How WhatsApp group chats fuel online bullying among South African teens

Digital group chats, which were once seen as innocent spaces for school conversations and sharing memes, are now evolving into hotspots for organised online harassment among South African teenagers.

Experts caution that the combination of WhatsApp-driven echo chambers, zero-rated data bundles, and inadequate moderation on platforms is fostering a dangerous "pack mentality," transforming typical peer conflicts into widespread digital aggression.

Rorke Wilson, an associate at The Digital Law Company, says these online mobs form quickly and naturally inside high-school ecosystems.

“When we get these digital mobs, when it happens in high schools, it sort of just generates organically in the same way that teenagers can be horrible to each other,” he said.

Wilson says that while much of this behaviour is child-on-child bullying, some cases involve adults exploiting teens online.

He referenced one of the world’s most high-profile cyberbullying cases, that of Canadian teenager Amanda Todd, to illustrate how unregulated platforms can allow harm to escalate.

In 2012, Amanda Michelle Todd, born in 1996, became one of the most widely known victims of long-term online harassment after years of being targeted and exploited on social platforms.

According to Canadian police reports and extensive media coverage, Todd had been manipulated by an online offender who blackmailed her and spread images of her without her consent.

The harassment continued across multiple platforms and school environments, leading to repeated bullying and physical intimidation from peers.

A month before her death in 2012, she posted a YouTube video using handwritten flashcards to explain the pressure, threats, and bullying she had endured.

By 2025, the original upload had reached more than 15 million views, while mirrored versions and reaction videos had been seen tens of millions more times.

Wilson said her case remains a stark reminder of platform responsibility.

Wilson argues that South Africa’s teen landscape is uniquely vulnerable.

“One of the main reasons that it does happen is because of how dominant WhatsApp is in South Africa,” he explained.

With most mobile bundles offering free or cheap WhatsApp access, teens socialise constantly in digital spaces, with minimal adult oversight.

But Wilson says platforms themselves must also shoulder responsibility.

“We need to put more of an onus on these platforms to create a safe space for teens,” he said, arguing that weak moderation on popular worlds like Roblox leaves children exposed.

TikTok’s Head of Trust and Safety, Cormac Keenan, said the platform is trying to address the complexity of online harassment.

“Harassment as a whole, and hate speech in particular, are highly nuanced and contextual issues that can be challenging to detect and moderate correctly every time,” he said.

Keenan says the company has hired “policy experts in civil rights, equity, and inclusion” and trained moderators to distinguish between reclaiming language and actual hate speech. TikTok also introduced prompts encouraging users to reconsider harsh comments, with “nearly 4 in 10 people choosing to withdraw and edit their comment.”

New livestream tools allow hosts to mute or remove harmful accounts entirely.

“We hope these new controls further empower hosts and audiences alike to have safe and entertaining livestreams,” Keenan said.

Mental-health professionals say digital mobbing is particularly harmful because it never switches off. Cayley Wood, a registered counsellor and founder of Ingage Support, says cyberbullying erodes the last place teens should feel safe: their homes.

“Cyberbullying is uniquely harmful because it follows teens into what should be their safest spaces, their homes, their bedrooms, even their phones,” she said.

South African data suggests 1 in 3 teenagers have experienced online bullying, often late at night or outside school hours.

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