Acknowledgement of Country: As we share a yarn today, we honour the stories that have been told on this land for thousands of years and acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as the traditional custodians of the land we're recording on, and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

Sarah Cook OLY: I think also the fact that we are just reachable 24–7. It can happen to us at any time of day or night and that makes it really hard to switch off as well.

Campbell Harrison OLY: The way with which we engage on social media now is very fleeting so I think people are so disconnected from the fact that there's a human being on the other side or that they're commenting on a video forgetting that the person who's in that video is also seeing all of these comments.

Sarah Cook OLY: For me, there's absolutely a line where people are crossing into the unlawful, and I think when it is happening for a prolonged period, when it is one person who is really targeting you and is hyper-fixated on you and it's absolutely pervasive I think that's where it starts to cross the line and that's where I've taken a stand.

Campbell Harrison OLY: The more we can talk about it and destigmatise it and the more we can form community is only going to empower people. Maybe we can't stop the hate from coming, but we can feel a little bit more empowered to withstand it and to maintain a good self-esteem in spite of it, I guess.

Tim Gavel: Hello and welcome to On Side and episode 3 in our special series on online safety in sport. In this episode, we're focusing on the human impact of online harm, how it unfolds in real time, how it affects identity, safety and well-being, and what meaningful support actually looks like. Today we're joined by two respected voices who bring both lived experience and leadership perspectives. Campbell Harrison is an Olympic and elite sport climber who's represented Australia on the world stage for more than a decade. Thanks for joining On Side, Campbell.

Campbell Harrison OLY: Thank you for having me.

Tim Gavel: And Sarah Cook is a two-time Olympian and CEO of Rowing Australia, as well as a leader in global sport governance and athlete advocacy. Sarah, thanks for joining On Side.

Sarah Cook OLY: Thanks Tim.

Tim Gavel: Well, Sarah, firstly to you, what is the personal impact of online abuse and cyber abuse?

Sarah Cook OLY: Look, it's something that continues to grow and it's great to see that legislation is starting to catch up and obviously the work that Sport Integrity is doing in this space as well, but I think it's something that it feels like we're still really catching up with, but it is, it's exploded obviously with the use of social media and such a presence now in the online world. There was a period of time where you could choose to opt out of social media, it feels like we're reaching a stage, certainly professionally, whether it's using platforms like LinkedIn or using social media, Instagram and some of those platforms, so it really feels like it's something that you can't opt out of and even receiving emails and abuse via some of those other mechanisms, via a carriage service as well, and I think also the fact that we are just reachable 24–7. It can happen to us at any time of day or night and that makes it really hard to switch off as well. So I think it's just now the number, sheer number of opportunities and platforms on which you can be reached and the fact that there is no off switch to them.

Tim Gavel: Yes. Campbell, when did you realise that online attention had crossed over into online harm for you?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, for me, I think my experiences online were generally very positive until the sort of year prior to the Olympic Games when the IOC posted an image of myself and my partner Justin celebrating with a kiss after I qualified for the Olympic Games. Didn't know that the post was coming, accepted the request to be a collaborator on the post and kind of just didn't pay much more attention to it. And then, with the IOC page having, I think it's like 8 million Instagram followers, the kind of waves of messages and comments just sort of flooded in faster than anyone could keep up with them. And that was kind of my first real experience with proper online abuse, this like torrent of hate messaging that was really, really intense and I think, like you said, with the prevalence of social media, the fact that you can't really opt out of it and just the way with which we engage on social media now is very fleeting so I think people are so disconnected from the fact that there's a human being on the other side or that they're commenting on a video forgetting that somebody, the person who's posted that video, the person who's in that video is also seeing all of these comments. And so, yeah, I think it's been, it's something that kind of hit me all at once and I've definitely been a lot more aware of it ever since that moment.

Tim Gavel: Yes, it escalated quite quickly, didn't it?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, really quickly. I think the comments, so many people were sort of criticising the organization, 'Why aren't they moderating these comments?' I'm like, 'They are moderating the comments'. The comments were just coming in so much faster than anyone could delete them. It's like multiple comments every few seconds, and for months, even maybe a year or two after, every now and again, I'll get a comment and a lot of it is nice and then a lot of it is not very nice. Yeah, it's just...

