Classmate 1

I find this week’s discussion to be somewhat surreal. Two days prior to posting this I learned that three students from Perry High School in Ohio, which is the school I graduated from, have committed suicide since the beginning of the current school year. The reason cited in each case was bullying, an activity that has a long history and has become even more prominent as these three students are just the most recent to take their own lives as the result of how they have been treated by others. This is not a foreign concept for me. For the better part of my grade school years I was the target of bullying. The thing is, when I look back and compare bullying when I was a child to how it plays out now, I think I got off rather lucky in having a childhood prior to the existence of the internet.

For those of you here that did not grow up before social media and technology became a popular tool for mercilessly attacking other kids, bullying when I was a child was a more simplistic affair. Perhaps hindsight and time has given me a more amicable perspective of the situation, but I do not believe so. I would go to school, get picked on, called names, tripped in the hallways, and be made the butt of more than a few cruel jokes. The more physical bullies would occasionally track me down after the final bell for the day would ring and give me a few good hits. There were moments I would try to fight back and I am not ashamed to admit that I lost far more than I won. Away from school I could find refuge in my home. I would sit and explore countless worlds in the books I read, pretend to be the hero of the story by being a strong warrior or cunning wizard in Dungeons & Dragons games with my friends, or building models. I would run around the neighborhood with my friends and the bullies at school remained separate from the times I did not have to be locked away inside the walls of the education system

It was not until my last four years of school that things turned around, not because I had a magical, Hollywood fairy tale makeover that made me look stunning and suddenly popular, but because I stopped caring and changed my attitude. I was still basically me in all my nerd glory, but I grew a bit more vicious in my responses to people. The moment I was viewed as someone who was no longer afraid and would be willing to give out far worse than I received no matter how badly I got hurt, I no longer appeared to be appealing sport and was left alone. The bullying stopped. I am not saying that such a solution would work in every case but it was what ended the experience for me.

Bullies in the modern age have many more opportunities to target their victims outside of the school environment thanks to the interconnectivity of people in society through computers and devices. Where once a child could remove themselves from a bully by virtue of not being in school, social media presents a situation where the bully can lash out at the victim at any time they choose. Imagine coming home from a hard day where your boss did nothing at work but insult you, berate you for your efforts no matter how hard you tried, and continued to insult you by telling your coworkers how stupid you are and how it is a miracle you even still have a job. Happy to finally be done with the day, you pull up your Facebook to discover your boss has continued to belittle you by posting what a complete waste of space you are as an employee to everyone who is able to see his post. Adding injury to the insult, you discover that other people have jumped on the bandwagon, providing further insults and demeaning comments. You experience all of this in the one place where you should rightfully expect to find peace and an escape. This goes on for days, then weeks, and months without stopping. This is just a light taste of what it is like to be cyberbullied.

The act of cyberbullying may appear to be simple enough. The bully goes online and finds his target’s social media page and begins launching horrific, degrading insults in a relentless fashion. This is only one facet of the issue, however. Cyberbullies can employ a variety of techniques in their quest to satisfy their aggressive tendencies. One method is “Bash Boarding” where the bully engages with others in a chat room or online bulletin board frequented by the peers of both the bully and the victim. The bully then divulges mean, embarrassing, and vicious commentary about the victim for all to read. Voting, or polling degradation is another tactic. This is where the bully creates an online poll in social media asking others to vote on topics that are insulting or degrading to the target (such as creating a poll to see how many people agree that the victim is the ugliest/dumbest/most worthless kid in school). Considering how common it is for teenagers to have cell phones with video capture technology, another tactic is for the bully to record the victim while in the process of being harassed (sometimes making hateful commentary during the video) and then posting the video online for others to see. The means of access to the victim are just as plentiful, with social media being only a part of the tools used by cyberbullies. Bullies can send text messages, instant messages, harassing calls (such as through Facebook calling), emails, or through any device that allows them access to their victim (Ipredator Inc., 2014).

In 2015, Alabama Senator Arthur Orr (R) introduced an anti-cyberbullying bill which would have made it possible for the legal system to prosecute children who commit acts of bullying and cyberbullying in the juvenile justice system. The bill was meant as a response to the increase in cyberbullying attacks against not only other children but against adults as well. This was in response to an Alabama student who, upset with his teacher over poor grades, decided to post a fictitious news report describing how the teacher was under investigation for sexual conduct with some of her students. This, naturally, caused a bit of an uproar and reflected poorly on the teacher until it was discovered that the information had been falsified. The teacher suffered embarrassment, hateful commentary from those who read and believed the story, and had her reputation tarnished. The bill was designed to target cyberbullies whose efforts directly attacked and damaged the reputation of professionals and other individuals with non-factual information and criminalize their behavior (Lockette, 2015).

