Every child with access to a communication gadget knows what an emoji is. That's one of the reasons an emoji has been created to help tackle bullying amoung the young.

The campaign called "I Am Witness" was created to draw attention to bullying in a bid to stop it. The simple result is an emoji of an eye inside a speech bubble. This represents someone seeing the bullying going on in the virtual world.

The hope is that bullies will realise what they're doing is wrong while the victim will feel supported by others. The idea is for people in a group to respond to a bully's attempts to rile up abuse aimed at one person by simply sending the emoji – no words needed.

The emoji has already appeared on the iPhone emoji selection after the campaign began in late October.

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I Am Witness

Ad Council started the campaign and has had support from Apple, Facebook and Adobe. Advertising firm Goodby, Silverstein and Partner designed the logo and Unicode Consortium made sure the emoji code would work across platforms.

A Goodby spokesperson says: "Victims of bullying feel so isolated. And online, bullies feel they have the power to bully because they think they have anonymity. So an eye felt like a no-brainer. It says, 'I see what’s happening here and I’m not into it'."

Here's hoping this good message spreads across platforms and works to stop bullying in the virtual and real worlds.

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