTube for education and come back to the committee on it. Reference was made to the deputise project. We specifically partner organisations which have history in certain subjects. In Germany, we partner with an organisation which strongly fights against racism and Nazi content. It is very knowledgeable about this area and it is a great partner for us to work on, specifically flagging such content. These are the types of partners we are looking for and we would be happy to engage with more local partners. If the committee could point us to any well-known NGOs here it would be of great help for us as well.

Senator Brennan commented on where bullying starts and what we can do about it. I fully agree that bullying is an online phenomenon as well as an offline one. In most cases it actually starts offline. We know from statistics that in most online cases which we know of, the origin is from an offline encounter. Many of these children know each other from schools and it simply extends to the online world. We need to fight the idea of not being trustworthy and respectful to others. I cannot really judge whether the information should go across school systems. That is more a decision the committee and others must make. However, it is important for schools to work precisely with students on reputational issues. Perhaps the Chairman will allow me to give another example. We have developed a campaign called 361 Degree Tolerance. It is a YouTube channel we have created with several partners in Germany. We asked students and schools to give us video material and to set out how they define reputation and how to fight anti-respectful behaviour. This is the third time we have done the exercise and on the first two occasions we received 700 videos from youngsters between 13 and 25 years. This is a great way for them to engage and show us how they see respectful behaviour. We know that if people take action they are more likely to flag content if they see someone being bullied online. This is where we must get to. People must take action not only if they or their families are attacked but if they see people being attacked in the offline and online worlds. This is where we want to help.