Alert for the rise of ‘happy slapping’: beatings between minors viral on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook

The Public Ministry, in a recent report, highlights its concern about the ease of minors to develop this type of behavior and to “access and locate the victim, to impersonate profiles, due to the feeling of impunity that it provides to the author the commission of these acts through the internet; “being one of the forms of crime that has proliferated the most among young people in recent times.”

It refers, in a more general way, to cyberbullying or ‘cyberbullying’, but more specifically, to that variant of ‘happy slapping’: «Consisting of the increasingly frequent recording, by means of mobile phones, of attacks or humiliation , and then spread them through social networks in order to publicize their actions; and, of course, to shame the victim in front of those who view the images.

In fact, the Prosecutor’s Office has initiated investigations into people who, from TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, are carrying out the dissemination of “videos in which these types of degrading and discriminatory situations against various groups are published.”

One of these cases is the Facebook accounts in which a “campaign of harassment, both physical and virtual, has been organized against the group of unaccompanied foreign minors”, popularly known as menas. Are “especially vulnerable peopleboth by age and by their foreign origin and by their family separation, which determines that they are under the guardianship of the Public Administration,” emphasizes the tax report, to which ABC has had access. In fact, there are multiple users who have used this Meta platform as a »vehicle to share their animosity« towards these kids, openly expressing their »threats and absolute contempt towards them«. This crystallized into an attack on two of these young people, which was recorded and broadcast.

The organization Save the Children emphasizes that the root is in the “search for popularity and ‘likes’, which can lead many young people to commit a crime against their peers and even against their friends”: “The person who records this aggression, occasional or planned, believes that posting it on a digital platform can be entertaining or fun, to gain popularity on the Internet.

61% are friends or colleagues

The NGO, with data from 2019, emphasizes that “this violence affects the victim even more knowing that the aggression occurs between equals: in 61% of cases the aggressors are friends or colleagues.” And it establishes a direct connection between three different forms of violence, like a syllogism: bullying can lead to cyberbullying and, if the first is recorded and published on the internet, it is defined as ‘happy slapping’.” And, be careful, whoever records, even if he does not participate in the humiliation, is also guilty, for not preventing it and sharing the images.

Save the Children, five years ago, estimated that 76,643 young people in Spain suffered this practice during their childhood. Now, the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office says that the phenomenon is getting worse, especially if we take into account the proliferation of smartphones and a multitude of internet platforms, to which there is access despite being less.

According to the NGO study, the average age at which they suffered ‘happy slapping’ for the first time was 14 years old and, as happens in cyberbullying, the person who usually causes the violence is a partner or friend of the person. school. However, other responsible people also stand out, such as ex-partners or family members.

On the other hand, the Minors Section found virtual communities from which minors were being encouraged to self-harm and adopt harmful eating habits. Procedures were initiated in which it was found that in the messages published on the platforms, in addition, “they encourage each other to conquer challenges: for example, not exceeding the intake of certain amounts of calories, going most of the time without eating or lose a certain amount of weight before a date.