Debbie Langshaw, mother of Cobram student Amanda Grennan, who committed suicide because of incessant cyber bullying, has hailed a new anti-cyber bullying app.
YooChooz is the brainchild of Margaret Ciobanu whose child was also cyber bullied at the age of 12.
Mrs Ciobanu started building a prototype of her app in 2021 and in May last year built the present-day app.
YooChooz works on social media systems and encourages young people to think twice when posting or interacting on social media in a negative fashion.
“The app is a filtering system that operates on all social media platforms and it provides users an opportunity to stop think and reflect before sending anything with profanity, racist or sexually inappropriate material,” Mrs Ciobanu said.
Mrs Ciobanu told The Courier parents could download the app on their phone and their child’s phone and link the two phones using the parental control, which ensured when the kids used social media they could only use the apps keyboard that the parents could see.
“The app’s system flags certain words in a conversation as the user is typing and will prompt the user with an alert saying do you want to send this?” Mrs Ciobanu said.
“At this point the user needs to make choice whether yes or no.
“If the child chooses the no option then the message will never be received by the parents or the intended recipient, however, if they select yes the message will go across both to the parent as well as the recipient.”
According to the app’s creator it was designed not be intrusive in normal everyday conversations and would only flag negative words or profanity.
Mrs Ciobanu said she named the app after her desire for users to make the right decision.
“We wanted users to make the right choices and educate themselves at the same time, but also to allow the parents to get involved and educate their child if they make the wrong choices” Mrs Ciobanu said.
The app is available on ISO devices from the Apple store and Mrs Ciobanu has plans to expand it.
“With funding I hope to get this available on android as soon as possible,” she said.
Ms Langshaw said Mrs Ciobanu heard about her daughter’s story and contacted her to discuss the app.
“I just think someone who has gone to the lengths to create this app is extraordinary,” Ms Langshaw said.
“I think she is an amazing person.
“I totally support the app. I just think we have to do anything we can do to prevent bullying and suicide in our young children. It all has to help.”
Amanda Grennan committed suicide in August 2017.
If this story raises any concerns, phone Lifeline Australia on 131 114.