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?

As regular readers know, we have been working on our cyberbullying book for well over a year. It is currently in the copy-editing phase and is still on track for publication in August. It goes without saying that we are extremely excited about this. It is a culmination of over five years of research. We truly believe that it will be the cyberbullying book for educators, parents, and others concerned about adolescent Internet use. Over the next several months we will be rolling out additional materials to supplement the book, including lesson plans, chapter quizzes, and ideas for how to work the information into your curriculum – both for adults and older teens. Stay tuned!

Indictments were filed yesterday in the Megan Meier case. For those of you unfamiliar with the case, you can read the story here. In short, Megan Meier was the 13-year-old from Missouri who committed suicide after being cyberbullied on MySpace. To make matters worse, the offender was a fictitious 16-year-old boy who was created by the mother of one of Megan’s friends. Megan’s mother, Tina, has become an instant cyberbullying activist, appearing on many national news programs lobbying for cyberbullying legislation.

While I feel those responsible for Megan’s untimely death need to be punished, I’m not sure the current indictments are the best approach. Our reading of the indictment suggests that Lori Drew, the mother allegedly responsible for the harassment, is being charged with violating MySpace’s terms of service which prohibits “promoting conduct that was abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory, or libelous.” So she is essentially being criminally charged (in federal court) for committing (and conspiring to commit) a civil crime (a “tortious” act).

This indictment really speaks to the problem facing cyberbullying advocates. The problem is that there are no good, clear laws that govern this behavior. If society feels as though those who cyberbully should be held criminally responsible, then legislators should get to work on creating the legislation. Because they have largely failed to do so, special prosecutors, and in this case federal prosecutors, are forced to shoe-horn cyberbullying cases into existing legislation. Many states have recently passed laws concerning cyberbullying – but they all simply direct school districts to deal with it. Instead of providing meaningful direction to educators, parents, and prosecutors, the laws merely require school districts to update their harassment policies to include electronic variants. But again, they stop short of giving specific directions.

I’m not advocating here that we should criminalize cyberbullying. The vast majority of cyberbullying cases can usually be most effectively dealt with informally by parents, with the help of others (educators, school counselors, maybe even local law enforcement). In the rare case that cyberbullying behaviors result in significant harm and/or death, however, well then those responsible need to be held accountable. The real question is whether the indictments filed yesterday will hold up. Any thoughts? How about from our two resident lawyers?

So…I’m sure by now you all have heard the news story and seen the attendant video of the cheerleader in Lakeland, Florida who was lured into a “friend’s” home and then severely beaten by that friend and other cheerleaders. All of this for basically talking smack over MySpace (cyberbullying?) about those friends. So what we have is a vivid depiction of six girls who carefully coordinated (with two male lookouts and everything) a vicious attack (to where she suffered a concussion and fell unconscious) on an unsuspecting girl at a home where no parents were around…and where she was detained with no freedom to leave…and where the violence was recorded for the purposes of uploading it to YouTube and MySpace…. Then she was taken in a car, dropped off at some random location, and threatened with more beatings if she went to the authorities.
Points to consider:
1. What is the deal with these girls being so horrifically violent? Is this not out of the ordinary, but seems so because the recording has so starkly shown us the hostility and aggression of which some girls are capable? Is it possible that girls are actually *just as prone to violence* as boys (not withstanding testosterone and so forth) but have been constrained by social acceptability…but perhaps those standards are eroding or fading or being diluted as the years go by?
2. Is our culture being desensitized to female violence? For example, you turn on The Real World on MTV and we are seeing more frequently verbal violence and even physical violence among girls.
3. Were the girls playing to the camera…performing, if you will? Were they, to some degree, looking for their 15 minutes of fame by recording themselves in this video?
4. What were the girls thinking, in terms of escaping identification, apprehension, and punishment, with the recording of the criminal assault?
5. Are the parents at fault?
6. Has anyone seen the MySpace postings, as I’d like to consider their contents?
7. Has anyone figured out how to download flash video, because I’d like to archive those videos linked from that site to show others?

Article and unedited video here.