Dealing with Cyber Bullying in the Digital Era

In the Internet age, the traditional schoolyard bully has taken a different form. No longer is the threat limited to the domain of the school, it spans race, age and geographic area, but remains a big problem for school children.

Cyber bullying is an international problem, born out of an era where anonymity on the Internet makes it easy, but it's not necessarily perpetrated by unknown assailants. Many times the victim knows damn well who is hurting them with insulting emails, obscene pictures or intimidating comments. Consider the case of sixteen year old Riya who's psychiatrist told her to ignore the boys who were taunting her. According to a survey mentioned in the report, 30 percent of US teens are victims of cyber bullying. It doesn't sound like something that should just be ignored, but how far should adults and authority figures go to stop it? The Canadian Teacher's Federation represents all 220,000 of Canada's teachers feels that the issue has become the number one non-academic problem that school kids face today. They are trying to do something about controlling cyber bullying in Canadian schools. The Canadian Teacher's Federation voted unanimously this morning in Toronto to form a group that will work on a national policy against Internet bullying. They plan to come up with penalties that cover everything from cell phone usage in the classroom to blogs and emails that are intended to hurt another child's feelings. Policies like this would take a step outside of the classroom and punish students for actions that they take on home computers as well as the use of portable cell phones, laptops and Internet-enabled devices during school hours. In the US, IT Act 2000 does not cover cyber bullying but there are amendments proposed amendments that would list the issue as a penal offence. Adding complexity to the issue is the fact that Internet Cafe's can provide a place for young people to use the web outside of the watchful eyes of parents. Social networking sites like Facebook are extremely popular with the age group and there is no real reason to restrict the use of the Internet to people under the age of 18. The burden of proof should probably be present before disciplinary measures are taken, especially since it is so easy to hide behind an alias on the Internet. But does this mean checking IP addresses and getting police involved? Where do we draw the line between privacy and monitoring decent online conduct? There needs to be a balance in the school's influence on the child's life, while parents also need to be aware of what's going on and not offload the responsibility to the schools or authorities alone to deal with. Take the issue of bullying in the modern age a step further and look at the cases of 'happy slapping' a disturbing trend that is particularly common in the UK. Gangs of kids will beat up or physically harass a kid and capture it on a video device, such as a camera phone. Rape and other violent attacks have been documented making the name of the trend a gross misnomer and downplays the seriousness of some of these crimes. Authorities should be involved when the play turns to crime and with video evidence available and widely broadcast on the Internet, it's been known to backfire on the perpetrators.