Cyberbullying

Photo above courtesy to mediabistro.com


With every new piece of technology comes the choice whether one will use or misuse it. In today’s modern world every kid, with some exceptions, has cell phone. Most common is Apple’s iPhone, and various other Smartphone’s. With such a boom in connectivity between children in recent years, it is hard for schools to manage online harassment, known as cyber bullying.

Recently a California court case has found that cyber bullying is not protected under the first amendment. With nothing to look to, this has been the first decided case involving cyberbulling. In this case, a group of teens and parents were sued by the bullied victim. Refusing to settle the case, specifically call a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), the court found the online statements at issue of the "true threat" exception to First Amendment.


The victim had an ongoing acting and singing career, and had also designed a webpage to promote himself. Several students decided that this was worthy of sending threatening messages and what they believed to be his sexual orientation Soon after, his parents removed him from the school, and filed suit, claiming hate crimes, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The group of teens sent various amount texts to the victim including, but not limited to, "I want to rip out your f***ing heart and feed it to you. ... I've ... wanted to kill you. If I ever see you I'm ... going to pound your head in with an ice pick."




Above photo courtesy to Chris Kasurak

In a 2-1 decision, the California Court of Appeals for the 2nd District found in favor of a student who sued other students after receiving threats posted on his website.
This case was brought under the anti-SLAPP statute. This law protects defendants from suits over protected speech addressing public issues. The court found the defendant's message to be threatening, even though the defendants claimed that it was a "joke".



Above photo courtesy to bebo.com

This is a horrible thing to happen. Everyone has been bullied before by someone else in their life. The only way to stop the bulling is to seek help from fellow peers, teachers, and parents.




While searching on other blogs I came upon a parent who had an simply answer to solve this issue, "I think people are forgetting something .. . You can always turn the computer off and walk away".http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.parcbench.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/cyberbullying2_05.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.parcbench.com/2009/09/02/anonymity-unbound-%25E2%2580%2593-cyber-babies-vs-cyber-bullies/&usg=__fBU9W8YM-HmDZFXUjfboKrt_u_Q=&h=303&w=336&sz=27&hl=en&start=3&sig2=T5nCGVGZF9Z8MfB7ZcOaiQ&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=j9YxpHZbSV2AdM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=119&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcyber%2Bbullying%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=61XWS9H2KcKBlAfuk9jsAw However, as simply of an answer this is, this parent is right. Teens have to ablilty to turn off the computer and walk away. This choice is the same as if they were being asked to take drugs and such.

Courtesy below to..


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZgpmuz2MQc