Tim Gavel: How did it impact you personally?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Well, it's funny. So I think prior to this instance, I thought I'd kind of experienced online homophobia and online bullying and I felt pretty like immune to it, I felt pretty tough, and then I think it was just because I'd never seen it in this kind of, at this kind of immensity before. So it definitely hit me pretty hard initially, it happened like the day before a World Cup, I think. So I was at the gym doing like an activation session before the comp and saw all of these messages, really, really awful, brutal messages and memes and GIFs and it just like, it had me really upset initially. I think I was able to spin it around into a much more positive experience in a lot of ways when the kind of, the support to combat the hate kind of came in and changed the narrative a little bit. But yeah, it was just so fast.

Tim Gavel: What about you, Sarah, your personal experience with online harm?

Sarah Cook OLY: It's so interesting hearing your experience as an athlete because my time as an athlete, I finished competing in 2015, so it really sort of predated social media as we know it now. I mean, I joined Facebook during my career when that had just started and so to think back to, I think 2005, 21 years ago that Facebook kind of took off, to where we are with social media now, it is such a different landscape, and for athletes really living their lives in full public visibility, whether it's their own pages, their teammates' pages, the organisation's pages, so, or platforms, I should say, so to think about the athlete experience is so different to what I went through and in many ways, I know that I and others from generations before me go 'Oh my gosh, thank goodness there wasn't social media', because it is different now, and you don't know who also could be filming you or taking content from you and posting that without your knowledge. So it really is an area that's changing so rapidly, and the athlete experience within that has changed a lot. I guess for me now in my current role as a leader of a sporting organisation, you expect a level of scrutiny, which it comes with the role and with the organisation.

Tim Gavel: You're talking to me there about online conversations that don't border onto online harm.

Sarah Cook OLY: Yeah, that's right. So you do, you know that you will be held to a standard, you know that people will be critical of you, your performance, your decisions, and the performances of your organisation as well. But I think where it crosses a line is where it goes from being a, sort of a critical and maybe constructive sort of discourse into really starting to breach the legislation and the act and verging on things that would constitute abuse, harassment or offensive behaviour. So the act is quite explicit in terms of what content is permitted and what's not, and I think I've certainly experienced, and I know other professionals in the sporting sector have as well, that real crossing into being abuse, harassment and offensive in nature. And for some of them, just the unrelenting nature of them going on for years and via multiple platforms and that's what starts to take a toll, I think, is when there are individuals who are hyper-fixated on you or your organisation and really come after you. And what they're posting is not evidence-based and it absolutely breaches the legislation, and I think that's where we have to start taking a stand and calling out these people and these behaviours.

Tim Gavel: Stalking is another –

Sarah Cook OLY: Yeah.

Tim Gavel: – aspect of this. How did it impact on you personally?

Sarah Cook OLY: Yeah, so I have certainly been exposed to those behaviours, and it's interesting because this is my first role as a CEO, and so being a new CEO and, although coming up to three years I think I can still call myself a new CEO, and so really, stepping into that job and learning the role and I'm in my own sport as well. So that comes with another level of passion and responsibility, it does probably hit closer to home, perhaps. Being in the sport that I really love and care about. And when it's people from your own sport who start to turn on you in that way can be really difficult and really confronting, but I think I'm pretty thick skinned. I can take most, but there's certainly been, I'd say, perpetrators who really have forayed into just a hyper fixation and an unrelenting sort of focus on me, which is not evidence-based, conspiracy theory type stuff, stuff that's just not true, and that becomes really hard to deal with because it is bordering on to defamation, stalking, and those are the things that keep you up at night.

Tim Gavel: Tough for a CEO, I would imagine, because you're charged with protecting your athletes and your sport. Yet you've got to protect yourself in many aspects as well, haven't you?

Sarah Cook OLY: Absolutely, and I take that protection really seriously. Like I feel a real sense of protectionism for my organisation, for Rowing Australia, for my sport, and then for my staff and for the athletes, most importantly. And so if this behaviour was happening to them, there's probably no length I would stop at in order to protect them. But when it's on you, I think you do sort of keep just stepping forward and putting one foot in front of the other and trying to black out the noise, but once it gets to a certain point, it does start to really wear you down and affect you and I've absolutely experienced that.

