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

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[quote=HELENNA,480279]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.

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