The Campaign

Two insights drove our strategy: 1. Current anti-bullying efforts focus on reporting abuse after the fact. But by then, the damage is already done. Takeout: Stop bullying behaviour before it happens. 2. Our research told us that young people’s moral compass doesn’t fully develop until adulthood. Their impulsive behaviour can lead to unintended harm. Takeout: Create an educational tool to help develop children’s moral compass. Goal: Protect potential victims and protect children from becoming bullies themselves. During prototype development, we collaborated with Headspace Youth Mental Health Foundation and young people to refine usability and messaging. Testing showed 79% of youth were willing to reword when prompted.

Creative Execution

A real-time alert for online bullying, Reword is an educational tool that helps develop young people’s moral compass when they first become active on social media. A simple JavaScript tool that integrates with social and messaging platforms, Reword uses a custom lexicon database to identify strings of words that form millions of potential insult combinations. As a child types, regex matching cross-references the database to identify abusive patterns, scanning for insulting phrases and bullying sentiment, not just swear words. When a pattern is found, the child is alerted with a red strikethrough, instantly interrupting their behaviour and prompting them to reconsider their words. Children can become co-authors by adding their own bullying terms, growing the tool’s intelligence and helping it recognise evolving language and slang. A custom moderation system ensures appropriate phrases are accepted to the database. We launched Reword as a Google Chrome extension and housed it on a website where people could try the tool for themselves, contribute to the lexicon, and install Reword. The success of the Chrome extension has validated our plans for rollout to further browsers, tablets and mobile devices.

The first six weeks demonstrated distinct behaviour change: 84% of insults detected were reworded; bullying behaviour per user dropped by an incredible 67%. Our CTA resonated, generating 20,000+ insult submissions, creating millions of new combinations. Demonstrating the universal relevance of cyberbullying, we received global PR coverage. Reword has the potential to be used to educate every child in Australia – on computers, as well as tablets and mobiles. Now, with public support from local and federal governments and expansion to a mobile application, Headspace is committed to implementing Reword in every Australian school, providing a long-term solution to bullying where it begins. 6-week results: • 150,000+ installs • 84% of insults reworded • 67% reduction in bullying behaviour per user • 20,0000+ contributed insults • 150 million media impressions • Introduced to 260 Australian schools As Reword continues to grow, so will its impact, creating a new generation that respects each other – online and in real life.

Cyberbullying is quickly becoming one of society’s most serious problems, creating millions of victims globally. Reword is the first real-time alert for online bullying, designed to fundamentally change the culture of online bullying. Reword scans for insulting phrases and bullying sentiment, not just swearing. By instantly prompting young people to reconsider what they write, Reword helps develop their moral compass and educates them to self-regulate hurtful comments before they hit send. Reword has the potential to be used to educate every child in Australia, changing behaviour to provide a genuine and long term solution to bullying.