A rallying cry against cyberbullying
Lawmakers and Internet executives are perking up to the growing problem of kid bully fights on the Web.
Legislators are newly arming themselves with laws that will protect kids from being repeatedly harassed via the Internet, text messages, or other electronic devices. In recent weeks, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.) proposed a federal law that would criminalize acts of so-called cyberbullying (PDF). And Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt was scheduled Friday to sign into state law a similar measure, but the event was postponed because of inclement weather in St. Louis.
Both state and federal laws were prompted by the suicide of Missouri 13-year-old Megan Meier, who was the victim of repeated harassment on MySpace.com. An adult neighbor was indicted in the case last month by a grand jury in Los Angeles not on charges of cyberbullying, but on charges of unauthorized access of a computer system with intent to harm another person. (Missouri litigators said they didn't have a law to prosecute the case at the time.)
The case has raised national awareness around the issue of cyberbullying.
"When you see adults preying on kids, we're learning how significant the risks are," said Parry Aftab, an attorney and founder of the nonprofit advocacy group Wired Safety.
Parents, teens, teachers, and Internet executives also came together this week to hash out issues of digital fights at Wired Safety's International Stop Cyberbullying Conference, a two-day gathering in White Plains, N.Y., and New York City. Executives from Facebook, Verizon, MySpace, Microsoft, and many others talked with hundreds of teens and parents about how to better protect kids online from harassment.
In general, the conversation among these groups is moving from a focus solely on sexual predators to the everyday harm that kids can inflict on each other in chat rooms, social networks, virtual worlds, or via text message. Researchers say that anywhere from 40 percent to 85 percent of kids have been exposed to some kind of digital bullying, whether it's a stolen password or being called "fat" via instant message.
Even in adult-monitored virtual worlds for kids, children have been known to get around dictionary controls by naming a virtual room after a peer that he or she wants to ridicule, e.g., "Mary is fat." And while calling someone "fat" is not a crime, parents and legislators are trying to prevent the behavior before it leads to tragedies like Meier's.
"It used to be that adults would pooh-pooh bullying as a phase, but we're seeing increasing violent actions resulting from it," Sanchez said in an interview.
"The problem with cyberbullying is that kids aren't even safe in their own home, because they're being harassed through the computer or cell phones 24/7 potentially," she said.
Lawmakers are seeking to address cyberbullying with new legislation because there's currently no specific law on the books that deals with it. A fairly new federal cyberstalking law might address such acts, according to Aftab, but no one has been prosecuted under it yet. The proposed federal law would make it illegal to use electronic means to "coerce, intimidate, harass or cause other substantial emotional distress."
When signed, the Missouri state law will update existing regulations on harassment and stalking to include instances of those acts over the Internet, text message, or other electronic device. It will make cyberbullying punishable by up to four years in jail.
Stopping harassment
This week at an Internet conference, Scott Arpajan, founder of kids' virtual world Dizzywood, backed up this notion. He said that more than sexual predators, the company needs to watch out for cyberbullying in its growing community of 8 to 14 year olds. Dizzywood hires outside moderators to keep an eye on interactions among children.
"The biggest thing is keeping kids from getting in fights," Arpajan said.
Middle-school kids and teens said this week that they want more technology and response from adults and Internet companies when it comes to these issues, according to Aftab. At the conference, which hosted as many as 200 teens, kids said they want to be able to report instances of cyberbullying online and not have them "go into a black hole." Teens also said that they want Web sites to write easy-to-understand terms of service and privacy policies. That could mean creating policies that are animated or graphical.
To the consumer electronics industry: The teens also said they want new and better tools to stop harassment on cell phones. That would include buddy lists that block anyone besides approved senders from reaching their text message in-box.
As for the industry, more groups are creating Internet safety programs for K-12 kids that address bullying. Microsoft, for example, is sponsoring the Anti-Defamation League's program to train teachers, students, and parents on how to stop cyberbullying. Google also recently sponsored an Internet safety guide from Common Sense Media.
Sites like MyYearBook and Facebook have hosted pages that call on teens to pledge against cyberfighting, in honor of Meier. Wired Safety's group of teen Internet safety volunteers put a page on MyYearBook and there's a similar page on Facebook.
Tina Meier, the mother of Megan, said that change has to start with the kids, but parents need to talk more to their children. "The biggest thing I tell parents is to communicate and know what's going on with their child. They have to know what apps they're using and be on those sites," Meier said.
Learn to be self sufficient and shrink the gov't down and out of our lives.
Has anyone ever seen the movie Escape from LA where the new Moral America has gone so far to the right that anything offensive or bad for you now results in deportation? Of course this is a gross exaggeration, but my point is that the government should not get involved in everything. It's bad for society to hand over all of our freedoms to someone else rather than taking responsibility for raising our own children with self-confidence and strong wills.
