The dark side of free speech, part 2
Cyber bullying
Our culture and probably most others have historically felt that bullies are bad news, but that being bullied is also a rite of passage. We often think that bullying tends to end with elementary school. Could not be farther from the truth.
As a culture, we tolerate and often reward adult bullies, especially bullying managers in the workplace. We celebrate bullies in entertainment as warriors and winners (even when we also celebrate a bully who gets his due), and while hazing in schools, the military, and fraternities is being shunned by the culture, otherwise we do little. to eradicate bullying. Our politicians are often notorious for their intimidating nature. Unless there are corpses, we seem to expect people to just put up with it (or fight back).
As harmful and egregious as bullying can be, cyberbullying takes things one step further. Cyberbullying uses the Internet and other electronic forms of technology to post cruel or shameful photos, messages, emails, or to make threats. However, the attacker is usually anonymous, unknown, and there is no one to fight. As a result, the potential cyberbully is often encouraged to create as much havoc in the life of his victim as possible. The potentially viral nature of such posts – that is, the ability for these posts to replicate widely, quickly, and endlessly – does not occur in a face-to-face encounter.
A typical bullying event (non-cyber) occurs at one point in time and then ends (although another similar event may occur). Bullying happens in one place in space: a street corner or the office, perhaps. Harassment is often witnessed, and everyone present knows the perpetrator. A cyberbullying incident, on the other hand, can spread to hundreds of people in seconds and millions of people in a relatively short time, can persist for an extended period, can be distributed worldwide, and has no one to answer for its action. .
As a result, the damage from such an incident can be repeated and repeated over and over again. Sadistic types may enjoy repeating and republishing, and even creating websites to encourage their persistence. These sites cause a cumulative effect, with nasty fellow travelers adding their own often unbearably nasty insults, republishing the private images, and multiplying the damage. Some may not realize or care about the damage they cause; others delight in it.
An unfortunate creation of cyberbullying is “revenge porn”. There are sites on the Internet created solely to embarrass and hurt people (mostly women) by electronically posting and republishing sexual images of a former lover or interest. Some of these posts are designed to embarrass the associates of the person whose pornographic image is posted. The target may be the ex-boyfriend or husband and the victim is “collateral damage.” Even well-known people can engage in obnoxious behavior, such as the recent case of a hip-hop star and his site featuring a pornographic video of a hip-hop girlfriend in her rap fight.
Many victims of seemingly endless cyberbullying, including clients who have come to us for help, have lost their self-esteem. Others have been driven to substance abuse, school or society dropouts, and such bullying behavior has even been implicated in suicides. While it is not generally considered a crime, it is far from victimless.
Cyber bullying
Cyberbullying is a more specific form of cyberbullying and, like cyberbullying, it is much more anonymously enabled as possible over the internet. It is the use of the Internet and other technologies to harass someone, although some cyberbullying may be secret for a time. Whereas a “traditional” stalker may follow a victim’s movements, spying on them from hidden areas, or with binoculars or telescopes, the cyber stalker electronically monitors his target (s).
Much of our social life is semi-public these days, on social media like Twitter and Facebook. The Internet makes it easy for a person to hide their identity, create a false identity, or impersonate someone else, perhaps as a false friend, making it easy to spy on a person’s activities through social media. Like cyberbullying, the ease of anonymity on the Internet can embolden the cyberbully, thinking (often correctly) that they will not find out.
We regularly find cases where the stalker has managed to investigate and guess the credentials of his victim’s email or other online accounts, making it easy to discover the victim’s whereabouts, conversations, and correspondence. In some of these cases, the perpetrator will even impersonate the victim, sending false emails and messages, posting as the victims themselves, or posting embarrassing images as if the victim themselves were the source of the statements, photos, or videos.
This has come to be understood and judged to mean that the government cannot prevent you from saying its article, no matter how much the government or anyone else disagrees. This applies to the entire US government – federal, state, local entities, and public officials of those public entities. You are free to speak in “the public square”. Please note that the Public Plaza concept applies only to government entities, property, and officials. It does not apply to private or commercial property. Property or business owners may prohibit you from saying certain things, or saying anything on or within their property, business, or broadcasts, unless otherwise permitted.
Bullies can find a way to infiltrate the fabric of the victim’s financial, social and family life, leaving personal life in tatters. Although it is easy to read about such events and behaviors, it is all over the news, victims are often not taken seriously, with friends and loved ones calling them neurotic or paranoid. Because the cyber stalker often tries to damage the victim’s reputation, the reactions of those close to the victim often further the stalker’s goals.
And while cyberbullying is illegal in many parts of the country and the world, these actions rarely reach the level that law enforcement agencies need to see to take seriously or investigate. Read between the lines in the news and you will find that almost all arrests that include cyberbullying also include a serious threat, a violation of an existing restraining order, identity theft, theft of physical property, or child abuse.
Offending
Internet trolling is behavior in which the troll intends to inflame, annoy, or damage civil discourse. In the context of this series of articles, you tend to disrupt the public or online communication of others through the use of vile invectives, name calling, and other verbal havoc. It is often misogynistic. The ability to be anonymous on the Internet removes much of the inhibition a person might feel from behaving in such rude ways.
To do?
A common thread running through the behaviors described is the ability to remain anonymous on the Internet. One could imagine that removing the option to be anonymous would remove the motivation for the behavior, but in this case, the solution could be said to be worse than the problem. In the first part of this series, we discussed freedom of expression, one of our most important rights, and the importance of anonymity. Both have played a very important role in the very creation of our nation and continue to protect those who report abuse, even when such anonymity allows for other types of abuse. What are we going to do?
In Part 3, we discuss what we can do and what is being done, both legally and socially, to limit harmful cyber behavior.
