What we can do about cyber-victimisation of disabled people

People look to social media for a sense of community, to share experiences, advice and friendship. But for some disabled people being online is the beginning of a spiral of hatred, abuse and worsening physical and mental health. With her project, Dr Zhraa Alhaboby is determined to increase awareness on cyber-victimisation as a public health concern and to make sure disabled people get the understanding and support from health professionals.

When disabled people open up about their lives online, they can suddenly become the subject to some of society’s ugliest prejudices. They have been told they are not genuinely disabled, they are just a drain on taxpayers, a waste of money. There have been reported cases in the UK of disabled people being told to kill themselves, that they should be allowed to starve to death.

Research suggests that abuse online leads to long-term implications for physical health among disabled people: such as increased levels of chronic pain, heart conditions made worse by stress, more regular epileptic seizures and problems with memory. Often, cyber-victimisation has been found to lead to PTSD, depression and anxiety - along with obsessive behaviours, the urgency to keep on checking social media sites, emails and phones to see if there are more abusive messages. Disabled people have left their jobs, ignored advice around medication, stopped exercising outside, and experienced ‘victim-blaming’. Some of them had to shut down their online accounts, lost contact with families and friends - including the use of online health forums - as a result of the hatred they have been exposed to.

Despite the severity of the problems caused, these kinds of hate incidents are under-reported to police, and less than 25% of victims have been found to have asked for support from a health professional. In general, disabled people point to a culture that is unwelcoming to chronic illness and disability; they feel they are an excluded group, where ‘disability’ is used as a convenient label without understanding the variety of conditions and experiences involved.

With Open Societal Challenges funding, Dr Zhraa Alhaboby, medical doctor and academic in health sciences at The Open University (OU), is leading a collaboration involving experts in cyber-crime, public health and disability studies from Aston University, Middlesex University, University of West London and Liverpool Hope University, as well as health and victim support organisations, and police forces via OU’s Centre for Policing Research and Learning.

Work includes understanding more about the experiences of healthcare professionals and their essential role in providing support, their stories of hearing from patients with long-term health conditions who have been the target of online abuse, what the impacts have been and the medical implications. The in-depth insights will be used to develop evidence-based training around cyber-victimisation and the most appropriate response and forms of support for the different sub-populations among disabled people who are most at risk.

Over time, the research aims to be a platform for encouraging best practice among healthcare professionals, NGOs and the police in delivering effective support; raising awareness of hate crimes involving disabled people and having an influence on public perceptions and attitudes; and helping to inform policy on social media, cyber-hate and disability discrimination.