There is a report in the newspaper today of a successful High Court application on behalf of a young man who was the victim of an online harassment campaign on Instagram.
The student was being blackmailed with threats of compromising images being published online if he failed to pay up.
When he had first complained to Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, the account was allowed to stay up as it was not in breach of Instagram/Meta policy.
It is pathetic that a person in obliged to go to the High Court to apply for an injunction in a situation like this where the young man is being blackmailed with threats of sexualised images of him being sent to his friends and social media followers.
I had a similar experience recently when I complained to Facebook about a particular reel that was served up to me. It featured a pole dancer doing some things with a bottle which were never envisaged by the bottle makers.
Yet, when I reported it and complained that it was inappropriate the response that they had looked into the matter and it was not in breach of Meta/Facebook policy.
Here’s the Irish Times report on this successful injunction application.