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Reword Celebrates a Year of Change
Coinciding with National Day of Action against Bullying, today marks one year since the release of the innovative online tool Reword.
Reword has helped protect thousands of young Australians from becoming victims of online bullying, and along the way has achieved:
- over 900,000 installations;
- been introduced to over 250 schools across Australia; and
- helped 87 per cent of young people using the tool rephrase their sentences.
Created by communications agency Leo Burnett Melbourne, headspace partnered with the ground-breaking technology project to provide clinical guidance and support in order to curb the more than 463,000, instances of cyberbullying amongst young Australians every year
headspace CEO Jason Trethowan, said Reword is an invaluable tool that helps young people rethink the impact their words have on other people.
“Reword’s success comes from asking young people to stop and think before acting,” Mr Trethowan said. “This can ultimately have a massive impact on the social and emotional well-being of young people.”
headspace Head of Clinical Practice Vikki Ryall said throughout the last 12 months, there had been a hugely positive response to Reword.
“We’ve seen how it is possible to impact and stop negative online behaviour in real time,”
Reword identifies cruel or intimidating language in real time, prompting users to reconsider their potentially hurtful messages or social media posts before hitting send.
Similar to grammar check functionality, a red line appears through inflammatory words to highlight bullying behaviour, encouraging online users to reconsider their choice of words.
Reword also enables and encourages young people to collaborate and co-author the ‘new’ bullying terms as part of the tool’s lexicon, keeping it accurate and up-to-date.
Currently the tool is only available as a Google Chrome extension and to truly help end online bullying, Reword aims to expand to mobile and across all platforms where people use social media.
96 per cent of young Australians access social media on their smartphones, so building a mobile app will ensure Reword can make an even bigger impact and continue to teach young people how to self-regulate their behaviour.
If you would like to support Reword in creating a mobile app, you can donate to the crowdfunding campaign here: https://igg.me/at/Reword
About Reword
- Reword is the first technology of its kind in Australia
- Since its launch in March 2016, Reword has had over 900,000 installs
- Reword has been introduced to over 250 schools across Australia
- Reword is a simple JavaScript tool that uses a custom lexicon database to identify strings of words that form millions of potential insult combinations
- In Australia, 72 per cent of Australian teens go online more than once a day, with 58 per cent accessing Facebook.
for further information:
Michael Bennett
headspace Media and Communications Manager
0413 025 385 or mbennett@headspace.org.au
If you or someone you know is struggling with cyberbullying, visit your local headspace centre or contact eheadspace on 1800 650 890 or chat online to our youth friendly mental health proffessionals at www.eheadspace.org.au.