MySpace, Cyberbullies, And The Law

School bullies probably date back to the origin of schooling children. Some kids will always be bigger or more aggressive than most of the class, and will choose to torment others. The concept of cyberbullying is new, though - the idea of using website postings to harrass other students began in earnest when MySpace and other social networking and web community sites became wildly popular with teens. The factors sparking the growth of cyberbully activity include the ease of posting content, the ability to register and post anonymously or using false information, and the increasingly large audience available on popular sites. The rapid increase in cyberbullying is perplexing to both school administrators and lawmakers, who are trying a variety of approaches to reduce the practice.

States from Oregon to Rhode Island are considering crackdowns to curb or outlaw the behavior in which kids taunt or insult peers on social Web sites like MySpace or via instant messages. Still, there is some disagreement over how effective crackdowns will be and how to do it.

“The kids are forcing our hands to do something legislatively,” said Rhode Island state Sen. John Tassoni, who introduced a bill to study cyberbullying and hopes to pass a cyberbullying law by late 2007. (CNN.com - States standup [sic] to cyberbullies)

The state of Washington is trying an indirect approach to cyberbully legislation. While they aren’t trying to make online bullying illegal, they are putting the onus on the state’s schools to stamp out the practice.

So how is Washington handling the issue? State senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles has introduced SB.5288, a bill that would require school districts to create cyberbullying prevention policies. Her legislation does not lay down many rules, instead directing each school district to amend its current anti-bullying policy (all Washington school districts have had such a policy in place since 2002). Cyberbullying would not become a crime, but simply another issue for local school districts to handle.

During debate on the bill before the Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee, some speakers expressed unease about how school districts might attempt to regulate “off-campus” speech, and the bill was clarified to say that it would only apply to activities that occur on school grounds during the school day. (ArsTechnica - Cyberbullying and schools: where does a principal’s authority end?)

Trying to stamp out cyberbullying seems doomed to failure, for technical, social, and legal reasons. One first runs into free speech issues - how much speech can one regulate and stay within the Constitution? Schools can certainly have rules of conduct, but their reach beyond the school itself is limited. That’s not to say that schools must be oblivious to anything that occurs off school property - if three students assault another student the moment he steps onto a public sidewalk, and the action was observed by school officials, most schools would feel justified in taking punitive action against the attackers. On the other hand, if one student is rude and insulting to his neighbor, also a student, few schools would see a need to intervene. When someone posts disparaging comments about a student on MySpace, is it more similar to an assault or a few remarks hurled over the fence?

The anonymity of posting in online communities also makes cyberbullying difficult to prevent. Not all such posts are anonymous, of course, but it would be costly to develop the chain of evidence needed to positively identify the perpetrator - community site owners won’t normally disclose information like registration email addresses or IP addresses without a court order, nor will ISPs identify a subscriber without being compelled to do so. Even if that documentation is obtained, it may simply point to a computer in the school library of a free wireless access point in a coffee shop.

Moderated community operators CAN play a role by removing bullying posts. Unforunately, the communities favored by cyberbullies are largely unmoderated. Private legal action may put individual cyberbullies out of business, but few families have the resources to make this approach viable.

One of the best answers to school bullying has been for the targeted individuals, perhaps with the support of other students, to stand up to the bully or bullies. That may well prove to be a solution to cyberbullying as well, whether the confrontation takes place in the real world or cyberspace.

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