On school visits and author interviews, the question I get asked most is “what inspired you to write Seven Days”. And I always answer in the same way: “because of what I witnessed in schools. Because I saw what it was like for both the bully and the victim and I needed to tell their stories”.

I often use the example of a year nine student who I worked with. I had been trying to speak with her for weeks and seemed to be getting further away from an answer. Incidents had been happening at school that she had either incited or inflamed. It started with nasty comments said to a small number of girls, then there was the freezing out from groups and conversations. Finally, vicious rumours had been spread, escalating rapidly to stuff being posted on Snapchat and Facebook. Parents were involved. It was getting pretty nasty.

“It’s just banter,” she said, stony faced – daring me to challenge her.

Banter. A word so many of you will be familiar with. A word that still makes my stomach twist whenever I hear it. It’s like kicking someone hard in the groin and then claiming to be “messing around” with them. I got irritated. This girl was clever. She knew better than this.

I talked to her about the consequences of her actions, of the emotional damage bullying can cause, the fact that “banter” was not an excuse for ongoing verbal assaults and veiled threats. I threw everything at her, but she resisted me. She looked uninterested, bored. She saw her targets as weak and “pathetic” for grassing her up. She saw herself as the wronged person, as someone who just “said it as it was”. As far as she was concerned, her opinion mattered and she didn’t seem to care whether her attacks were justified or fair. I was hitting every brick wall she put up for me.

Then one day she started talking. Not about the bullying, but about other stuff in her life. She seemed more tired, more vulnerable somehow. She asked me how my poorly son was. She opened up a little about her own siblings. As she talked, it was like a valve opening – she told me about her sickly mum, her absent dad, her brother who could be violent sometimes.

I pictured her like a coke can that had been shaken so many times, she was bound to burst open. Anger and frustration has to go somewhere. Often we bottle it up, allowing the negativity to seep further inside us, becoming quieter, more fearful. But some of us get angry – we attack, we hurt, we strike out. I could see that my year nine girl was just as much a victim as those that she had been taunting. Having no way to cope with the sheer amount of rubbish going on her own life, she had chosen to target someone else. It was a good distraction technique. It stopped her focusing on her own problems for a while. It made her feel better, more in control, albeit if it was for only short period

In bullying cases, there are no clear cut answers. Bullies don’t bully because they are nasty, unfeeling humans; just as their targets are not pathetic, soft-centred cowards. We still need to break down the stigma that this word carries and address openly why someone would chose to target another.

I wrote Seven Days with this in mind, exploring some of the reasons why a teenager might chose to bully and detailing some of the pressures she was under.

This leads to the second most common question I get asked on visits or interviews, which is “were you ever bullied?”

And the answer is yes, I was. I was bullied quite badly and was too fearful to report it, too ashamed to speak about my experiences. Instead I found solace in books such as Carrie by Stephen King, Blubber by Judy Blume and William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies – they helped me escape into another “victim’s world”, to be with someone who understood what I was going through. Books helped me feel less isolated, less victimised. In these books, I was moved by the tortured and humiliated victims, by their emotional journeys.

 

In writing Seven Days I wanted to continue this important journey, the exploration of bullying and the impact it has on its target, especially the emotional pain. But I also wanted to question what the bully might be going through, to understand their worlds too, for this is an area that perhaps hasn’t been explored as much.

Bullying is never pleasant. It’s always harmful and very often there is a forgotten victim – the bully themselves.

In 2014, a total of 262 girls and boys were admitted to Priory Group centres
The organisation is the country’s largest for mental health hospitals

Sexting and online bullying are fuelling a surge of anxiety disorders in teenagers, experts warn.

The problem is particularly severe for girls who fall victim to cruel remarks about their appearance and weight.

Figures from the Priory Group, the country’s largest organisation for mental health hospitals and clinics, show admissions for anxiety in teenagers has risen by 50 per cent in only four years.

In 2014 a total of 262 girls and boys aged 12 to 17 were admitted to one of its centres with severe depression or anxiety, up from 178 in 2010.

But this is almost certainly an underestimate because there are hundreds of others on waiting lists who have been referred by GPs but not yet seen by a specialist.

Separate figures from the Office for National Statistics show that a fifth of teenagers and young adults suffered some degree of depression and anxiety last year, a higher proportion than in other generations.

