Have you had any experience where you’ve heard an abusive and hateful message toward you in a group chat? These are called cyberbullying. Cyberbullies would harass or embrass their targets repeatedly, by attacking them psychologically or by spreading false information about them. Victims of cyberbullying rarely receive help from others, because it is hard to recognize online abuse or sometimes because they simply do not know how they can reach out for help.

Samsung Electronics, the Korean Ministry of Education, and the Blue Tree Foundation, an NGO dedicated to preventing school violence, joined hands to launch the Blue Elephant initiative with hopes to bring more young people forward and encourage them to talk about their experience. Find out how ‘Blue Elephant’ protects the youth of Korea.

“Blue Elephant” is a unique name. What was the inspiration behind it?

The color blue symbolizes tranquility and stability of Samsung and the Blue Tree Foundation. Elephants are herd animals that protect each other from external threats. So Blue Elephant is a friend and guardian that protects our teenagers from violence in what we call the “cyber jungle”.

What activities does Blue Elephant do to prevent cyberbullying?

Blue Elephant works to raise awareness on the dangers of cyberbullying and to establish pre-emptive system and policies to prevent it from happening. The initiative provides educational programs on cyber violence, offers psychological counseling for the victims, and holds campaigns and forums aiming to eradicate cyberbullying from society. Blue Elephant has also been building web and mobile platforms to rally more people to participate in the prevention effort, while also performing academic research to analyze juvenile cyber violence and measures to address this. Over the next decade, Blue Elephant initiative seeks to expand its reach across all educational establishments across the country and provide relevant education to 3 million students.

What are some efforts to prevent cyberbullying outside of Korea?

In addition to the Blue Elephant activities in Korea, Samsung Electronics also supports various educational programs to prevent cyber violence and create a safer digital environment for web users around the world. E-Junior in France, Internet Matters in the UK, and Online Safety Program in Germany are to name a few. We hope that society’s interest combined with our efforts at Samsung to prevent violence can create a safe environment for the youth to thrive in the fast-changing cyber world.