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According to this article, the Manatee County School Board is allowing educators and administrators to look through the contents of students’ phones in order to find incriminating text, photo, and video content. First, IANAL and so please keep that in mind. Second, even if this occurs on school grounds, I don’t think it justifies allowing teachers to do this under the pretense of “suspicion,” even if it is “reasonable suspicion.” Third, maybe if reasonable suspicion of a crime existed, it might be more palatable. Fourth, the parents will have a field day with this. Fifth, such an invasion should only be possible by school law enforcement and possibly the principal, and not just any teacher. Sixth, most state wiretap laws (such as Florida’s) would simply not allow the interception or disclosure of electronic communications (such as a text message between two students). Anyone who “intentionally intercepts” any “electronic communication” has committed a criminal act. Many state wiretapping laws also prohibit unlawful access to stored communications (and I presume a picture or video taken by a cell phone would fall under this). A violation would then open up the school district to a civil cause of action by the student (or his/her family). So, in sum, I don’t think this will fly. It would be best if students, without the threat of educators confiscating and rifling through the contents of their phone, would simply not use it in inappropriate ways. Maybe one day….

I have been invited by the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Crime Prevention Council to provide remarks on a briefing of Internet Safety at the National Press Club in Washington DC on the morning of June 4th, 2008. I’ll be covering some of our latest cyberbullying research findings in order to heighten national awareness on the topic. I must also say that I am extremely excited about getting my picture taken with McGruff the Crime Dog. I’ll post it here if it happens!

Illinois is seemingly about to pass a law to criminalize any instances of cyberbullying that involve a direct threat to another person. Penalties include up to one year in jail for the first instance of harassing someone online, with repeat offenses leading to up to three years imprisonment. Oddly, the bill only mentions web sites or web pages and doesn’t cover other mediums through (or other venues in which) cyberbullying can occur. I figure that more and more of these bills will pop up in various state legislatures over the next year or so. I am concerned, however, that they might cause adults to rest on their laurels now that a law is on the books. There is so much to be done in terms of education, prevention, and extralegal responses. Laws are, and will never be, a panacea.

I will be at the Jostens Renaissance National Conference presenting on cyberbullying on July 12th, 2008. More details about the conference can be found here. I’ll post more information in the near future!

One of the first questions we are asked by media, parents, educators, and others who are unfamiliar with cyberbullying is simply: what is it?  This is a lot more complicated question than one would assume.  In our academic work, we define cyberbullying as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use computers, cell phones, or other electronic devices.”  This definition, while useful, is fairly broad and ambiguous.  When asking youth whether or not they have experienced cyberbullying, it is important to be very specific with what you are talking about.  In fact, one of the primary reasons we see such a range of estimates about how many youth experience cyberbullying is because of definitional differences.  In our most recent study, we informed youth that cyberbullying was: “when someone repeatedly makes fun of another person online or repeatedly picks on another person through email or text message or when someone posts something online about another person that they don’t like.”  Obviously the key feature of cyberbullying that we want to highlight is its repetitive nature.  While the technology or web environment employed may change (cell phone vs. computer; MySpace vs. Yahoo Chat vs. Facebook, etc), cyberbullying behaviors remain relatively consistent: using technology to repeatedly be hurtful to others.  We’ll talk more about definitional issues on this blog because they are so important.  Let us know your thoughts.  Is there one definition of cyberbullying that is better than the others?