Unfortunately, the bill did not make it past its initial reading at the Senate Education & Youth Affairs Committee, dying out before it could be further debated in other forums (Legiscan, n.d.). Unfortunately, this is a fairly common occurrence. There are many states that have passed laws targeting cyberbullying, but these laws are limited in scope and do not encompass the entirety of cyberbullying activities. The reason for this is that the U.S. Supreme Court has regularly shot down a majority of the anti-cyberbullying laws that have come before it as being unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment meant to protect the freedom of speech. The perspective is that the language and commentary used by cyberbullies falls under the category of opinion and (as despicable as it may sound) there are many cases in history where hateful speech has been upheld as allowed under the guiding principal of the First Amendment. This is why you have people who can gather at the funerals of fallen soldiers and yell out insulting and cruel remarks as to the deceased’s character. It is why you can sometimes see men dressed in Nazi uniforms rallying together to shout to the public how the blacks and Jews are degrading the pure, white individuals who are the rightful power. It is why a teenager can go online and post on another teen’s Facebook page that the kid is ugly, stupid, and not worth breathing. Many of the laws that were crafted against cyberbullying included the prosecution of perpetrators based on the words they used against the victim, something that the Constitution does not limit with the exception of some extreme cases. This is why cyberbullying laws vary so widely from state to state. The laws had to be tailored in such a way as to not violate the rights of individuals (whether they are morally and ethically wrong or not) and this means that the laws can only cover specific actions that can be confirmed through evidentiary rules. The other issue, in mentioning evidentiary rules, falls under intent. This is particularly true in cases where the victim of bullying takes their own life and the public and public officials seek to place blame and enforce responsibility. Did the bully actually intend for the victim to die? The bully can claim they were just joking around or giving the victim “a hard time” and without corroborating evidence to prove otherwise how would the intent in such a case be proven? It could be claimed that certain statements by the bully could be viewed as intent, such as “I wish you were dead” or “why don’t you do everyone a favor and kill yourself”, but the bully can easily claim they did not really mean for the victim to die, which (again) without some proof that the plan the entire time was for the victim to die there is little that would hold up in a criminal court (Hinduja, 2015).

The sad reality is that this is one area where the problem has grown into something far more challenging and legislators have yet to find a truly effective answer that can cope with it to the satisfaction of those affected. It may seem like an issue with a simple and straightforward solution, but there are complexities under the surface make this one of the more baffling quandaries of our time.

Classmate 2

Describe the crime the legislation you selected is designed to combat.

Legislation for cyberbullying is not one size fits all local training for this is usually non-existed on the state level legislation differs from state to state through definition that is center on minors and not adults seniors that are the most venerable are not covered what might be accessible on a state to state may not be on a federal level that makes definition of laws clearly confusing for law enforcement, Hazelwood & Koon-Magnin, (2013). What is cyberbullying it is posting mean and hurtful messages to someone usually anonymously this can start as soon as one learns any digital device. Cyberbullying has its fingers in harassment and stalking where the bullying does not stop and continuous until it is made to stop.

Examine the various devices perpetrators of cyber-stalking, cyber-harassment, and/or –cyber bullying uses to target their victims.

The devices can be personal computers, phones, ipads any device that you can access email social media such as Facebook, that you continually login to. We have become hooked on these devices to update are where about what we do at school, what we do in our free time, and what we do on vacation.

Evaluate at least two legal issues that arise from law enforcement efforts to combat cyberstalking, cyber harassment, or cyber-bullying.

Law enforcement believes that cyberbullying starts in the schools so that the schools holds some responsibility for what happens in their institutions what are their legal obligations to monitor and supervise their students to prevent bullying and to keep children safe while educating them to provide laws to help protect them, www.semanticscholar.org (2018). Many of the young have positive experiences using technology but cyberbullying has become a problem enough to upset the classroom in school that have physical and psychological damages for the victim law enforcement have made great efforts but work needs to be done, Stewart & Fritsch, (2011). The question of two pieces of legislations for cyberbullying is like a needle in a haystack no one state is definite about anything each state differs so much no wonder a predator moves around and picks different locations to get away with bullying and the problem seem to be growing without much result. There are no federal laws against bullying the laws or policies vary from state to state that is part of the Department of Education. These policies are generalized Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) guidelines of discipline and privacy for students where action is taken, www.stopbullying.gov/laws (2018). The laws direct schools to have some policies set in place for harassment, cyberbullying.org (2015).

Legislation for cyberbullying is not one size fits all local training for this is usually non-existed on the state level legislation differs from state to state through definition that is center on minors and not adults seniors that are the most venerable are not covered what might be accessible on a state to state may not be on a federal level that makes definition of laws clearly confusing for law enforcement, Hazelwood & Koon-Magnin, (2013). The devices can be personal computers, phones, ipads any device that you can access email social media such as Facebook, that you continually login to. Law enforcement believes that cyberbullying starts in the schools so that the schools holds some responsibility for what happens in their institutions what are their legal obligations to monitor and supervise their students to prevent bullying and to keep children safe while educating them to provide laws to help protect them, www.semanticscholar.org (2018). ). The question of two pieces of legislations for cyberbullying is like a needle in a haystack no one state is definite about anything each state differs so much no wonder a predator moves around and picks different locations to get away with bullying and the problem seem to be growing without much result. There are no federal laws against bullying the laws or policies vary from state to state that is part of the Department of Education. These policies are generalized Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) guidelines of discipline and privacy for students where action is taken, www.stopbullying.gov/laws (2018). The laws direct schools to have some policies set in place for harassment, cyberbullying.org (2015).

For your responses, focus on the crime victim and the various manifestations the harm inflicted upon a recipient of cyber-stalking, -cyber harassment, or –cyber bullying take. Carefully review your classmate’s post with regard to the legislation presented and how it proposes to address cyber crime. Explain how this legislation might prevent future instances of cyber-stalking, -cyber harassment, or –cyber bullying. Describe the possible effects this type of legislation could have to deter perpetrators motivated to engage in cyberstalking, cyber harassment, or cyber bullying.

Classmate 1 I find this week’s discussion to be somewhat surreal...