Psychiatrists blame sexting, in which youngsters text explicit photos of themselves to friends who then comment. They say some see it as a ‘form of courtship’ and the chance to be noticed by the opposite sex.

But the photos can provoke extremely unkind comments, particularly if unflattering images of someone are sent round behind their backs.

They are also worried about online bullying on websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Ask.fm – often by anonymous ‘trolls’ they have never met.

In 2012 and 2013 the Ask.fm website was directly blamed for the deaths of four teenagers in England and Ireland. These included Hannah Smith, who hanged herself aged 14 after months of taunting by anonymous users over her weight, the death of an uncle and her self-harming.

Hannah, from Lutterworth, Leicestershire, received messages telling her she was an ‘ugly ******’ and a ‘fat s***’. Less than a fortnight before her body was found in 2013, she had begged her tormentors to stop.

Ask.fm encourages its 60million users worldwide to ask a question which is then answered by everyone else, anonymously. Teens often post pictures of themselves and these can provoke spiteful comments.

MPs and medical professionals want schools to teach children about the tragic consequences of sexting and online bullying.

Dr Natasha Bijlani, consultant psychiatrist at the Priory Hospital Roehampton, South-West London, said: ‘This relatively new phenomenon of sexting – where explicit texts and pictures are sent between smartphone devices – seems to have become endemic, and we are not sure of the long-term consequences.

‘However, coupled with online bullying, we can expect an increasing number of people suffering issues of trust, shame, and self-loathing, sometimes manifesting itself in self-harming.’

She said sexting was now seen as the ‘new courtship’ but often had ‘nightmare consequences’.

‘The long-term effects of bullying can be prolonged and pervasive,’ she added. ‘Much more focus needs to be given to how best to educate young people about the risks of sending compromising images, and communicating with unknown others online, and how to cope with bullying via devices at school.

‘Episodes in childhood are often repressed and only later in life do these issues surface in the form of depression, stress and anxiety and other serious psychological conditions.’

Jenny Edwards, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation charity, said: ‘There is a need for schools to lead on promoting emotional wellbeing. We know that over half of adults with serious mental health problems were first diagnosed when children.

‘But we need to recognise that while new technology may increase stress in some circumstances, it can also reduce it by creating online support and increasing access to treatment.’

Yet the true extent of the problem is likely to be even worse as more and more children start engaging online from a younger age.

Our research reveals that the majority of parents believe that cyber-bullying is not a problem until children reach at least 10 and so don’t plan to address it until then, but this perception is clearly misguided. The problem is that many parents assume that cyber-bullying only becomes a problem when children start using social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

However, the reality is that children as young as five are in fact using platforms where they can receive messages and interact with others, such as shared school platforms, social games, and even photo-sharing sites such as Instagram.

With the dangers clearly growing, it’s imperative that parents talk openly about the risks with their children as soon as they start interacting online – which may be younger than they think. This will ensure that the issue is addressed before it becomes a problem and will help to enable parents, and children, to stay one step ahead of the cyber-bullies and other online dangers.

Here’s our list of top tips for keeping your children safe online.

1. 1. Talk to them about the potential dangers.
   2. Encourage them to talk to you about their online experience and, in particular, anything that makes them feel uncomfortable or threatened.
   3. Set clear ground-rules about what they can and can’t do online and explain why you have put them in place. You should review these as your child gets older.
   4. Use parental control software to establish the framework for what’s acceptable – how much time (and when) they can spend online, what content should be blocked, what types of activity should be blocked (chat rooms, forums, etc.). Parental control filters can be configured for different computer profiles, allowing you to customise the filters for different children.

1. Protect computers using Internet security software.
2. Don’t forget their smartphone – these are sophisticated computers, not just phones. Most smartphones come with parental controls and security software providers may offer apps to filter out inappropriate content, senders of nuisance SMS messages, etc.

 

Facts About Bullying

• Both girls and boys can be bullies.
• Bullies target children who cry, get mad, or easily give in to them.
• There are 3 types of bullying.
  • Physical—hitting, kicking, pushing, choking, punching
  • Verbal—threatening, taunting, teasing, hate speech
  • Social—excluding victims from activities or starting rumors about them

Bullying Happens:

• At school—in the halls, at lunch, or in the bathroom, when teachers are not there to see what is going on.
• When adults are not watching—going to and from school, on the playground, or in the neighborhood.
• Through e-mail or instant messaging—rumors are spread or nasty notes are sent.

