Cyber Bullying: Psychologically, Socially and Legally Speaking

Discussion

Cyberbullying gets its claim to fame as the result of teenage suicides and vigorously fought court cases revolving around the First Amendment. The media has shared countless stories of high school students being arrested for harassing their classmates online and even parents of students bullying school children on the internet. It appears that access to the internet can also mean access by bullies. Based on the news stories, cyberbullies are relentless and will use words or pictures to hassle their target(s).

On October 27, 2003, Ryan Halligan hanged himself after being tormented by his supposed best friend turned bully and being duped by a girl into thinking she really liked him (NoBullying.com, 2014). On October 17, 2006, Megan Meier was dead in her bedroom after she, too, was convinced of a romantic interest only to find that it was a cruel joke. In fact, her romantic interest sent one final email advising Megan, “The world would be a better place without her” (NoBullying.com, 2014). Megan was convinced and hung herself that day. She would have been 14 in less than a month.

Even though it seems that these bullies are culpable, the courts have struggled to find an approach to resolving these matters. There have been no cyberbullying cases undertaken by the Supreme Court – yet. However, there have been several cases heard at the state level – mostly involving the extent to which a school should or should not discipline cyberbullies -- with a mixed bag of outcomes. In California, the first federally-charged cyberbullying case filed involved Megan Meier referenced above. Lori Drew, the mother of one of Megan’s teenage cyberbullies got involved and helped to create and then participated in impersonating the fictitious romantic interest which many believed was the impetus for Megan’s suicide. However, Ms. Drew was cleared of those charges and held to misdemeanor charges of the unauthorized use of MySpace.com (Zetter, 2008). The initial charge filed against Ms. Drew was part of the federal anti-hacking statute because the prosecutors could not find any law she had violated so they resorted to manipulating the computer use and fraud act (Ruedy, 2008). Ironically, once Ms. Drew’s and her daughter’s names were leaked to the press, her daughter started getting cyberbullied and ultimately moved away from her hometown (Zetter, 2008).

On the other hand, Facebook, a social media website which up until this lawsuit enjoyed the privilege of maintaining the anonymity of its users (Heirman, 2008), was ordered by a court in Britain to disclose the IP addresses of the cyberbullies who targeted 45-year-old Nicola Brookes (Judd, 2012). Once Ms. Brookes obtains the identities of her harassers, she intends to pursue legal action against them individually (Judd, 2012).

From England to the United States, between the ages of 12 and 45, the above-referenced events and court cases demonstrate how far-reaching and age ignorant cyberbullying is. In addition, the motive(s) behind cyberbullying seems to be simple-minded – on the part of the bully. In the teenage instances, the bullies in clear peer aggression or group think mindset were picking on what they perceived as the abnormal classmates (Patchin, 2010). In the case of Ms. Brookes, the 45-year-old woman from England, she was targeted because of her support of a particular contestant on X Factor.

One of the reasons Ms. Brookes took the course of action she did – taking her cyberbullying case to court – was because of the lack of assistance she received from local law enforcement (Judd, 2012), which lawsuits are proactive and necessary to hold internet users accountable for their actions online. However, Ms. Brookes’s complaint of the police officers’ lack of assistance implies a lack of interest. Police agencies everywhere have their hands tied because there is no legal basis on which any arrests can be made or information discerned. Fortunately, arrests cannot be made or information extricated based on some perceived wrong, no matter how egregious. If criminal, legal action is necessary, then laws need to be drafted to that end.

Cyberbully laws may solve the feeling that police are uninterested in online harassment but may present other issues just as frustrating, such as, how to physically track down a cyberbully if the victim is unaware of his or her identity. He or she could be anywhere in the world in any jurisdiction in the world which may require multiple agencies with differing laws. Then, there must be evidence or proof that the person who owns or is in some way associated with a certain IP address actually was the individual drafting and transmitting the allegedly offensive messages or posts. Clearly, a publicly accessed computer or a personal computer left unattended makes it difficult to positively identify the culprit. But first, a determination needs to be made on just where the line is between harmless online interaction and harmful cyberbullying.

For a lot of the same reasons frustrating law enforcement, the intensity of cyberbullying and its effects on individuals long and short term can be devastating as noted above with teen suicides. The victim’s unawareness or a minimal awareness of the identity of his or her attacker is more distressing than a face-to-face encounter (Heirman, 2008). For a teenager, not knowing if it is one or more persons, whether it is a boy or a girl, or just the fact that it could be anyone and everyone at school is terrifying (Heirman, 2008). The same holds true for the non-stop access to a cyberbully victim. He or she may abuse whenever and wherever the mood moves them (Heirman, 2008). Alternatively, the victim never knows when and where the attack will come causing the anxiety level to increase and potentially span the entirety of a day and night (Heirman, 2008). Interestingly (and sadly), teenagers are remiss to inform their parents of their online torture for fear that the very medium that is haunting them will be taken away (Heirman, 2008). In this day and age of technology, the teenager is unwilling to forgo the luxury, no, the necessity of online access (Heirman, 2008). One last comment on the lack of face-to-face contact, and that is that the bully may experience a sense if dissociative imagination in that he or she may not actually witness the harm they are inflicting creating a type of fictional character; thus, really not inflicting harm but relieving themselves of the impetus to inflict harm (Heirman, 2008).

Conclusion

Cyberbullying is a social byproduct of a combination of anonymity, groupthink, First Amendment freedoms, and the World Wide Web. While there are many arguments pro and con for stricter laws and some sort of cyber police, internet users need to be proactive also. Without discounting the grief and sorrow the parents must have experienced with the loss of their children, there are going to be some children that for whatever reason decide to take their own lives with or without an email address. Parents may or may not be able to change the minds of their children susceptible to the act of suicide and neither may any new laws or legislation. That is not to say that cyberbullying is acceptable – it is not. However, technology has put the potential to be cyberbullied on its user’s cyber plate, but it has also provided ways to avoid or protect against unwelcome contact with firewalls, applications that block specific IP addresses, security programs, parental locks, etc. It is incumbent upon the users of the product to protect themselves from some of the pitfalls of that product. Just as the seatbelt may not preclude all injury, it certainly provides protection against the worst outcome. A firewall or parental password is technology’s seatbelt, which may reduce the potential of the worst injury to a teenager. To that same end, it may behoove individuals to second read blogs, emails, and general public postings ensuring intonation is clear and the message non-provoking. Read incoming online contacts with an eye towards sincerity and genuineness. Internet surfers may not be able to weed out all the bad seeds, but with a little common sense and raising the communication bar just a bit, the comfort level will increase just a bit. The World Wide Web is no different from most any other advancement, product, activity or social element – with the good comes the bad.

References

Heirman, W. A. (2008). Assessing concerns and issues about the mediation of technology in cyberbullying. Cyberpsychology, 2(2).

Judd, T. (2012, June 9). Landmark ruling forces Facebook to drag cyberbullies into the open. The Independent. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/landmark-ruling-forces-facebook-to-drag-cyberbullies-into-the-open-7831957.html

NoBullying.com. (2014, March 10). Six unforgettable cyberbullying cases. NoBullying.com. Retrieved from http://nobullying.com/six-unforgettable-cyber-bullying-cases/

Patchin, H. (2010, May). Bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide. Suicide Research, 4, pp. 31-33.

Ruedy, M. (2008, Spring). Repercussions of a Myspace teen suicide: Should anti-cyberbully laws be created? North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology, 9(2).

Zetter, K. (2008, November 26). Lori Drew not guilty of felonies in landmark cyberbullying trial. Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/11/lori-drew-pla-5/