The Inadequacy of Current Legal Frameworks
Question:
Discuss About The Cyberbullying Social Media Journal School?
In the recent times, the cyberbullying victims are approaching to law for both criminal and civil cases to get justice. In the traditional forms bullying continues to exist and now in this modern era cyber bullying is adapted. It has gradually shaped its presence in the life of people through digital communication technologies and media (Heatheringto and Coyne 2017). The people address the high power imbalance between the bullies and them so that some vindications can be obtained. Facebook is a social networking service and online social media company. Accounting to (Aph.gov.au. 2018) millions of households in Australia have been subjected to internet abuses. Facebook is too facing the problem due to identity theft and virus infections. Therefore it is important for the government of Australia to impose adequate criminal laws and legal framework. The current cumulative effect of cyberbullying of people in Australia, has therefore led to increase in suicide and self-harm.
While considering the vital fact, the adequacy of existing cyberbullying laws will be examined. The role of education and self-regulation is important to consider while addressing the bullying. Moreover, it is significant to ascertain Harmful Digital Communication (HDC) Bill that is confined to cyberbullying and change is suggested for the proposed scheme (Whittaker and Kowalski 2015).
The vital component of cyber bullying includes the harmful digital communication. The bill would therefore develop a three-tier system to overcome the issue. At the initial level, the bill would create an established approved agency. This would also be the ‘go to’ source for meditation and responsible for allegedly harmful digital communication through Facebook that lead to harmful digital bullying. Moreover, the bill would also create new criminal offence that is designed to combat the current cyberbullying laws. The regulations will allow the law to grant new powers so that order can be given to remove any harmful digital contents, identification of anonymous authors and corrections should be published so that a proper right of reply can be imparted to the target for harmful digital communications. Moreover, the bill would also propose alterations to the Crimes Act 1961 Therefore, it can also adequately respond to various challenges that are posed by digital communications (Aph.gov.au. 2018).
Cyberbullying: In the earlier times, bullying refers to the verbal, physical and relational aggressions that have been the social issues since a long time. Most of the bullying generally occurs between young people and children. However, in the recent times bullying is also common between adults in their workplaces and also leads to severe consequences. According to Pabian and Vandebosch (2016), there is presently no academic consensus that is what behavior leads to cyberbullying. It is usually focused on the severe interactions taking place among the young generation using the internet and mobile phones. Vranjes et al. (2018) defines cyberbullying as crime that is done to harass, embarrass or hurt somebody through the application of mobile phones, internet and using other technologies like digital camera. Due to cyberbullying severe case has been highlighted that has been a major factor leading to self harm or suicides. Slonje, Smith and Frisén (2017), focused on popular perception stating that cyberbullying generally occurs among young people. It is more adverse than the traditional or face to face bullying. However, Whittaker and Kowalski (2015) contended that online and cyberbullying is merely an advanced form of traditional way of bullying that has adopted itself to the latest technology.
The Role of Harmful Digital Communication (HDC) Bill in Addressing Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying leads to imbalance of power harm the target to defend themselves. Therefore, the power imbalance and anonymity is given to the bullies online. Digital communication could lead to the digital longevity of communications. Any harmful comment on social networking sites like Facebook can also be viewed by various people. The comment can easily be viewed by the public and cause harm to its target by sharing or liking the comments (Heatheringto and Coyne 2017). Therefore, the HDC Bill would therefore recognize the main issue that is created by digital longevity.
According to the reports cyberbullying is mostly conducted over on mobile phones or through the internet. It is founded that out of the two methods, cyberbullying through mobile phones is more common. Over 24.5% of the people have reported that they have been bullied over mobile phones for at least once since the past few years. As per 17.5% people has reported that they have via internet (Aph.gov.au. 2018). However, many cell phones user has allowed accessing the online messaging services and internet. Cyberbullying also takes various forms that include cyber stalking, online harassment, denigration, exclusion and outing. On the other hand, Thomas, Connor and Scott (2015) commented that cyberbullying messages include abuses, threats, humiliations, name calling, rumors, and demand and death threats via social media such as Facebook.
Baldry, Farrington and Sorrentino (2017) commented cyberbullying to be an intentional act that leads to the interpersonal aggression, which involves more than one person in the cyberspace. Over 21% of 14 to 15 year old are cyber bullied each year and mostly, 16% of individuals belonging to 16 to 17 years age group is also reported for being cyberbullied. In Australia, there are many non-legislative cybersafety measures, which include non-enforceable and voluntary arrangements for complaint handlings on the social sites of Facebook.
However as per Barlett, Gentile and Chew (2016), the exact situations of cyberbullying is very difficult to ascertain as the young people generally does not report the crime of cyberbullying to the adults. Moreover, the school or Ministry of Education does not contain any national or official record relating to the incidents of cyberbullying. Recently, cyberbullying is also very prevalent among the adults. Majority of the complaints that is filed every month is related to intimidating, threatening, bullying or aggressive online behavior is due to adults. On the other hand, as per Hinduja and Patchin (2017), it is a common perception that bullying in Australia is increasing at a rapid rate, which is becoming quite difficult to measure the distinction between ‘bullying’ and ‘violence’.