Bullying is Different from Fighting or Teasing:

• A bully has power over another child.
• Bullies try to control other children by scaring them.
• Being picked on over and over can make your child a victim.
• Bullying usually happens when other children are watching.

Talk With Your Child About Bullying

Even if you don’t think your child is bullied, a bully, or a bystander, you will be helping to protect your child just by asking these questions:

• “How are things going at school?”
• “What do you think of the other kids in your class?”
• “Does anyone get picked on or bullied?”

When your child is bullied, talk with your child about how to stay safe. Bullies always pick on smaller or weaker children. If there is a fight, and the bully “wins,” this will only make matters worse for your child.

Help your child learn how to respond

Let’s talk about what you can do and say if this happens again.

Teach your child how to:

• Look the bully in the eye.
• Stand tall and stay calm in a difficult situation.
• Walk away.

Teach your child how to say in a firm voice:

• “I don’t like what you are doing.”
• “Please do NOT talk to me like that.”
•  “Why would you say that?”

Just telling your child to do and say these things is not enough. For many children, these skills do not come naturally. It is like learning a new language—lots of practice is needed. Practice so that, in the heat of the moment, these skills will come to your child naturally.

Teach your child when and how to ask for help. Your child should not be afraid to ask an adult for help when bullying happens. Since some children are embarrassed about being bullied, parents need to let their children know that being bullied is not their fault.

Encourage your child to make friends with other children. There are many adult-supervised groups, in and out of school, that your child can join. Invite your child’s friends over to your home. Children who are loners are more likely to get picked on.

Support activities that interest your child. By participating in activities such as team sports, music groups, or social clubs, your child will develop new abilities and social skills. When children feel good about how they relate to others, they are less likely to be picked on.

Alert school officials to the problems and work with them on solutions.

• Since bullying often occurs outside the classroom, talk with the principal, guidance counselor, or playground monitors, as well as your child’s teachers. When school officials know about bullying, they can help stop it.
• Write down and report all bullying to your child’s school. By knowing when and where the bullying occurs, you and your child can better plan what to do if it happens again.
• Some children who are bullied will fear going to school, have difficulty paying attention at school, or develop symptoms like headaches or stomach pains.

When Your Child is the Bully

If you know that your child is bullying others, take it very seriously. Now is the time when you can change your child’s behavior.

In the long run, bullies continue to have problems. These problems often get worse. If the bullying behavior is allowed to continue, then when these children become adults, they are much less successful in their work and family lives and may even get in trouble with the law.

Set firm and consistent limits on your child’s aggressive behavior. Be sure your child knows that bullying is never OK.

Be a positive role model. Children need to develop new and constructive strategies for getting what they want.

Show children that they can get what they want without teasing, threatening, or hurting someone. All children can learn to treat others with respect.

Use effective, nonphysical discipline, such as loss of privileges. When your child needs discipline, explain why the behavior was wrong and how your child can change it.

Help your child understand how bullying hurts other children. Give real examples of the good and bad results of your child’s actions.

Develop practical solutions with others. Together with the school principal, teachers, counselors, and parents of the children your child has bullied, find positive ways to stop the bullying.

 

LESS than three months after its CEO admitted to failing users on abuse, Twitter launched a new plan to end the harassment that has pervaded the social network.

It only took about nine years.

The crackdown on abuse comes in the form of a new POLICY to ban tweets that contain PERSONALthreats or promote violence. Twitter also is testing a tool to filter out tweets that seem likely to contain bullying content. User accounts caught violating the new terms will be suspended for a period of time, the company said.

In February, a leaked memo from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo provided the first indication changes were afoot. Costolo wrote he was “embarrassed” and “ashamed” of the company’s failure to deal with the persistent harassment of its 284 million users.

Yet Twitter’s new policy could lead to its own backlash. Now that Twitter has pledged to boot abusers, expect everyone to start holding the network more ACCOUNTABLE for unpopular Tweets. Anything that slips through the cracks of its new filtering system is fair game for critics.

