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

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[quote=HELENNA,480281]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.

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