What is the most important part of the Internet and why do people use it every day? Some people use it to look up information, some use it for entertainment while others use it for communication. More and more people have been using the Internet throughout the years according to Kimberly Miller, which can lead to the enjoyment of many, but can carry risk. One major risk is cyberbullying which impact users every day. Cyberbullying is an issue, but should there be laws and criminally and civil punishments for cyber bullying in the United States? 

Cyberbullying is a broad term used by many people, and it has various definitions which are all vague. According to Mark Grabnowski, it is defined by “The use of e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, pagers, cell phones, or other forms of information technology to deliberately harass, threaten, or intimidate someone” while the Cyberbulling Research Center defines it as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices”.  In general terms, cyberbullying is causing deliberate emotional harm using technology and electronic devices. To have any legal consequences for emotional harm, there needs to be well defined conditions that need to be met. 

Who controls the government and how can there be laws in place? According to Steven Murdoch and Hal Robers, initially the Internet was controlled by the online community through setting social norm with little intervention from law enforcement. In recent time, because of the growth of the Internet, governments have been getting more evolved. A country that did pass laws around cyberbullying is New Zealand. According to David Harvey, in 2011, New Zealand had a conference about cyberbullying. In 2015, they passed the “Harmful Digital Communication Act”. This act covers all forms of electronic communication and violators can receive a criminal prosecution or a civil enforcement order. Other countries have different laws creating a set of checks and balances among international governments, companies, and individuals and they are always changing. There has been no advancement on how to start new laws, what the goals are for these laws, and the ability to enforce the new laws or goals on the Internet. The most common way to achieve a better community proposed would be to have automated control to check all forms of communication. Allowing the government to see, limit, and control communication is very dangerous and is not the proper solution. It breaches privacy and there are many ways users can get around using new software. An example of this type of software is the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). FOSS is software to allow citizens in countries who have online censorship and allows them to access and disseminate free information according to Farid Shirazi. The United States does not have any federal laws, but they do have state laws. 

Every state has different cyberbullying laws in place to prevent or limit the amount of people who get bullied. For example, in South Carolina the Safe School Climate Act extends the protection to stop bullying on electronic forms in schools such as social media and chat rooms, but it does not extend past that according to the Cyberbullying Research Center. Most laws in place only relate to the school environment which does not help those who are not in school, but are still being harassed by other people. An example of this is Tyler Clementi. (Miller pg.391) He attended Rutgers University and his roommate started posting his homosexual relationship online. This resulted in him committing suicide while the perpetrator only received two charges of invasion or privacy and 2 charges of attempted invasion of privacy. He spent 20 days in prison (Miller pg. 392). This shows that the federal government has laws in place that convicts people for privacy reason, but there are no laws about cyberbullying outside of public schools. Laws outside of their own school district and state cannot be passed because there are no federal laws in place and they cannot make laws for other states. According to Mark Grabowski, when laws are placed up to congress they always get shot down because of the first amendment law and other complications when trying to govern the use of the Internet. The First Amendment covers opinions and free speech in America, but there are laws against certain types of speech already. This includes revealing private and personal information without consent of the other party, and make a real threat to harm an individual or group of people. On the Internet however, it is very difficult to prosecute anyone with these offensives if they are mild. This has to do with the anonymity of people when using the Internet and is now normal when going to certain parts of the Internet.

Cyberbullying occurs in many places on the internet. If playing any multiplayer game such as League of Legends and Counter Strike Golobal Offensive, expect to receive and see some harsh words and attacks on the individual. Multiplayer games are online games which multiple people get into and play a game together. These communities expect if they make a bad play or make a wrong move they will hear about it from their teammates and get verbally attacked. Some attacks include name calling, racial attacks, and even threating to assault and even kill them and their family. These attacks may seem insane to people that have never played or seen a team based multiplayer game before, but they are common when a player makes a mistake. This may seem like a negative to some people, but there are people who enjoy this type of environment. It gives them added pressure to play well so they will win and have the benefit of not get “abused” or “attacked” which adds an element of fun. 