And then there’s the question of what constitutes a violation. What about a terrorist sympathizer who Tweets, “Death to America”? I personally want the lurking lunatics to remain clearly visible (my guess is that intelligence-gathering officials are likely to want these accounts to remain live as well).

Balancing the network’s purpose as a tool for unvarnished dialogue and users’ rights to remain free from DIRECT abuse is clearly something that Twitter has given a lot of thought.

Whether in Tahrir Square or in our own back yards, used for debating the most contested of public concerns or for sharing the most personal of revelations, we want Twitter to continue to be a place where the expression of diverse viewpoints is encouraged and aired,” Twitter General Counsel Vijaya Gadde wrote in an Op-Ed last week.

But users are sick of being battered. Twitter has become the perfect platform for the dregs of society to unleash their inner beasts in 140 characters. Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling learned that earlier this year when his DAUGHTER was deluged with a slew of heinous Tweets. His public shaming of her har­assers followed the high-profile Twitter exit of pop star Iggy Azalea and others.

It’s likely the bean counters at Twitter determined the ugliness was so widespread that it would drive away enough users to affect the bottom line. But my bet is that a forced exit for so many trolls isn’t exactly going to shore up the balance sheet either. Finally, Twitter is doing something genuinely nice for its users.

Online social networking sites, blogs and smart phones enable bullies to extend their impact on victims, allowing for around-the-clock harassment that can be public or indelible, making action all the more difficult for parents and school officials.

Research shows that 42 percent of children have been bullied online, and of this group of victims, one in four has experienced this kind of bullying more than once. It is important for children, parents, teachers and community leaders to discuss what can be done to stop this growing epidemic. Below are a few guidelines and suggestions to help parents not only protect their children from being bullied, but also recognize if your child may be the bully.

Tips for Parents

• Monitor your child’s use of technology. It’s important for all parents to be aware of how children are using today’s technology, whether children text or use the Web. Monitor their reactions and emotions when they are online. SIGN UP for the same platforms that your children use, and stay up to date with their online profiles. Look for signs of bullying, depression or other concerning issues. As a parent, your presence is powerful, and you may be able to prevent bullies from harming your child.

• Report bullying behaviors to appropriate officials. Resist confronting the bully or the bully’s parents. Instead, report any unlawful or harassing behaviors to law enforcement. If incidents happen at school, report them to school officials. If your child receives cruel texts, don’t respond. Instead, make copies of them. This evidence may be useful to report to school officials or law enforcement. Set up online filters to block the bully’s messages on social media.

• Educate kids about bullying at an early age. Teach them what bullying means, what to expect as they get older, and ask them to promise to talk to you if someone ever makes them feel bad about themselves. Additionally, talk to your kids about social pressures that could prompt them to bully others, and teach them why bullying is wrong. Look for signs of anxiety, depression or suicidal thoughts. Caring conversations with your children can impact their emotional health.

•Ask for help. If the torment of bullies becomes too much, contact a mental health professional for help. Reporting the first signs of bullying can decrease its long-term effects.

Even if your child isn’t being bullied, it is still important to talk about the topic with your child from an early age. By having these conversations early in life, you may be able to prevent the negative emotional impact bullying could have on your children in the future.

If your child needs professional help to heal from the emotional scars of bullying, contact a mental health professional. Centerstone’s experts are available 24 hours a day, connecting families to the services they need. If you or a loved one needs immediate assistance, please contact us at 800-832-5442.

Statistics show boys and girls as young as 10-years-old are sexting.

“In the middle school we will get comments from 6th graders say things like ‘my boyfriend is pressuring me for sex, how do I know he really likes me?,” said Stacey Kiser, the Rape Crisis Educator at Coastal Horizon Center.

However, it’s not just boys sending pictures to girls, statistics show both genders are sexting at the same rate.

Kiser explained kids usually start by sending suggestive text messages back and forth, but with the influence of the internet, those messages sometimes progress into kids sending nude photos to each other.

“They are on Facebook,  they are on twitter, and people are posting sexy pictures, and then they are getting requests for sex from their friends so it’s just really all around us.” Kiser explained. “Our society has become really sexualized.”

Smart phone app’s like Kik, Snapchat and Tinder all give their users access to rate, post and send pictures back and forth. According Crosswalk.com, those are just a few of the app’s that are considered some of the most dangerous apps for kids.