Has anyone ever seen the movie Escape from LA where the new Moral America has gone so far to the right that anything offensive or bad for you now results in deportation? Of course this is a gross exaggeration, but my point is that the government should not get involved in everything. It's bad for society to hand over all of our freedoms to someone else rather than taking responsibility for raising our own children with self-confidence and strong wills.
I wasn't 'destroying property', I wasn't forcibly raping people, etc. In fact, I was BETTER BEHAVED and still are better behaved than most other people on this planet.
If parents are doing thier job and the kids are balanced and well adjusted, the parents just need to say ignore the fools, they will be janitors and stoop sitters when they garduate while the world is yours.
You ever heard what they call a meek person in a management position? Mr. Pushover.
Let's face facts: being bullied, being insulted, etc. helps a normal person to grow and to become 'thicker skinned', meaning they learn how to disregard putdowns by other people.
Parents and teachers are to be educated about cyberbulling and figure out effective ways for kids to defend and protect them. Though, most of the problem I see with cyberbulling today is not the aggressor but the victim who ACTUALLY wants to read the email or message. The fact that the victim continues to engage himself/herself in the actual detriment of the information is the victim's own fault. The best way to teach kids is to be strong, ignore the fckers that threaten your survival and ego. Empower kids to be freedom thinker.
The problem with the younger ages is back at the home with the parents. We don't need a law for this. It may be thrown out (freedom of press) due to constitutional grounds if it gains any momentum. With the kids in school the educational institutes FAIL to prevent bullying in the building with students be it physical or verbal attacks. Now you want to go to the online realm where it is harder to track who was on the other end of the keyboard?
Start enforcing IRL infractions first. THEN you can deal with the online policies and the services that host peer to peer sites you will have to push to enforce "code of conduct" policies.
In this case it was the MOTHER of another child who was harassing this one who killed herself. The parent (who should be shot dead for this) impersonated a boy online that was in love with this little girl. This went on for MONTHS on end. She then promptly told the little girl, you're fat ugly and worthless, no one will ever love you, you should go kill yourself. And the child did. There must be some responsibility on the part of the adult in this situation who intentionally destroyed this little girl?s emotional state. Say what you will, but unless you have teenage or pre-teen daughters, you really don?t know what kind of emotional messes they can be.
Children are cruel enough to each other without a parent involving themselves in this way.
P.S. I live in the area where this happened, it was covered extensively on the local news and this little blurb about it does not tell everything.
This kid was a tragedy looking for an excuse. With absentee parents, it was only a matter of time.
This law will do nothing to stop it from happening again. It is merely an excuse to clamp down on free expression of the kind the government fears. It has nothing to do with "protecting the children".
This kid was a tragedy looking for an excuse. With absentee parents and a maladjusted kid, it was only a matter of time.
Impose a physical pe-and-paper registration system and keep anyone under 18 off the internet. Not for legal purposes, or for the sake of "protecting our children", but because it's for the good of everyone.
To the rest of society, teenagers contribute nothing, spend mindless hours on myspace and facebook "socializing", and ultimately sully userspace on forums with insipid and irrelevant postings. Furthermore, the current generation has no idea what it means to grow up without the internet. Their reliance on the internet has dulled their senses and made them less competent and inventive than prior generations. High schools are even having to address the problem of students citing Wikipedia as an "academic source".
Granted, there are adults that are just as ill-mannered and teenagers that are police and intelligent, but if we let exceptions dictate the rules, then we're back where we started.
In the end, teenagers need to learn to think on their own and live without "online socializing" (if you can call it socializing), and the adult population deserves the right to an internet free from 15 year olds proclaiming the benefits of anarchy and why "the man" is putting them down, how proud they are they stole a bottle of whiskey form their dad's liquor cabinet, or why a certain company is "so totally gay because they suck".
For the sake of example, assume someone I've never seen points out on a message board (Or instant messenger...or myspace/facebook/whatever.) the sky is flourescent orange and they have a talking dog.
I ever so politely ask if they were dropped on their head.
If I then find out the person is a minor, could I be criminally charged?
Well, if I said something like that to them twice, I'd satisfy repeated. Severe and hostile are pretty ambiguous terms. "Shut up" could be considered severe and hostile.
Any insult could, and I'm betting profanity definitely will.
They may as well have worded the law "Don't be mean or you'll go to jail." and broken for lunch.
I don't have too much of an issue with the stalking part of the law, it's the "Don't be mean to people!" part that I object to.
So it's basically an example of politicians turning a halfway decent idea into a thundering storm of stupid.
I can't say I'm terribly surprised.
- by ah79 July 22, 2008 8:23 AM PDT
- I am an adult who has been harassed, threatened and been called vile names on a web site. It's NOT just children that need protection. I can tell you this from experience. I have been researching the web for laws that would protect ME and found only laws to protect children, which is wonderful. What about adults who are threatened? No, I'm not looking for Big Brother to be looking over our shoulder, but if I were threatened in person, I would have the recourse of going to the police. It is a very emotional, frightening experience even for an adult. If you haven't been through it, you can't imagine what it is like.
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