Tim Gavel: What about safeguards, Campbell? Are there safeguards in place for somebody like you as an Olympic athlete? What protection do you have?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say and I think it's something that the space is kind of still coming to grips with because like I said, in my instance, the hate was very, the source was very non-specific. It was people all over the world, from all different walks of life, and there's no like one simple system that could have moderated what was coming through. But I did feel very supported by the AOC and the AIS and the people at the Olympic Games. I felt like I was safe and cared for in that respect. But yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, it is good to know, I think most sports, or at least my sport, is definitely taking integrity of athletes and staff and volunteers, et cetera, very, very seriously and it's nice to know that there are people to turn to who are responsible for sort of getting you through these experiences and supporting you and hopefully trying to nullify it as best as they can, but I think it's hard to navigate, especially when some of this is coming from anonymous sources. I know we had, I've seen similar instances in my sport of one of our athletes was also serving on the executive body and they found their email address and was sending them awful messages about their results. We had a coach who was receiving pretty nasty threats and ultimately had to leave the position, this was many years ago. But it's a really tough space to navigate and a hard one to police, I think.

Tim Gavel: How important is it too, to speak out about your experiences, and you too, Sarah, so that other people know that they're not alone in this battle against online harm and abuse?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, I mean, I do think it's really important and also, like, I think it helps us not sort of minimize our experiences when they do happen. I think when I first got asked to come on board for this podcast, my initial response is, I haven't experienced any online abuse, and then I thought about it, I was like 'Oh, no, I've experienced a lot of online abuse actually.' And I just like completely minimized it in my head as just part of the course, something that athletes have to put up with if we're, to any degree public facing. But no, I think it's important to speak out and be vocal, not only to help other athletes, but also just, I think it just maybe helps remind people who want to leave maybe more critical comments that, just reminding them that they are read and they are perceived by the individuals who they're directed towards and it's not just, you're not just like throwing words out into the ether, into the void, they're about somebody and they do affect us. And I think it's easy with the modern era of social media to just swipe through and leave a comment, but I think maybe athletes being more vocal about these sorts of issues just maybe will help remind at least a few people that there's a human on the other end of the screen.

Tim Gavel: Because your abuse wasn't just about sport, about sexuality –

Campbell Harrison: Yeah.

Tim: – so it's very much a personal thing, isn't it? It's not just saying 'Oh listen, you didn't perform all that well.'

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, exactly, yeah. It's an interesting one because I think at the end of the day, as much as you could put safeguards in place or I can go on any podcast with any microphone and talk about how I'm a person too but at the end of the day, by nature of being a gay man, people aren't going to respect my personhood to some degree. So I don't think there's, to some extent, there's not much you can do about some of that. Hey, it is just going to come. But I guess speaking out maybe helps create like a sense of community, and for me, the most important thing in getting through my experience was when it became known that it was happening to me, watching my entire sporting community, people I'd never spoken to in my life, even huge names within the sport, coming together to rally behind me and like people really going to battle for me in the comments. And I think had I just either like brushed it under the rug, said nothing or turned my social media off and not seen any of those comments, I think it would have actually been a much more difficult experience for me to get through and I would have probably felt a lot more alone and would have internalised that negative messaging much more deeply. So the more we can talk about it and destigmatise it and the more we can form community is only going to empower people to. Maybe we can't stop the hate from coming, but we can feel a little bit more empowered to withstand it and to maintain a good self-esteem in spite of it, I guess.

Tim Gavel: Were you inclined to respond to some of the hate?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Look, I didn't respond to much of it. Honestly, like I said, it came in way too fast for me to even fathom responding to it. It was like, especially in the first weeks, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of messages a day, whether positive or negative, my inbox was just flooded and I didn't really respond to much. I did respond to one message in particular, I remember it was from a young person and I kind of challenged it and ended up having some really good conversations with this person and we still follow each other on Instagram now and I think that was actually a really powerful instance where I was kind of able to turn someone around a little bit. But for the most part, I try not to engage with it too much, unless I'm being funny. Like if I have like something really witty I want to drop, then perhaps, but just like going to war in Instagram comments, I think doesn't really support anyone's goal and it's probably just going to leave me feeling more upset than anything.

Tim Gavel: Sarah, as a CEO, there is, I guess, a fine line because you don't want to show vulnerability by calling it out because you are there as the strong leader. Is that a fine line for you to go that far and to call it out and say 'Listen, it's not acceptable because I'm being targeted?' How do you deal with that?

