Disturbance at Bridgewater shows negative impact social media can have on young people, youth leader says

Police responded to a “disturbance” in Bridgewater on Saturday afternoon. (Supplied: Facebook)

A “significant disturbance” in Hobart’s north at the weekend, allegedly instigated by a New South Wales man who police say has a large social media following, shows the negative influence it can have on disenfranchised young people, a youth leadership coach says.

Will Smith, a former police officer who founded JCP Youth to improve the lives of at-risk youth, said young people were vulnerable to being influenced by what they saw on social media.

“We have young people within our community who are trying to find purpose, young people who aren’t connected to community, aren’t connected to active role-modelling,” Mr Smith said.

It is understood a Sydney-based social media video maker known as Spanian was at the gathering in Hobart’s north.

On Saturday police charged a 38-year-old man from New South Wales with instigating the commission of a simple offence.

Police allege the man’s actions resulted in a “significant number of people congregating” in Herdsmans Cove and then Bridgewater on Saturday afternoon, before engaging in hooning and other “anti-social and dangerous behaviours”.

They said the man had a large social media following.

Southern District Commander Jason Elmer told ABC Radio Hobart police came across a crowd of about 200 people at 2pm in Herdsmans Cove.

He said the crowd dispersed but re-gathered near the Greenpoint Plaza shopping centre in Bridgewater.

Police encouraged shops in the area to close while they worked to control the situation.

Investigations continuing

Police said no one was injured, but they allege three police cars were “extensively damaged” and two police officers who attended the scene were assaulted.

“Due to the circumstances on Saturday, it was very difficult for police to be able to do anything more than just try and disperse the crowd but … there were a number of offences identified from traffic offences to damage to the police vehicles to assault police,” Commander Elmer said.

“That investigation is ongoing. We are reviewing footage — there’s quite a bit of footage in the public domain that we are reviewing, there’s footage from our police officers.”

The 38-year-old man was arrested about 6pm on Saturday. He was bailed and is due to appear in the Hobart Magistrates Court in July.

Vision of the disturbance was shared on social media.

Queensland Police responded to what it referred to as “a large hooning event”, which was attended by Spanian, in Logan last month.

Social media ‘stars’ have a ‘massive influence’

Mr Smith said social media, and social media influencers, could be dangerous, particularly for teenage boys.

“Social media stars … they are having a massive impact and influence on what young people think, what they do, and their perceived opinions of what’s happening around them. And it’s dangerous,” he said.

“If you look back 30 years ago, young people picked up a lot of their values, a lot of their thought processes and opinions through things like going to church every week, going and participating in family dinner on Sunday, being part of particular groups, sporting groups.

“What we’ve found is that type of engagement over the last 30 years has declined — there’s less community.”

Mr Smith said that as a result, there were many young people who “crave community, they crave belonging, and they crave validation”.

“And the best and easiest way to get it is through the attraction of someone on social media who spouts some type of rhetoric that is attractive to them.”

Tasmanian government committed to ‘post and boast’ laws

Brighton Mayor Leigh Gray thanked police for their work on Saturday.

“The actions of a small number of people should not be used to judge or generalise our vibrant and resilient community,” Cr Gray said.

Police Minister Felix Ellis also thanked the police.

“The behaviour in Bridgewater [on Saturday] was unacceptable,” Mr Ellis said.

“It’s why our government took these ‘post and boast’ laws to the election and we remain absolutely committed to this legislation.”

The proposed laws would make boasting about a crime on social media an aggravating factor during sentencing.

Queensland last year introduced laws that created an “aggravating factor” for car thieves who post footage of their offending on social media.

Similar laws have been proposed in New South Wales, and the federal opposition is also pushing to make posting about crime online an offence.

Police in the Northern Territory have also raised concerns about the rise in so-called crimefluencers, which social media experts say is a particular problem in the NT.

‘It takes people to outweigh those poor messages’

Mr Smith said the situation in Bridgewater was a “classic example” of the problem playing out across Australia.

“Social media plays the biggest role in developing young people, period,” he said.

He urged parents to set standards and rules for their children’s use of social media, including limiting screen time.

Mr Smith said it was also important to contradict negative messages on social media.

“It takes people to try and outweigh those poor messages with contrary messages, messages that do promote humility … do promote a positive transition into adulthood, do promote the opportunity for young people to be a better version of themselves.

“And we don’t use social media for that enough.”

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