Environment: Cyberbullying on Olio App

Olio is a App where people can share food and non food items to avoid it going to landfill, but despite the good stuff, there has been some cyberbullying, from mostly female users, in the Forum, in many cases it revolved round the rating system where people can be marked up or down. There were frequent arguments about reasons why people voted members down. Despite the huge benefits, the App may not be right for everyone.

And frequently courtesy goes out the window as some members resort to ‘name calling’ and petty arguing, and abuse.

Here are some of the guidelines in Olio, which some of the members were not following:

OLIO is all about sharing, community and the power of small actions. Here are some guidelines to keep our community the positive, friendly and productive place we want it to be:

• If you wouldn’t say something in real life, or wouldn’t want to see it printed in a newspaper with your name attached to it, then please don’t say it on OLIO
• Please be polite and respectful to other users. We have absolutely zero tolerance for any behaviour that is rude, offensive, inflammatory or incites hatred of any kind whatsoever

Like any online platform, it is only as good as its moderator, but for some newbies, the behaviour of some members does seem to put some people off using the app completely. Words do hurt.