Clothing retailer Jay Jays are under fire for a recent Facebook post encouraging girls to "roast the crap" out of each other, which Netsafe says "normalises bullying".

Facebook app on smartphone (File picture). Source: istock.com

The June 21 Facebook post said: "When your best friend rings to ask you a quick question then 55 minutes later you're still on loud speaker 39 weeks deep in some random girls Instagram sending each other screenshots roasting the crap out of her."

The post has since been deleted from Jay Jays' Facebook page.

Netsafe CEO Martin Cocker told 1 NEWS a lot of content on Facebook is designed to be edgy and is unhelpful.

"This particular post normalises bullying.. …there’s a fine line between banter and bullying."

Anne Robson, a social worker who works with young mums said, "Bullying is rife amongst our young people and this type of comment from an influential clothing company is so detrimental.

Screen shot of Jay Jay's June 21, 2019 Facebook post which has now been deleted. Source: 1 NEWS

"Our youth suicide rate is one of the worst in the world. This type of behaviour feeds into the bullying and self-hate culture that we so desperately are trying to erase."

She said a lot of the mums she works with have depression and anxiety as a result of bullying.

"These kinds of posts normalise negative behaviour and portrays that online bullying is okay."

Evelyn Sparks also commented and said she was appalled when she came across the post.

"It’s encouraging impressionable young girls to bully each other.

"It's terrible coming from a big company, they're normalising bullying even further. This kind of material can have a toxic affect on people."

Head of marketing at Auckland University Bodo Lang says this post violates the Advertising Code of Ethics.

"This is a new low for advertising, it’s just bad taste but unfortunately it gains traction because people think it’s funny.

"It’s not clever and it’s highly offensive. Some companies post knowing they will eventually have to take it down, but they know it’ll go viral so post anyway" Mr Bodo says.

Facebook user Steph Thompson said: "It greatly disturbs me that girls' insecurities are being marketed for the profit of clothing industries which already teaches young girls that they aren't good or pretty enough in order to keep them endlessly consuming their products."

Zara Linn has experienced cyber bullying first hand and says: "I felt insulted, I love going to Jay Jays and buying clothes, but seeing this really offended me."

Some users told 1 NEWS what was worse was the comments in which people encouraged cyber bullying.

"It was sad a lot of people that commented thought it was ok, I didn’t realise people would be so ok with it," Ms Linn says.

Some of the comments included: "This is us", "how many times have we done this" and "this is too real".

1 NEWS contacted the Just Group who owns Jay Jays for comment have not received a reply.

Jay Jays has stores across Australia and New Zealand.