Another form of online communication is social media. Popular social media sites are Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram; they are used to talk to friends and keep people updated about your life, as well as keeping memories. However, they can also be used for cyberbullying. Most cyberbullying happens on social media platforms since there is no anonymity and followers can make personal attacks. Most followers and friends know the individual in real life, so they can attack online which will cause bullying in real life. Megan Meier was contacted on MySpace in 2006 by a user who called himself Josh Evans (Miller pg 379). He got into an online relationship until Josh started attacking Megan until she killed herself. At the end they found that Josh was a parent of Megan’s former friends, but he was not charged with an offense because there was no law about it (Miller 380). These attacks happen often and there are no laws to help counteract these attacks and there could not be. Pretending to be someone else on the Internet is not illegal. Social media can allow people to make new friends and chat with current friends, but people can use it to attack people and use it for cyberbullying. 

Another form of communication is online forums. These forums include 4Chan and Reddit, which uses accounts to post about anything. Topics people talk about on Reddit is advice, games, stories, cute pet videos, and many other topics. Cyberbullying using this form of communication are different. They attack certain individual on a thread or create a group to attack a certain individual. This can be considered as a type of cyberbullying since they want to cause emotional harm. On these sites, the users usually have a guess profile or an anonymous profile. They can post on these sites without any consequences which is why it is the most dangerous form of online communication. Many people enjoy these forms because of the anonymity of these sites and it allows them to say whatever they want. Cyberbullying on these sites results in a group attacking an individual. An example is Anita Sarkeesian. In Lindy West’s articles, she interviewed Ms. Sarkeesian in which she has been stalked, abused, and threatened online when she started a campaign to fund videos critiquing the representation of women in video games. The group of people have threatened to attack her physically, release personal contact information and tried to shut down her campaign. These are the risk when a popular person becomes a target for a group of people on the Internet.

Online communication platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit may require its users to have an account to post comments on their site. This makes the account have an identifiable user, but it does not mean the person cannot stay anonymous. When making an account, people use fake information. This allows the account to be identifiable, but the user will not put it any personal information. Most accounts require a name, an email address, a username, and a password. People use a fake name, use a site to make a fake email address and the username and password are up to that person’s creativity. This allow the user to not have any connection to the account except for the IP address, and complex tracking methods. Being on the Internet and talking to people while staying completely anonymous is one of the greatest appeals to using this form of communication instead of talking face to face. It allows a person to be different without any consequences, but can also lead people to be more hateful and harmful resulting in cyberbullying. 

This type of bullying can be harmful to a person’s health. It has led to suicides of individuals, especially in adolescents and young adults. The number of people affected has been increasing every year with the rise in popularity of the Internet and the increase availability to use these platforms. According to Kimberly Miller, “the United States has seen a growth of 18.8 percent of students surveyed in 2007 to 34 percent in 2015”. This increase is because almost everyone today can access the Internet with their phone or have Internet at their home or at their school. It is a good thing that the Internet is becoming more available, but it also increases the amount of cyberbullying. 

There are ways to prevent cyberbullying. It begins with education at schools and with parents. “The Information Behavior of a New Generation : Children and Teens in the 21st Century” states that more children are using the Internet to find information. The Internet is replacing regular libraries with virtual libraries, online books, and with search engines like Google. Schools have started implementing technology into their curriculum. Households have access to the Internet more and more, with smartphones and the decreasing cost of computers. Both parents and the school system must teach kids the potential risk when going on the Internet and how to act and behave while using it. Parents should know what their child is doing on the Internet as it is there responsibility to monitor what their child says, does, and watches. Adults should be prepared to receive verbal attacks when playing multiplayer team based games. It is the Internet norm that multiplayer games have harmful language and players will receive verbal abuse. Recently, schools have implemented courses about the right and ethical way to use the Internet. Teaching kids early the proper way to use the Internet and when using the internet be prepared to see harmful things will all help lessen the damage and possible reduce the amount of cyberbullying present.

Currently there is no way nor reason for the United States Government to pass federal laws concerning cyberbullying. They will continue to leave the laws up to the states and the states will most likely leave it up to the schools. I think this is a good thing since there are already laws in place to protect people from slander, threats, and releasing of private information. I also believe that it will cause more harm than good to make these laws since it will likely need the anonymity of the Internet to disappear. Cyberbullying is wrong and is harmful, but there should be no legal laws to criminally punish the offenders. 
