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Cyberbullying Laws Raise Free Speech Questions
Chad_DeVoss writes "States across the country are working on laws to rein in cyberbullying, claiming that electronic harassment has led even to the suicides of some children. But what about the First Amendment? Surely schools can't control what kids say to one another? It's an easy argument to make, but the reality is more complicated. From the article: 'The issue is further complicated by questions about whether cyberbullying takes place on school property or not. School officials do not generally have control over what students do outside of school, but, as the First Amendment Center reports, even this issue is complicated. Students who threaten or harass other students using school equipment or during school time can most likely be sanctioned, but even students who do such things from home face the possibility of school discipline under the 'substantial disruption of the educational environment' ruling from the Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District case from 1969.'"
Laws regulating conduct cannot possibly be enforced in an anonymous public sphere. What's needed is a trusted computing system that tracks who uses a computer, when, and what they're doing. Then software could limit activities to what's legal and appropriate! We're almost there...
- Unique hardware identifiers on all CPUs and motherboards
- Laws that make it illegal to circumvent security systems
- Laws which force ISPs to track customer communications
Don't worry. We'll make the Internet safe for you and your children. And the SonyBMIMicrosoftUniversalMGM corpglomerate.
Surely bullying should be dealt with at the level of teachers/parents? Putting these things into law just seems like asking for trouble - potentially making the minor incidents of growing up into major issues that will scar children for life.
Why can't they just use whatever standards they've always used, if any, to regulate off-school speech? THe fact that the speech occurs online shouldn't change anything.
Le français vous intéresse?
1st Amendment rights is one thing, but a variety of laws restrict freedom of speech if it slanders, intimidates or incites others. This is true in the real world and probably, as has already been pointed out, this applies even more in schools where you're trying to teach children to be responsible citizens.
That's the problem with trumpeting "freedom" as a great virtue. Too much freedom means that you would have to legalise a variety of evils such as child abuse and racial discrimination. Freedom to do something needs the proviso that it does not restrict the freedom of others, which is a bit more of a subtle concept.
Peter
Would you let another adult verbally torture someone? I don't think so.
Bullying is at best abuse and at worse it is outright torture. If we force children to goto school (and hence come into contact with kids who will bully them) then we must accept that we are in a sense damning these children to things none of us should ever have to face. Your "free speech" bullshit ends the moment you start using your free speech to put someone through complete hell for kicks.
I say the second any kid is caught bullying another he is sent to a prison for children. We're way past the stage where it's a bit of verbal abuse when we constantly hear kids are carrying knives (and even guns in some cases). These people are the bullys and by the time they're 13-14 they are acting like adult criminals. So lets make them act like adults and slap them in a prison the second they cross the line between "being kids" and "outright torture".
Internet or in the real world. Bullying is torture of another human being, it should be seen as such and not "just kids messing around".
I like muppets.
I'd like to know where in the bill of rights there is a qualifier that says you must be above a certain age to have your god given rights given to you. Yes, they may be under age but they still have every damned right that adults have. This is just the govt's way of creating submissive idiots that don't understand their rights. "We never were able to say what we wanted" will continue into adult hood. Much like how recent high school graduates thought the 1st amendment gave "too much freedom"
Public schooling has created a nation of "do what my gov't says" lemmings.
Free speech, what a crock! Not all forms of verbal behavior are covered by the first amendment. Is sexual harassment licensed by free speech? The real issue hear is the scope of the school's powers. Clearly, they are entitled to try to stop bullying that occurs on school property. We would be outraged if they didn't, whether that bullying was physical or verbal. The real question is to what extent they have they right to take action when something occurs away from school.
I am constantly surprised by the number of Americans who have grown up and enjoyed the privileges, protections, and liberties of the wealthiest and most democratic society that humanity has ever seen, only to constantly complain about how bad they have it, how terrible their country is, and how oppressed they and their freedoms are.
To people throughout most of history, the inability to have an active voice in their government, and the strong possibility that they would be imprisoned or killed for voicing dissent with said government, was oppression.
To many Americans, seeking to discipline young people who attempt to belittle and humiliate their classmates with impunity shielded by the anonymity of the internet, is oppression.
If the one thing children learn from these laws is that freedom is not given, but must be earned (even if it was the previous generations that paid the price) and that therefore it demands a certain amount of vigilance from its benefactors to steward their freedoms in a responsible manner, instead of merely exploiting their freedoms for personal satisfaction, then all the better.
Yes, you have the right of Free Speech protected under the First Amendment.. until what you say infringes on the right of someon else, which makes your speech unprotected.
Threatening another person, in my opinion, infringes on their rights and would not be protected under the First Amendment.... even if it's done on a myspace page.
But you also can't throw the book at every kid who says something.. kids will be kids. It's definitely a fine line to walk.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
What state do you live in so that I know never to move there?
I think schools are getting increasingly frustrated by a lack of parenting. I think parents are getting frustrated with economic circumstances that cause a lack of parenting, and I think kids are getting increasingly frustrated with the whole mess, especially kids from grade 8 onward.
Some schools are falling into a nasty triage. Assess quickly those who can adapt and excel, and figure out how to keep the rest of the kids from preventing 'hopefuls' from succeeding. I hate this condition but understand it.
Schools are divided into districts. Where you live in play is a very, very good indicator of what school you attend, unless of course you attend a private school. This means, no matter where you are, you *do* represent the school as once you and I represented a product of our parent's parenting.
This can and in some cases does give the school authority to monitor off campus activity and intercede if they feel they must be proactive to accomplish their goal of maintaining what little grip they have over not only the educational process, but raising other people's kids.
I don't, at all agree with this practice - but a solution to the problem is rather hard to come up with. My daughter was born Abroad, where we still reside. My immediate solution is to be present, parent her, and not put her in US public schools when the time comes. But that's only *my* solution and I realize that I have a responsibility as a citizen and parent to help come up with a more proactive and broader solution.
Some of the problems :
* Suggestions fall on deaf, jaded ears.
* There is not enough money.
* You are almost never successful telling other parents they can or should be doing a better job.
* Unemployment is growing.
* Teen culture is becoming increasingly violent as media and lack of parenting de-sensitizes them further.
* Reclusive, anti social anti empathic behavior is celebrated by media (ever see a reality show?).
I am only naming a few.
We're treating the problem in the typical western style, symptomatically - instead of as a whole broadly because the resources available to solve the issues aren't being focused and concentrated. We're nit-picking and nibbling around the edges of something that is growing bigger and bigger with every school day.
Its very difficult to change someone's thinking. Its very difficult for parents to examine everything they should be doing differently as the guilt you feel knowing you are screwing up your kid is inedible to say the least. Coming from outside of the home, such a suggestion often drives people to violence against whoever suggested it. At the least, again, deaf jaded ears.
So, how do you make being a good parent popular culture? How do you make credit card companies and banks holding otherwise effective parents at bay under a financial thumb decide that the functionality of the next few generations should userp their desire for profit? How do you convince an idiot in Washington that what he wasted on Iraq was 100x more than what would be needed to at least (start) fixing the problem?
Most importantly, how do you get people SCREAMING the same questions I just asked?
Please research those things, instead of case law. Human social networks are just like any other small world network, we are quite capible of distributed problem solving and should be employing it, especially where our children are concerned.
Please don't mistake my reply as antagonistic, it was not my intention to seem hostile.