Sarah Cook OLY: Look, for the most part, I think I'm a bit like you, you just, you let the conversation carry on, people are entitled to have their opinions. I think the interesting thing about the online space is that they do often forget that there is a person at the core of it and many people who I think write these horrible things online, not all of them, but many of them, they would not come up and say that to you, to your face on the street, but they will write it in the comments and not be challenged to think about it. So you just sort of let this swirl go on around you, but I think for me, there's absolutely a line where people are crossing into the unlawful, and I think it's, when it is happening for a prolonged period, when it is one person who is really targeting you and is hyper-fixated on you and it's absolutely pervasive, I think that's where it starts to cross the line and that's where I've taken a stand and I've had to turn to the judicial system in that regard. But ultimately, you reach a point where you think, is this warranted? Is this within the realm of what I should be expecting in this role? And sometimes there are those where you go, no, it's not, this is not okay, this is not warranted and it's now starting to impact me and those around me and I need to take a stand because I would take a stand for staff or athletes if that was happening to them. So, you know, it's a bit like, putting your oxygen mask on first, right? If you're going to protect your organisation and those in the organisation with you, you have to be in a mental state that you're able to do that. And I think for me, some of these behaviours of some of these people have absolutely crossed that line.

Tim Gavel: Yes. When it starts impacting on family, like, I have heard from athletes in particular who say 'Listen, we can handle it, but when they start targeting our families, that's when it really hits home.'

Campbell Harrison OLY: I think something that's really upsetting as well is the degree to which your story echoes those of other high-ranking women within sport, especially within the organisational side of things, and I think it really makes a statement on how the sporting environment treats women, because I think that, yeah, hearing everything you're saying is something I've heard from other female CEOs, other female sporting officials, that there's this real cultural issue there in the way that the sporting culture approaches women and females in sport.

Sarah Cook OLY: Yeah, thank you for making that point because I think there is a heavily gendered lens to what I experience and other women CEOs, and I think it's not just in sport, it's women in leadership. We've obviously had women recently appointed to high ranking positions, whether it's the Governor General, whether it's the head of the ADF, whether it's the Federal Police Commissioner, we're seeing women in prominent positions and the unrelenting and absolutely vile abuse that they cop purely based on their gender is absolutely disproportionate and not aligned to what men in those positions receive. So there is a gendered lens and even the nature of some of the abuse and commentary I get is very clearly gendered and I think there's no way that would be said about a man.

Campbell Harrison OLY: No, 100%. I think women in high positions are held to so much higher of a standard to a degree to which it's unfair and also just, there's like an expectation or even a desire for women in high ranking positions to fail from, particularly from men outside of those positions. So yeah, I definitely, yeah, I think there's, that's one specific area of the discussion that needs to be addressed, is the vitriol that's afforded to, that's directed towards women that just isn't directed towards men in the same way.

Sarah Cook OLY: Yeah, and I think there's a violence element to that as well. With some of these particularly aggressive perpetrators, there's also not knowing if I was to run into this person, because it gets so aggressive and so targeted, you actually start to think, what would happen if I ran into this person at a rowing regatta or on the street? I actually don't know. I'm concerned for my personal safety and that this might actually start to transition from just being online into something that could happen in real life.

Tim Gavel: So what needs to be done, do you think? What would you like to see happen? Because as Campbell has said, it's a very hard thing to police a lot of the time, especially when it's coming in in such a way that even though the IOC, the AOC had protections in place at Paris, it's obvious that a fair bit got through. So what needs to be done, do you think?

Sarah Cook OLY: That's such a difficult question. Again, I think we're still trying to catch up with the technology. We at Rowing Australia use a particular tool, a company called Social Protect, which helps to actually eliminate negative commentary from some of our platforms and from some of our key athletes, just in a bid to try and protect them. Of course, it wouldn't protect what might come through in a direct message, but that's one mechanism we've chosen to put in place to help actually prevent our athletes from being exposed to really, really vile comments so that as soon as there's certain keywords that are triggered, the comments will be within milliseconds removed from the platforms. So that's one tool that we use. I think for me and the situation I've been in, it's, I mean, I've been, I've gone down the path of, as I said, using the judicial system and actually taking out protections for myself under law because they did reach a point where it just became unsustainable to continue as I was and there was a genuine fear of where things might head for me and it certainly got to the point where I thought it's going to make this role untenable for me to stay here if I don't take some kind of action that's going to help me to sleep at night. So I think being open to using that when you need to, but that takes a toll as well, it takes an emotional toll to go through those systems and those processes, to take out a personal protection order and things like that. So I think there's probably more thinking about what protections we might be able to legislate for or put in place so that people who are just trying to do their jobs, whether it's an athlete, whether it's a coach, whether it's a CEO, an administrator, ultimately we turn up wanting to do a good job. No one turns up to work wanting to do a bad job. And so being able to create an environment where you can confidently turn up, do your best work, do your best job, some days we might not get there, some days the team might not win the medals, but at the end of the day, it's just sport and everyone is trying to do their best job, so how do we create safe environments. There's probably more work for us to be done, or for us to do in that space and to come together and that's all of us, the National Sporting Organisation, Sport Integrity (Australia), and then obviously policymakers as well.

