DiManno; Cyber-bullying is too mild a term for criminal harassment

DiManno; Cyber-bullying is too mild a term for criminal harassment
Oct 23, 2012 22:17
HELENNA Points: Join Date: Oct 23, 2012 Status: offline	We are in cyber age, yesterday's technology has applied to daily life of all ages and also brought up serious social phenomenon that has become hot topics on the radio and TV news. That is Cyber security. Here is one of the issues - Cyber bullying and criminal offense. --------------- source: By Rosie DiManno Columnist : Torstars There must be a better term, surely, for the phenomenon of online tormenting than “cyber bullying.” That phrase sounds both too benign and psycho-babbly. It’s stalking, really, ambushing, and mental abuse, with frequent gusts to no-touch sexual assault, cudgeling via photo-post. I doubt whether the tragic lesson of Amanda Todd’s suicide has been absorbed by web trolls, those legions of creeps, striking from the social media shadows, who continue to victimize that poor teenager and her family. Not a particular bright constituency, either, or they would not be so easily detected by amateur sleuths, as was the case with the London, Ont., rodent — a grownup — exposed after a couple of clicks on the keyboard by a Calgary mom, who contacted his employer, and they promptly fired him. The vulture that spewed a vicious comment on Amanda’s memorial page was quite rightly identified by the Star, though other media withheld his identity. The man’s rationalization of his actions — some kind of social experiment, deliberately provocative — was pathetic, transparently lame. Broadly criminalizing such reprehensible conduct is rife with problems of unintended consequences. Free speech is a precious right, no matter how objectionable the content. But there are existing laws of libel and slander that apply to the written and spoken word. As a columnist, I can’t spew willy-nilly. Editors and lawyers scrutinize my copy; the former on matters of taste, the latter on matters of legal implications.

Oct 23, 2012 22:17

HELENNA
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We are in cyber age, yesterday's technology has applied to daily life of all ages and also brought up serious social phenomenon that has become hot topics on the radio and TV news. That is Cyber security. Here is one of the issues - Cyber bullying and criminal offense.
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source: By Rosie DiManno
Columnist : Torstars

There must be a better term, surely, for the phenomenon of online tormenting than “cyber bullying.”

That phrase sounds both too benign and psycho-babbly.

It’s stalking, really, ambushing, and mental abuse, with frequent gusts to no-touch sexual assault, cudgeling via photo-post.

I doubt whether the tragic lesson of Amanda Todd’s suicide has been absorbed by web trolls, those legions of creeps, striking from the social media shadows, who continue to victimize that poor teenager and her family. Not a particular bright constituency, either, or they would not be so easily detected by amateur sleuths, as was the case with the London, Ont., rodent — a grownup — exposed after a couple of clicks on the keyboard by a Calgary mom, who contacted his employer, and they promptly fired him. The vulture that spewed a vicious comment on Amanda’s memorial page was quite rightly identified by the Star, though other media withheld his identity. The man’s rationalization of his actions — some kind of social experiment, deliberately provocative — was pathetic, transparently lame.

Broadly criminalizing such reprehensible conduct is rife with problems of unintended consequences. Free speech is a precious right, no matter how objectionable the content. But there are existing laws of libel and slander that apply to the written and spoken word. As a columnist, I can’t spew willy-nilly. Editors and lawyers scrutinize my copy; the former on matters of taste, the latter on matters of legal implications.

Oct 23, 2012 22:18

HELENNA
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These are not standards routinely imposed on the free-for-all comments section that appears beneath most Star stories online. Comments are usually prohibited on cases still before Canadian courts. Journalists know how to navigate libel laws, but readers don’t. Yet the Star is legally responsible for everything it publishes, in the paper and online. The post-it mudslinger could easily trigger a contempt charge, even cause a mistrial, but it would be the Star hauled before a judge.

Frankly, I’m dismayed by the venom so casually belched in our online comment platform, less the invective aimed at me (dish it, take it) than the malicious vilification of individuals written about, those who agree to interviews or are the subject of stories. All those people wringing their hands now about the disgraceful online bullying of Amanda, for example, should take a good look in the mirror. Ask yourself: How much have I contributed to the culture of browbeating and menace?

Your hands aren’t clean.

Courts are belatedly struggling to codify the parameters of online free speech and what constitutes a crime.

Criminal harassment is illegal, though often difficult to quantify. On Friday, police in London, Ont. revealed they’d charged eight teenage girls with criminal harassment stemming from a bullying investigation at a local high school. Information about the student targeted with physical, emotional and cyber bullying was garnered from an online portal a school had created, where students can anonymously share their Internet tribulations.

Oct 23, 2012 22:19

HELENNA
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While instinctively averse to snitch-lines, I can accept that sometimes the greater public interest justifies this kind of intervention tool. The cost of silence is simply too high.

Toronto police on Thursday took a different tack, throwing the book at a teenage boy, charging him with extortion, threatening death, making, possession and distribution of child pornography, all arising from a sexting case. The youth had allegedly used intimate photos of a girl with whom he’d had a six-month online relationship, hacking into her email account and sending the “lewd’’ images to all her email contacts after she refused to provide a video of herself.

What’s distressing is not just the boy’s spiteful conduct, his utter lack of ethics — we expect rash behavior from teenagers because immaturity is part of the youthful condition. But I’m equally at a loss by teens — or adults for that matter — who recklessly dump compromising photographs and details about themselves into the cyber mosh pit.

Amanda did the same thing with a picture of herself topless, intended for one person, but it went viral. In her wrenching pre-suicide video, she acknowledged that error. But why must I live with this mistake forever, she asked? Because the Internet is forever, and even a generation raised on social media inexplicably fails to grasp the reality of ever-after. It takes a second to send what can never be taken back.

What startles me is how quickly malevolence can spike from zero to potentially tragic. There’s a phenomenon in psychology known as “Frog in the Frying Pan’’ sensory deprivation. A frog dropped into a sizzling frying pan will immediately jump out. But if the pan is heated slowly, the frog will not perceive danger, eventually boiling to death. It’s basically an anecdotal truism, sometimes used to describe women that stay in abusive relationships as they become accustomed to ill-treatment, rather than leap for sanctuary, flee.

Oct 23, 2012 22:20	#3
HELENNA Points: Join Date: Oct 23, 2012 Status: Offline	Online, there seems little incremental, lulling build-up. Girls — and boys — reveal too much of themselves candidly and impulsively. They open their hearts and flash their nakedness, then find themselves caught in a web of exploitation. There’s no internal off-switch. And no magic external device to get unplugged.

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