Netsafe has confirmed it received four complaints last week about the anonymous gossip website, chchgossipgirlxoxo.
Read more:
Content on the website included allegations of both physical and sexual assault, names of students and schools, under-age sex, pregnancy and bullying.
One post said a male student had sex with a 13-year-old female.
Students from Christchurch Girls’ High, Marian College, St Bede’s College, Shirley Boys’ High, Rangi Ruru, Villa Maria, Christchurch Boys’ High and Hagley College were mentioned on, chchgossipgirlxoxo.
Said CGHS principal Christine O’Neill: “The school was recently made aware of the Gossip Girls’ website and worked pro-actively with Netsafe in regards to it. We are unaware who the authors of the site are as it is anonymous.”
Netsafe chief executive Martin Cocker said it advised the website’s development platform, Wix.com to contact the creator of chchgossipgirlxoxo to remove the harmful content, which breached the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015.
“For this process, we generally allow a couple of days. In this case, it looks like this has happened,” Mr Cocker said.
The site was still active on Friday, but removed by Tuesday.
It comes after another page on social media platform Instagram, rolly_colly_scraps, featured three videos of Rolleston College students fighting.
It had 150 followers before it was deleted on Tuesday. The videos included a male student being punched in the face and another of two female students pulling at each other’s hair.
Yesterday, a video showing a fight between young teenagers in the Countdown car park on Moorhouse Ave circulated on Facebook.
It showed a teenage boy being punched to the ground and then kicked and punched while on the ground.
The website, chchgossipgirlxoxo, which made its first post on October 7, mirrored popular television series Gossip Girl, where people send anonymous tips of ‘gossip’ which are then posted online.
“Welcome to the new and improved Christchurch Gossip Girl. This is made for Christchurch secondary school kids, this is where you can find out scandals and big news!” said the website.
One post named a student claiming he had sexually assaulted someone, while saying the student was like R. Kelly, an American R&B singer who is currently facing more than 15 charges of sexual assault, abuse of a minor and making indecent images of minors.
Another post named a female student, saying there were “rumours” she was pregnant.
The website gave users the option to ‘love’ a post, write a comment and see how many people had viewed each post.
In 2017, a group of year 12 St Margaret’s College students set up several social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, assisted by teachers, as part of a health project about cyber safety and cyber citizenship.
But the project backfired when younger students began sending messages to the accounts, called Merivale Gossip Girl unaware the accounts were operated and controlled by teachers.
The school received a backlash from both parents and Netsafe, as the younger students reported feeling tricked by the fake profiles.
Mr Cocker said four complaints were made by members of the public last week about chchgossipgirlxoxo.
“Netsafe can’t define something as an offence under the Act. It can only be defined as an offence by the court. We can determine that it would likely be one, and then advise people accordingly. We advised them (Wix.com) that it is the right thing to do (remove harmful content),” he said.
“We know for certain these sites can be incredibly damaging and there are volumes of research available about online bullying and its immediate impact and how it harms someone.
“It can cause young people to disengage from school, groups and society. Often in some cases depending on the person, it could lead to self-harm.
“The impact of this type of bullying can affect people later in life right, through to middle-age.
“It is serious, people think these types of website are fun and they can be fun, but often they can quickly spiral into abuse and bullying.”
Rangi Ruru principal Sandra Hastie declined to comment.
Marian College principal Mary-Lou Davidson, CBHS principal Nic Hill and SBHS senior staff said they weren’t aware of the website.
Hagley College, St Bede’s and Villa Maria did not respond.
