The Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission has filed a complaint with Police and the Online Safety Commission to investigate the death of a social media influencer that was allegedly driven to commit suicide after the person was subjected to bullying and relentless harassment on a public chat forum Facebook page.

The Commission is calling for collective action from relevant stakeholders to address cyberbullying, harassment and hate-speech on social media platforms in the wake of news that a member of the LGBTI community and a social media influencer was allegedly driven to suicide because of online bullying.

“Cyberbullying violates a number of human rights including right to life, right to privacy and right to live with dignity,” said Commission chairperson .
“It is alleged that the deceased was humiliated, threatened and abused on this popular public-chat forum by those commenting, some of who were anonymous account-holders.
“The Commission is concerned that those managing public-chat forums on social media are failing to moderate and control hate-comments on their pages.

“The culpability lies with the administrators of the public chat-forum Facebook pages and those commenting and they must face the full brunt of the law.
“Freedom of speech carries “responsibility” and has limitations. Section 17 (3)(b) (i) of the Constitution of the Republic of Fiji states that a law may limit, or may authorize the limitation of free speech to protect reputation, privacy, dignity, rights or freedoms of other persons, including— the right to be free from hate speech, whether directed against individuals or groups. The Social media users must respect this.
“Section 26 (3) (a) of the Constitution further states that a person must not be unfairly discriminated against, directly or indirectly on the grounds of his or her actual or supposed personal characteristics or circumstances, including gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.”