Setting Anti-Cyberbullying Legal Policies

Introduction

One of the key principles of the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program is setting “firm limits on unacceptable behavior” (Olweus, 2003, 15). Indeed, a few years ago, Hinduja and Patchin also suggested a similar principle, arguing that it is crucial to “teach students that all forms of bullying are unacceptable and that cyberbullying behaviors are potentially subject to discipline” (Hinduja & Patchin, 2018).

However, defining anti-cyberbullying policies is a challenging issue. According to modern law sociologists, laws and legal systems are social constructions and are not matters of nature but of artifice (Hart, Hart & Green, 2012). A law formalizes in a rule or a set of rules what society considers important to regulate, reflecting the moral beliefs and values of a particular time. As a consequence, legal systems don’t remain static.

Nowadays, new technologies are disrupting social attitudes, and making adequate legal policies is a necessity. Indeed, a great effort is being made at a global level to establish common policies to harmonize and manage the impact of ICT, for example to regulate the legal value of digital documents, electronic signatures, and e-commerce transactions. In the last decade, endeavors have been made to enforce privacy protection as well as to introduce anti-cyber crime policies.

In this scenario, cyberbullying is attracting social, political, and academic interest (Martinez-Pecino & Durán, 2016). In this regard, it has been observed that while there aren’t many calls for changing laws to prevent and punish students who engage in face-to-face bullying, there are many calls for laws against anti-cyberbullying (Campbel & Zavrsnik, 2013).

There could be two main reasons for this. The first is that in the last three decades it was common to find school staff and parents who believed that bullying was not a concern (Rigby, 2008). They not only underestimated its frequency but also considered the experience of bullying as a normal part of growing up for children (“Kid will be kids”; “Kids need to learn to deal with bullying on their own”; “Don’t let it get to you”; “You’re too sensitive ... toughen up”). Even though the observed consequences of bullying are depression, anxiety, and serious psychosomatic effects including suicide, there are still those even now who view it as an inevitable part of growing up (Copeland, Wolke, Angold, & Costello, 2013).

The second reason is a consequence of the increasing attention of the media on cyberbullying. Extreme cases that end with the suicide of the victim are extensively reported and commented on by experts, especially psychologists and lawyers. People tend to adapt their responses to the worst and most shocking cases. Researchers in the area of social control have long posited a relationship between media, popular culture, and perceptions of punishment, including punitive attitudes (Callanan & Rosenberger, 2011; Demker, Towns, Duus-Otterstrom, & Sebring, 2008; Dowler, 2003) and support for capital punishment (Britto & Noga-Styron, 2014).

Moreover, cyberbullying is the label used by media to encompass a broad range of online misbehavior. The situation is similar in other contexts. In fact, it has been observed that the “myth of homogeneity” regarding the sex offender population has permeated the domains of media and public policy (Galeste, Fradella, & Vogel, 2012).

In the following paragraphs, the question of criminalization of cyberbullying will be tackled and two notorious cases will be illustrated and analyzed. The first is the case of Dori Drew, the mother that helped her daughter to create the false account used to cheat and hurt the thirteen-year-old Megan Meier. The victim committed suicide, but all attempts to incriminate Dori Drew failed. Although no charge was made against Lori Drew relating to the suicide of Megan, this case continues to be presented as a classic example of cyberbullying,