How Filipino Youth Identify and Act on Social Media Bullying and Harassment

How Filipino Youth Identify and Act on Bullying
and Harassment on Social Media

Project Investigators

Cheryll Ruth Soriano, PhD
Jason Vincent Cabañes, PhD
Jan Michael Bernadas, PhD
Maria Caridad Tarroja, PhD
Kimberly Kaye Mata, MS, RPm, RPsy

About the Project and the Report

Young people worldwide are increasingly seeing social media as a favored form of communication as they engage in a range of interactions–from keeping track of friends and expanding social circles, to expressing and creating their identities. Despite its important social and developmental uses, media and scholarly reports have raised concerns on the instances of bullying and harassment on social media, especially for the youth.

This study, How Filipino Youth Identify and Act on Bullying and Harassment on Social Media, approached the question of bullying and harassment on social media with the premise that these are communicative and socially constructed. It drew from online in-depth interviews with 152 Filipino youth aged 15-24 from four sites across the country: Manila (for National Capital Region), Batangas (for Balance Luzon), Negros Occidental (for Visayas), and Misamis Occidental (for Mindanao) to understand and spotlight what young Filipinos consider as constitutive of bullying and harassment on social media, and how they are impacted by and act on them.

The Report offers data-driven recommendations for platforms, schools, guardians, and the youth in terms of how social media bullying and harassment can be prevented and its impact for victims mitigated.

It includes multimedia materials (in Tagalog, Bisaya, and Hiligaynon) produced for the youth, guardians, and the schools.

The Report should be of interest to a wide audience: the youth, youth organizers, guardians, teachers and guidance counselors, platform companies, technology designers, as well as government agencies and development organizations involved in projects concerning the youth and digital well-being.

The project is administratively supported by DLSU’s Social Development Research Center.

The project is funded under Facebook’s Content Policy Research grant.