The Australian Government is set on establishing a ‘Children’s e-safety commissioner, which would develop a complaint system for the removal of distressing and harmful contents on the social media sites (Aph.gov.au. 2018). Over 43% of the kids have been always bullied online. Moreover, one in four children has been bullied more than once. Almost 80% of the teens use mobile phones on a regular basis (Waasdorp and Bradshaw, 2015). The young individual’s think that bullying through online sources is much easier to take advantage than bullying in a person. They management the most prominent medium relating to the cyber bullying. However, according to Hinduja and Patchin (2017), majority of teenagers themselves agrees that cyber bullying is a very serious threat.
Dimensions of Cyberbullying: Anonymity, Power Imbalance, and Harmful Digital Communication
According to the policy of Facebook, the account holder or user of the social media site should be at least 13 years of old before they make any account. Barlett, Gentile and Chew (2016) commented that lead to only shifting the blame rather than a rigorous policy. The help age of Facebook even instruct it users on how to report for accounts that are used by underage children. According to the reports nearly 83 million accounts is fake. Nearly 28 % of the Australian populations are fake that are related in the breach of terms and condition related to Facebook. Most of the bullies create their fake profiles in order to antagonize their peers. For an instance, a teen from Georgia sued her bullies by creating a fake profile. The profile was made in the name of the victim and also included the victim’s distorted photo as her profile picture. Later on as per the report of the officials, the profile was permanently removed a week later.
The ‘cyberbullies’: Sometimes, it becomes quite difficult to draw a clear line between the targets and the bullies. In majority of the cases the targets concerned are closely related in either ways through family, peer groups, professionally or personally with the bully (Slonje, Smith and Frisén 2017).
As mentioned by Heatheringto and Coyne (2017), the physical affect of bullying includes chronic illness, suicidal ideation and eating disorder among the individuals. Moreover, this may also lead to a range of behavioral and psychological problems that could lead to low self-esteem, insecurity and anxiety problems. It has also been argued that cyberbullying negative consequences could be very severe than the traditional bullying. On the other hand, as per Pabian and Vandebosch (2016), it has been often argued that young people are less likely to perceive the risks than adults, which leads them to engage in unsafe digital behavior. Furthermore, this leads the young children to skip their schools and suspensions and detentions. These scenarios are frequently reported by the youth.
Cyberbullying is a very fatal problem in Australian society that could lead to severe consequences on the target’s health. Therefore, it can be concluded cyberbullying has increasingly became a major factor leading to suicide and has also caused severe distress among its bullies. Australia should rapidly change its attitude towards cyberbullying due to increasingly importance of digital communication technology in the lives of the people. The current and existing laws needs to be re-examined value or significance of the proposed HDC Bill should be properly assessed.
References:
Aph.gov.au. 2018. Terms of Reference – Parliament of Australia. [online] Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Cyberbullying/Terms_of_Reference [Accessed 2 Mar. 2018].
Baldry, A.C., Farrington, D.P. and Sorrentino, A., 2017. School Bullying and Cyberbullying Among Boys and Girls: Roles and Overlap. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 26(9), pp.937-951.
Barlett, C.P., Gentile, D.A. and Chew, C., 2016. Predicting cyberbullying from anonymity. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 5(2), p.171.
Brewer, G. and Kerslake, J., 2015. Cyberbullying, self-esteem, empathy and loneliness. Computers in human behavior, 48, pp.255-260.
Heatherington, W. and Coyne, I., 2017. Understanding individual experiences of cyberbullying encountered through work. International Journal of Organization Theory & Behavior, 17(2), pp.163-192.
Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J.W., 2017. Cultivating youth resilience to prevent bullying and cyberbullying victimization. Child abuse & neglect, 73, pp.51-62.
Pabian, S. and Vandebosch, H., 2016. An investigation of short-term longitudinal associations between social anxiety and victimization and perpetration of traditional bullying and cyberbullying. Journal of youth and adolescence, 45(2), pp.328-339.
Slonje, R., Smith, P.K. and Frisén, A., 2017. Perceived reasons for the negative impact of cyberbullying and traditional bullying. European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14(3), pp.295-310.
Thomas, H.J., Connor, J.P. and Scott, J.G., 2015. Integrating traditional bullying and cyberbullying: challenges of definition and measurement in adolescents–a review. Educational Psychology Review, 27(1), pp.135-152.
Vranjes, I., Baillien, E., Vandebosch, H., Erreygers, S. and De Witte, H., 2018. Kicking someone in cyberspace when they are down: Testing the role of stressor evoked emotions on exposure to workplace cyberbullying. Work & Stress, pp.1-21.
Waasdorp, T.E. and Bradshaw, C.P., 2015. The overlap between cyberbullying and traditional bullying. Journal of Adolescent Healthcare, 56(5), pp.483-488.
Whittaker, E. and Kowalski, R.M., 2015. Cyberbullying via social media. Journal of School Violence, 14(1), pp.11-29.
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