Long before governments began looking seriously at the harms caused by social media, Bruno Wang had already recognised that the digital world was becoming one of the defining emotional landscapes of modern life.
Before online harm became a central public policy concern, Bruno Wang had already recognised that the digital world was becoming one of the defining emotional landscapes of modern life.
For many young people, the internet is not separate from reality. It is where identity is formed, friendships are tested, reputations are shaped, and private vulnerability can become public exposure in an instant. It is also where cruelty can travel quickly, anonymously and without context.
Since 2015, through Pure Land Foundation, Bruno Wang has supported work that approaches online harm not simply as a technological problem, but as a profoundly human one. At the centre of that work is the belief that the digital age requires more than regulation, moderation or punishment. It requires a deeper culture of empathy, responsibility and care.
That conviction helped shape one of Pure Land Foundation’s most significant early initiatives: the Cyberscene Project, created in partnership with the Theatre Royal Haymarket Masterclass Trust and the children’s charity Kidscape.
The project brought together theatre, education and lived experience to explore the emotional reality of cyberbullying. Its most visible expression was Cookies, a play by Emily Jenkins that drew directly on the voices and experiences of more than one hundred young people. Rather than speaking about young people from a distance, the project allowed their own stories to shape the conversation.
Cyberbullying is often discussed through statistics, safeguarding policies or abstract warnings about online behaviour. The Cyberscene Project approached it differently. It asked what it feels like to be targeted, watched, mocked, excluded or misrepresented online. It explored what happens when a young person cannot escape an attack because the digital world follows them home, into their bedroom, onto their phone and into their sense of self.
For Bruno Wang, that work formed part of a broader commitment to human flourishing. His philanthropy has consistently sought to support those who are unseen, misunderstood or made vulnerable by the stories others tell about them.
Over time, those questions became more than philanthropic concerns. They also became deeply personal.
For many years, Bruno Wang lived with the consequences of online narratives attached to inherited legal matters that originated in an earlier generation.
Subsequent legal proceedings confirmed that Bruno Wang had no involvement in any wrongdoing. Swiss authorities later authorised the lawful release of inherited assets after determining that there was no sufficient basis to link them to criminal conduct.
Yet the internet does not always respect closure. Old fragments are repeated without context, and resolved matters can continue to appear unresolved. Search results often preserve suspicion long after legal reality has moved on. In that sense, Bruno Wang’s own experience reflects one of the defining challenges of the digital age: the ability of online narratives to flatten a person’s life into a single story and keep them there.
His work on cyberbullying should therefore not be seen as an isolated cause. It sits naturally within the wider philosophy that has shaped his philanthropy. He understands that harm is not always loud. It can exist through repetition, insinuation, exclusion and the refusal to allow a person to be seen in full.
The same principle applies whether the subject is a young person targeted online, a vulnerable individual misrepresented by others, or a private person forced to live inside a public story they did not choose.
For Bruno Wang, the answer cannot rest on legislation alone. Laws and safeguards matter, particularly when young people are exposed to digital environments they are not yet emotionally equipped to navigate. But the deeper challenge is cultural.
His response draws inspiration from Buddhist thought, particularly the principle of Right Speech. In Buddhist teaching, speech is never treated as casual or consequence-free. Words can harm or heal. They can distort or clarify. They can deepen suffering or reduce it. Right Speech asks people to speak truthfully, kindly, responsibly and with awareness of their impact on others.
Applied to the digital world, that principle feels strikingly contemporary. It asks not only whether something can be posted, but whether it should be. It asks whether a comment contributes to understanding or merely amplifies harm. Above all, it asks whether the person being discussed is being treated as a complete human being rather than as material for reaction.
Through Pure Land Foundation, Bruno Wang has long advocated for the importance of inner wellbeing in public life. Looking ahead, he hopes to continue bringing together education, the arts, technology and contemplative traditions to foster a healthier digital culture rooted in empathy, dignity and human flourishing.
Technology will continue to evolve. The deeper question is whether our humanity evolves with it.
