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Proposed Legislation Would Outlaw "Cyberbullying" in US
physman_wiu writes "We all remember the recent incident of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Now legislation is set to be passed at least in Missouri (and possibly through Congress) that would make cyberbullying illegal. The new legislation (PDF) reads: 'Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.' Now, this seems like a great piece of legislation — until I get put in jail for some kid on WOW calling the Feds on me." Eugene Volokh is not impressed.
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Whatever happened to parents' responsibility for what their kids do (including online activities?)
So if I had decided to post this comment anonymously from an internet cafe or local library, and I did something which met the arbitrary criteria of cyberbullying, who would get thrown in jail for two years?
Why do I get the feeling this law is impractical.
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
My biggest problem with these anti-online X laws are why we need to specify "on the internet". If all you're adding is "on the internet", then the law shouldn't need to be written in the first place. If it's illegal, then it's illegal. If it's not already illegal off the internet, I would wonder why doing it on internet would change the legality.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
You cannot legislate common courtesy and respect.
Nor should you have to.
Remember when you were little and some kid said they were gonna tell on you because you called them a poo-poo head? Yeah, that's what this is going to be like.
Actually, it was more like some whiny kid who learned how to manipulate their parents to get the retribution they wanted against someone. Did some kid fairly take the last cookie? Go tell on him for stealing your cookie right out of your hands. Heh, as if there's not enough of that going around in Grown-Up Land with the legal system already.
This concept has to die.
Your right to swing your arms ends where my nose begins. In the same way, the freedom of speech does not give you the right to harass people. How would you feel if someone followed you around all the time, telling you how worthless you were, or threatening to kill you and your family (which is against the law). The freedom of speech does not give anybody the right to say whatever they want, whenever they want.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Making special cyber law reenforces the notion that the internet is different and has different rules.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Actually it does give me the right to harass someone as long as I tell the truth about said person and I don't incite others to actually cause physical harm to same person. Recent laws against hate speech and bullying are rather troubling violations of the First Amendment not because they violate it but because of the way they are slowly eroding the right to free speech in such as way as to make it seem less of a bitter pill to swallow. A little here, a little there and soon enough you've lost the right to criticize others because it might be considered harassing. Remember, lawyers won't wait until you've clearly crossed the line before they drag you into court, they'll sue you at the drop of a hat and regardless of guilt, you've learned to watch what you say. Bye-bye free press. Bye-bye ability to question your government. Bye-bye your ability to speak your mind.
If you don't like it, work to change it. There's a mechanism in the constitution to do just that. But unless and until you change it, it remains the supreme law of the land. When you attempt to define it out of existence, you just weaken all other constitutional protections. Here's a hint: the constitution says that the federal government has NO POWER other than what is specifically granted to it by the constitution. Nowhere in there will you find the authority to propagate laws restricting the ownership of firearms.
I think you misundersand what "it was meant to do." The 2nd amendment was meant to leave ultimate power in the hands of the people--by enabling them to take up arms against a tyrannical government if required. Recall that the men who wrote the constitution has just done this very thing themselves--in fact, Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the Revolutionary War, were fought because the government was attempting to disarm the citizenry.
As far as "gun deaths" go, the sad truth is that Americans just seem to like killing each other... take away guns, and those intending to murder will use knives. Take away knives and they'll use baseball bats. Take away bats, and they'll use hands and feet. I'm not saying that I LIKE that this is the way things are, but this is the way things are. I'm not a big fan of Michael Moore, but I thought he made some really good points in Bowling for Columbine... it's a pity that instead of following them to their logical conclusion, he just settled on blaming an old man with Alzheimers instead.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
if it was harassment by an ADULT on a person known to them to be a MINOR
as was the case with meier
or
if it was harassment by an ADULT on a person known to them to be emotionally or mentally compromised
as was ALSO the case with meier
with those caveats, all trolling on the internet would not count in the legislation, mostly because it is anonmyous, and between (nominally) mentally fit adults
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Right. Because "The People" in the 2nd amendment are obviously not the same "The People" from the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th amendments. Those are clearly some other people. Or maybe the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th amendments are also some kind of nebulous collective right that can be defined out of existence on a whim?
If one were intellectually honest, they might even question themselves on why the 2nd amendment would be about state militias when the congress has the power to federalize them... if it were about balance between the federal government and the states, why would the federal government have the power to take those militias away for federal service?
By the way, neither states nor the federal government have rights--they have powers.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I'm a law clerk in the state court system, and have been for a little over two years. When I first started, I never saw much of anything that dealt with online content. Now, I'd say that maybe 5-10% of the protective orders ("Harassment Restraining Orders" in my state) deal with students (mostly high school and college) interacting via My Space or Facebook. So I do believe that "cyber bullying" is happening, at least to some extent. Some of it is BS, like parents not approving of their underage daughter's racy pictures of herself and the much-too-old boyfriend, or an angry match.com breakup, or whatever.
Additionally, I don't believe we need any new laws to deal with this. At least I haven't personally seen a need yet. Generally, the existing harassment laws do just fine. They are already written broadly enough to cover "communications" via a number of methods. If someone communicates with you after you've told them you find their contact harassing, the law covers it, whether it's by phone, mail, in-person, or email. Special laws to cover the internet will only make it more difficult to do my job, and more importantly the job of the judges who ultimately make the decisions. And believe me, they are not well equipped to understand online material. Boiling it all down to "communications" is just easier. Court personal and prosecutors are already overworked in many areas, and complicating matters further will basically just mean that either other cases involving more traditional speech will have to be given a lower priority, or that none of it gets the attention it needs.