So Tammy Brown, a mother of five, has taken matters into her own hands.

“My phone provider has a great program set up that if my child makes a phone call after a certain hour, or sends picture messages or texts it sends me an email every day calculating what happened,” explained Brown.

So app’s like Yik Yak, Snapchat, Vine, and even just the good ole fashion text, Brown keeps a close eye.

“Don’t just give them free range of something, and if you see something strange or different, act upon it,” she said.

Kiser also advised all parents to have “the talk” with their kids the day they get a cell phone.

“The great thing is you would have already set those rules, and even if the kid is like ‘What? Who is going to send me a picture of themselves?’ They’ve got that in their head,” she said. “Then as they get older you can really say to them in the car one day to school ‘I watched this news article about sexing, and I know we have talked about that before, but as you’ve gotten older do you know your friends are doing this?’ So I think the time to talk to them is when they get a cell phone.”

If you have questions on how to prevent your child from sexting, Coastal Horizons Center and New Hanover County Schools Family Education are teaming up to have “the talk” with parents.

The program, entitled “The Birds, The Bees, and Sexting: Update,” invites parents and caretakers of children under 18 to come and discover how to overcome challenges surrounding the discussion of sexuality.

Parents will also learn tools to prevent sexual abuse, and learn what information children need to know, and when they need to know it.

The discussion starts Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. at Roland Grise Middle School.

Facebook Inc’s (NASDAQ:FB) popular photo sharing app Instagram, which was acquired by the social-media giant three years ago, has updated its guidelines for users on Thursday. The new rules specifically disallow nudity and harassment in uploaded pictures.

Since its acquisition in 2012 by Facebook for $1 billion, Instagram’s user base has grown from 30 million to 300 million. But so have its problems – the platform had been facing issues such as cyber bullying. Many parents from various areas in the US had been complaining that their children’s photos are being uploaded with mean captions and offensive comments.

The ap was having trouble handling nudity in uploaded content. There had been hundreds of complaints regarding abuse of such content, to which Instagram has responded quite appropriately in its revised rules, which stated: “We have zero tolerance when it comes to sharing sexual content involving minors or threatening to post intimate images of others.” The new guidelines have strictly disallowed close ups and full shots of buttocks.

However, the new community guidelines have maintained a fine line between art and pornography. The platform specifically mentions that it does allow “photos of post-masectomy scarring and women actively breastfeeding” apart from nudity in an artistic or harmless form of expression such as in sculptures and paintings. This is an improvement on the old guidelines, which debarred all pictures including any type of nudity, which had offended many users. Users such as Canadian woman named Heather Bays had her account deactivated after Instagram removed a photo that showed her breastfeeding her 20-month-old daughter. Even though her account was reactivated later, this activity has been offending to Ms. Bays. The platform took down a lot of pictures that included explicit portrayal of pubic hair and nipples.

Instagram has changed the overall tone of its new guidelines, which is reflected by the reduction in the number of instances the word “please” is used. In fact, the revised guidelines have a rather commanding tone, as they go on to say: “Overstepping these boundaries may result in a disabled account.”

So Why Did Instagram Do This?

With the fast-paced growth Instagram achieved in a rather short time period, it developed serious issues with all the nude content being uploaded by users on a daily basis. Revenge porn – the online sharing of sexually explicit pictures without obtaining consent of the person in the picture – was becoming common. So was pornography, cyber bullying, and harassment. In 2013, the company was also questioned by the BBC on pictures of illegal drugs for sale being shared on the platform by users. Had the company not taken the step it did yesterday, it might as well have faced legal scrutiny.

Prior to this move, Instagram was facing critical responses by celebrities on its old guidelines. Last week, pop music icon Madonna criticized the platform for having “hypocritical” standards. She protested against its policy to allow pictures of buttocks but not of female breasts, by uploading a nude picture of her that censored her nipples.

To address these issues, the company did the right thing by fine-tuning its community guidelines. Instagram’s Director of Public Policy Nicky Janson said she aims to “create a standard that most people can live by.”

 

 

 

Thousands of businesses use social media to provide a platform to interact with children and young people and to allow children to communicate with each other. The issue of cyber-bullying has long been a concern for children, parents and the operators of these social media platforms.

On 24 March 2015, the Federal Parliament of Australia passed the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015 (the Act), with support from all major Australian political parties.

The Act seeks to enhance online safety for children through the establishment of a Children’s e-Safety Commissioner (Commissioner) and the implementation of a complaints system to remove cyber-bullying material targeted at Australian children from social media sites, such as Facebook. Failure to comply with the Act can result in significant fines.

CYBER-BULLYING PROTECTION FOR SOCIAL MEDIA AND BLOG SITES

Social media is entrenched in modern life. Companies rely on it to attract, advertise, retain and communicate with their clients and the world at large. At an individual level, it a primary method of communication between people of all ages and particularly between children and young people. Social media takes many forms: from ubiquitous applications like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, to “in game” social forums that are a regular part of online gaming, to simple chat rooms, blogs and even websites that allow people to communicate with each other in “comments” sections.

In ‘first of its kind’ legislation passed by the Australian Federal Government, the Enhancing Online Safety for Children Act 2015 requires all organisations that provide a platform for people to post communications on the internet to have specific child protection terms of use that prohibit cyber-bullying and provide a mechanism for complaints of cyber-bullying to be received and for offending material to be removed. The Act targets material targeted at a particular Australian child that would have the effect of seriously threatening, intimidating, harassing or humiliating that Australian Child (cyber-bullying material).

The Act establishes the office of a Children’s e-safety Commissioner, to administer a complaints system monitor and require organisations to remove social media posts consisting of cyber-bullying material, and can seek injunctions and levy fines.

The Act applies to any social media service – which is any electronic service with a primary purpose of enabling social interaction between 2 or more end-users, where end-users post material under the service.

WHAT ARE THE COMMISSIONER’S FUNCTIONS?

The Commissioner is an independent statutory office within the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). Alastair MacGibbon has been announced as Australia’s first Commissioner. Mr MacGibbon was the founder of the Australian Federal Police’s High Tech Crime Centre.

The Commissioner’s primary role is to administer a complaints system for cyber-bullying material targeted at Australian children. In conjunction with this, it also oversees the compliance of social media services with the Act’s basic online safety requirements (see below for more detail).

The Commissioner is also responsible for promoting online safety for children; coordinating activities of federal government departments, authorities and agencies in this regard; and reporting to the Minister for Communications (Minister) on children’s online safety issues.

WHAT ARE THE BASIC ONLINE SAFETY REQUIREMENTS?

To comply with the Act’s basic online safety requirements, a social media service must:

• include a provision in its terms of use that prohibits end-users from posting cyber-bullying material on the service, or an equivalent provision;
• have a complaints scheme under which end-users of the service can request the removal of cyber-bullying material that breaches the service’s terms of use;
• designate an employee or agent as the service’s contact person for the purposes of the Act, which must also be notified to the Commissioner.

There is an expectation in the Act that each social media service will comply with the basic online safety requirements. While the Commissioner can publish a statement of non-compliance on its website, non-compliance is not otherwise enforceable.

HOW DOES THE COMPLAINTS SYSTEM WORK?

A complaint can be made by or on behalf of an Australian child if the complainant believes cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child is accessible or delivered to one or more of the end-users using a social media service.

As above, “cyber-bullying material targeted at an Australian child” is material that an ordinary reasonable person would conclude that was likely intended to have the effect of seriously threatening, seriously intimidating, seriously harassing or seriously humiliating a particular Australian child, regardless of whether the particular child accessed the material.

A complaint to the Commissioner can only be made if a complaint has already been made to the relevant service, and evidence of that complaint must be provided to the Commissioner. The Commissioner will only proceed in cases where the service has not removed the offending material within 48 hours of receiving the original complaint.

The Commissioner has powers to investigate each complaint and conduct the investigation as it sees fit. Following investigation, the Commissioner can:

• request a tier 1 social media service to remove the material; or
• issue a notice to a tier 2 social media service to remove the material; and/or
• issue a notice to an end-user who posted the material to remove it, refrain from posting further cyber-bullying material and give an apology.

The difference between tier 1 and tier 2 is described further below.

If a tier 2 service or end-user who receives a notice fails to remove the relevant material within 48 hours, the Commissioner can take enforcement action. For a tier 2 service, that can include a fine of up to $17,000, an enforceable undertaking or an injunction. The Commissioner can also issue a formal warning and publish a statement of non-compliance on its website.