Tim Gavel: Do the blocking mechanisms work?

Sarah Cook OLY: I'm still going through one of those processes so, it has for now. The person, or one person that has been perpetrating some of that abuse certainly is abiding by the orders for now but yeah, only time will tell.

Tim Gavel: What about the AI use for athletes, et cetera? Have you found that to be effective?

Sarah Cook OLY: Absolutely. It eliminates those comments immediately, which I think is great because like you said, you can either go off the platforms, in which case you're not engaging, really, in a world which we can't continue to put our heads in the sand and avoid, we should be able to leverage social media and online platforms for all of the really great things that they can bring, which is getting our brands, getting our stories out there, athletes being brave enough to really show who they are and what they are and create their own personal brands as well, without fearing that that is a dangerous place for them to be. So, I think eliminating those comments as soon as they come in, does definitely help to add some protection there because you can't just, it takes a pretty thick skin to –

Campbell Harrison OLY: For sure.

Sarah Cook OLY: – to not take them on when they come, right?

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah.

Sarah Cook OLY: So if we can help support that in a little way, I think it's a good thing.

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, and just allowing athletes and all people within sport just to exist on social media the way that anybody can. I mean, so much of what was dictated towards me wasn't in a response, wasn't a response to me building my brand or trying to communicate some kind of message, it's just like, aspects of me living my life in the same way that anyone else does. And I think, there's a greater societal issue here, and it's, I mean, there's only so much that sport is going to be able to do, but there are small things that we can do and I think that's championing women's sport and championing women in leadership, championing and giving visibility to queer people and queer athletes or people of various denominations and just like, yeah, humanising the stories. I think it starts with young people, making sure young people are afforded experiences where women/girls are included and welcomed and valued equally within sporting spaces. I think there's a a huge societal shift that needs to happen beyond just covering up the messages, because I think that's an important part of protecting athletes, but how can we enact change and actually like, lessen the number of messages that are coming through? And I think it's about shifting attitudes. There's only so much any single organisation can do, but I think every little bit's going to play a part there.

Tim Gavel: Yes, interesting point you make because part of it is to educating people who are abusers online to fully understand the impact they're having on the mental health and welfare of the people they're abusing. But at the same time, that's probably what they're looking for is to have some impact. So...

Campbell Harrison OLY: 100%. I think it probably, if someone is already in a position where they want to be hurling abuse at an individual, there's probably only so much you can do to actually change their perspective and change their actions. But perhaps you can educate young people and educate people in a way that will dissuade them from engaging in such practices to begin with. Perhaps that's more creating spaces within sport where it's not acceptable to even just speak to each other in the locker room or in the field of play in hateful, discriminatory ways and teaching young people that it's wrong and why it's wrong. And I think maybe a more sort of ground up approach, I don't know, will hopefully encourage people to engage in more positive, productive ways, but I think it's such a big issue on a societal scale that goes so far beyond sport.

Tim Gavel: And a huge responsibility too for a CEO of a sporting organisation.

Sarah Cook OLY: Yeah, and I think sometimes people perpetrating, which in some cases can be crimes, doing this online, sometimes we're dealing with people who are not well themselves, and that gets really, that's really difficult too because you might be able to tell this person is clearly not well, the things they're saying, their behaviours, and often excuses can be made when that's the situation, but ultimately it's never okay to perpetuate that kind of behaviour, action, violence on others. So I think it is about taking a stand, not engaging with it, but going, this is a line and we're holding that line and we're going to take action based on what we have available to us to do that. Whether it's under the National Integrity Framework or whether it's ultimately under the legislation and going to law enforcement and going to police about it.

Tim Gavel: All right, Sarah. Thank you Campbell, thank you Sarah, for sharing your experiences. It's been great this morning. Thank you.

Sarah Cook OLY: Thank you.

Campbell Harrison OLY: Yeah, thanks for having us.

Tim Gavel: And today we've heard a powerful reminder that online harm is never just digital, it has a real and lasting impact on identity, safety and wellbeing, and today's chat reinforces that meaningful support, strong systems and a culture of care are critical across all levels of sport. If you or someone you know is experiencing online harm, support is available and reaching out is an important first step. Thank you very much for listening to On Side. Join us for our final episode in this special series about online safety and sport, we'll be speaking with the eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant and Sport Integrity Australia CEO, Dr Sarah Benson. We'll see you soon.