The one situation that's hard to handle is postings to other people's blogs that are unconnected to the recipient. Trying to analogize a blog posting is a bit difficult -- it's not like we've ever had much of a problem of people speaking bad of each other via physical billboards. But really, that's protected free speech, until it rises to the level of a treat. So essentially, the one situation a politician could conceivably attempt to control is basically impossible control due to that pesky constitution of ours (I know, politicians hate it).
Bottom line, leave the law alone. Stop grandstanding. And throw enough money at the judicial system to be able to spend enough time of each case, and give prosecutors the money to have enough people to pursue the cases that need the most attention. But I suppose it's a lot easier to "JUST THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN!!" by coming up with crazy laws, rather than simply funding courts.
Welp, I might as well call the people who thought this one up "Fucking Idiots" while it's still legal to do so.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
I'm okay with that, as long as they get rid of everyone else on cable news too, especially Nancy Grace and Keith Olbermann (Note: In Olbermann's case, they can allow him to do only sports. I could live with that)
What happened to sticks and stones?
If we outlaw bullying in high schools, then who are going to be our new police officers, lawyers, business managers, politicians, ushers, security guards, and other job positions that require the employee to be a bully?
Who will be our military drill sergeants, will R. Lee Ermey be the last of the drill sergeant instructors and instead we end up with drill sergeant instructors that have to be nice to the new recruits? "That is a sloppy job with reassembling that rifle, private Pyle, now drop and write me an 'I'm sorry' letter and try it again, please. Thank you very much private Pyle."
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I love that all of these posts are supposed to have been done to prove that it has some sort of credence, however they have all been modded funny.
Kind of takes the kick out of it.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's the goddamn internet. If someone is annoying you can delete them or even unplug your machine.
It's not the same as getting punched in the face or jumped by real bullies. Haven't you been bullied in school? You should know the difference.
So we can't really take it seriously. It's not even worthy of honest debate or devil's-advocacy. Hell, debating it just gives the reactionary, melodramatic legislators the attention they're craving.
So, screw it. We're just gonna ridicule it - that's a better use of our time (and a more appropriate response.)
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
We should mod them insightful instead?
Help fight spam
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
But this is the internet! Just because it's illegal in real life and reality doesn't mean we don't need a law that applies only to the internet, mimics a real law and imposes a penalty that surpasses the real one by magnitudes that makes your head spin.
Where have you been when all the other internet laws were passed?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
'Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.'
Why only when using electronic means? I should think it's not the tool you use that is important, but what you do.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Bullying can cause lifelong damage to a person. I know this from personal experience; I'll skip the touchy-feely stuff, but being the target of persistent bullying breaks your self-confidence on so many levels, and you end up being socially isolated simply to survive mentally. Even now, 40 years later, I still find it very difficult to trust other people - it can be a struggle not feeling bitter, and my immediate reaction when I see teenagers is anger, something I have to consciously lift myself out of. You can laugh it off, of course, but a person my age should not feel like this towards the younger generation, I should be teaching young people some of the things I have picked up during my life.
But bad as bullying is, cyberbullying is several degrees worse. At least when you are being bullied by a group of people in school or at work, you have a physical enemy that you can in principle confront; and what they can do to you is limited by many factors. The cyberbully on the other hand, has access to much greater resources and does not have to witness your pain first-hand - so there is less to hold them back. And there is less to confront - as an inexperienced teenager you don't really know enough to handle this situation, and you can't even turn to your parents, because more likely than not, they don't know as much about computers as you do.
Of course passing a law doesn't solve the problem, but it is a necessary first step. The bullies are not going to stop on their own, and they will probably not understand an appeal their better self; so punishment is required. But we can't punish if there isn't a law that makes it a crime.
It's no great stretch of the imagination to see forums, Facebook, Second (for fuck's sake get a first) Life and all the other online chat / blog comments / whatever defined as public expression, so whatever isn't acceptable in real life should be no less vilified online.
Bullying is bullying - full stop, and the significant difference with online bullying is that the victim can't turn round and kick seven shades of shit out of the bully.
I was bullied as a child, but only ever once by each bully - they soon learned the lesson once I broke noses and fingers.
If I had been subject to online bullying, many lessons would not have been taught, and I might have been affected by the verbals - as it is, there are quite a few people in their late 40s who stopped bullying as a result of a good kicking from me.
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
i know very well that this bill will "end up prosecuting" whatever some prosecutor wants, regardless of what the original intent was.
But this is exactly the kind of thing that should be taken seriously. Sadly, it will probably not be used much to protect children who may need it, but will instead be used to protect politicians, the well heeled but disliked and so on.
It is a pretty obvious way to choke out free speech - at least free speech about persons. The question would have to be "Will it pass the Supremes?" and I'd not want to bet either way on that.
Cyberbullying legislation is a few steps too far, but cyber-bullies effectively have superpowers that real bullies don't.
I am going to take you into a story, now try and imagine this in a serious manner. Imagine you are in high school and there is a real-life bully that could shapeshift into you and start jacking off to pics of the male principal in the middle of the cafeteria, for example. When someone tries to stop him, he teleports away, and he does not need to show up for class, and nobody knows where he lives. He can also set up a giant billboard just outside the school (with, say, an ad for you as lead male in Goats Gone Wild) and draw everyone's attention to it, and you couldn't do jack shit about it. It's nearly impossible to prove who is who. Could you imagine the horror?
Most of us on Slashdot would try to keep our online personas and real selves as separate as possible, but to high school teens nowadays they are one and the same. They go by their real names online and post real information about themselves - there's no online persona dissociated from the real person that they could just "drop" in a worse-case scenario, or alternatively, not give a shit about. A cyber-bully could get pics of you, your contact information, everything needed to impersonate you. Cyber-bullying can be as bad as real bullying, short of physical injury, although it's partly the teens' fault for not keeping their online persona and real selves separate.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel