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Recently, I spoke about cyberbullying on Wiki-type sites at the annual Answers.com conference in Atlanta, Georgia.  Let me first say that the Answers.com community (employees of the company and volunteer supervisors and contributors) is top-notch.  I absolutely loved being with them, witnessing their contagious passion for improving user experience on the site, and hearing their vision for the future.  They were wonderful, highly-motivated, kind-hearted, and very, very smart.

Many people who don’t actively contribute in Web 2.0 user communities such as Answers.com don’t realize that cyberbullying is a nontrivial problem in these settings.  Apart from spamming and general harassment, Wiki-based communities also have to wrestle with: Flaming (angry and insulting interaction between users); Trolling (posting controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant messages to provoke other users into an emotional response); Blanking (deleting a good answer in its entirety); Vandalizing (spoiling the quality of user contributions or pages); and Misadvising (providing incorrect or harmful answers to another’s question(s)).

After going through a number of examples of cyberbullying on Answers.com, I provided them with an evaluative rubric I created through which they could filter problematic content or pages or posts they saw.  This would allow them to make distinctions as to what is cyberbullying, and what is not – and then respond accordingly.  They have (and are continuing to implement) technological solutions to problem behaviors on the site, but I shared with them a variety of site-specific social solutions that I believe can help promote community self-regulation and the maintenance of a warm, inviting culture for new and existing users.  The presentation was very well-received, and I look forward to working with them further as they continue to grow and expand.

Evidently, the waters of cyberbullying case law are still murky.  Due to variability in opinions and perspectives across jurisdictions and adjudicators, clear precedent is still sometimes elusive.  Consider the following case from late 2009 from a California District Court (08-cv-03824, J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified School District), in which an eighth-grader was cyberbullied through the posting of a YouTube video created by peers denigrating her as “spoiled,” “a brat,” and a “slut.”  The target tearfully reported this to her counselor, and indicated strongly that she was upset, humiliated, and did not feel able to go to class and focus on school.  The counselor discussed the matter with administration as well as with school district attorneys, classified the behavior as “cyberbullying,” and the offending girl who posted the video online was suspended for two days.  Her family decided to sue, and took the case to federal court on the grounds that her First Amendment right to free speech had been violated.

Even though extant case law seems to support corrective action if a target is unable to feel safe and supported to learn without distractions of harassment within a school environment, the federal judge in this case ruled that school authorities overstepped their bounds.  This decision was based on the fact that the school could not prove that the offending speech and actions caused a “substantial disruption” of school activities or goals.  Moreover, the ruling judge stated that “the court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young persons are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments.”

This is particularly disconcerting to me.  The judge completely disregarded the emotional and psychological well-being of the target in this case, even though any adult who serves youth or works for the best interests of youth is taught that they must not view the internalization of harm in a critical manner, but must empathize with it.  That is, adults must not discount the reality of pain experienced by adolescents through their experiences with bullying or cyberbullying, because this casts blame on the victims themselves.  This small-minded mentality is, in part, why we have teenagers who kill themselves – because they feel that their viewpoint is not appreciated but rather trivialized and discarded.

Demonstration of “substantial [schoolwide] disruption” is a sufficient clause to uphold school discipline of cyberbullying behaviors that are initiated off campus.  However, it is not a necessary clause because there are other aggravating factors that impel student disciplinary sanction by schools.  One primary factor is the harm personally and subjectively experienced by victimized youth.  Without question, the ability of the victim in this case to learn in a safe and secure environment at school was substantially disrupted.  But apparently that wasn’t enough.

In essence, the judge asserts that the adolescent victim in this case – and others like her – should have tougher skin, and should not allow hurtful comments to bother her so much.  He summarily dismisses the gravity of her pain in one fell swoop, and bases his decision on an impersonal aspect of the case, rather than the very real, very visceral effect that cyberbullying had on a young girl.

Finally, the victim in this case is being denied the benefits of, and is subjected to discrimination under, a federally-funded educational program (the public school), which undermines her civil rights.  As such, I would not at all be surprised  if this case goes to the appellate level and is overturned.  In fact, I am hopeful that it will be.

Earlier this week, I participated in a Summit organized by the National District Attorneys Association and the National Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse with a variety of professionals in the child protection arena. While other attendees focused in on the problem of child sex trafficking, my small group concentrated on the phenomenon of sexting and self-exploitation.

To begin, none of us really like the term sexting because it’s a buzzword, and drastically overused, and because youth don’t use it in reference to what they are doing. However, we understand that the term has been largely embraced by politicians, legislators, and the mass media, and the traction it has gained will be beneficial in further commanding attention and marshaling resources from those in positions who can help.

We believe sexting refers to “youth rendering themselves vulnerable to emotional, psychological, and physical victimization through the posting and sending of sexually-explicit or sexually-suggestive text, images or video.” I’m pretty sure that covers everything that can be involved.

We don’t necessarily believe that sexting should be referred to as “self-exploitation” as that infers that the victims are fully cognizant, aware, and in support of what they are doing in harming themselves. It places blame on the victim, and renders subjective our perspective of the phenomenon. When youth participate in sexting and then that text, image, or video is circulated outside of its intended recipient (which, incidentally, could also be considered “cyberbullying”), that youth becomes a victim, and no characterization should take away from that.

Sexting is largely an adolescent development issue. This is because of neurophysiological immaturity that youth have, which prevents them from considering long-term ramifications of their actions. Coupled with the disinhibition that cyberspace communication provides, and the geographic distance afforded by computers and cell phones, it’s very easy for youth to act unwisely and participate in this phenomenon. All of this said, we also realize that we (as adults) have a responsibility to step in. I think about the doctrine of in loco parentis, where we (e.g., the government, in the case of the legal professionals who gathered at this summit) have a legal responsibility to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent to protect a child from themselves (i.e., from behavior that can lead to significant victimization). Finally, we must recognize that this issue is a nontrivial problem, and that it requires formal responses in conjunction with the informal attempts that have been made to curtail the problematic behavior.

We have to realize that sexting occurs along a continuum. This ranges first from what my colleague Nancy Willard calls “stupid teen” behavior – which is just part of adolescent courtship rituals and relationships in a time where cell phones, texting, and Picture Mail are practically ubiquitous. Most cases of sexting seem to fall under this category. Then we have problematic boyfriend/girlfriend relationships where there is a measure of abuse or dating violence that takes place. Third, we have sexting that involves intentional exploitation – blackmail, extortion, coercion, deception and trickery. This might, by the way, also be termed “compliant victimization” – which occurs after a period of grooming and the building of trust (forensic pediatrician Dr. Sharon Cooper shared that distinction with me at the Summit). An adult may be involved in these situations as well. Finally, we have what can be termed self-exploitation – which involves youth who brazenly and willingly flaunt and advertise themselves online in a sexual manner. This could range from a youth creating a social networking profile with various sexually suggestive images, videos, or text, to a youth actively prostituting herself in similar environments.

We believe that this can and should be dealt with through multidisciplinary teams that involve law enforcement (school liaison officers, local/state departments, and Internet Crimes Against Children units), child protective services workers and agencies, schools, mental health professionals, medical professionals like pediatricians and nurse practitioners, and social workers. The primary goal of prevention should be addressed through education/awareness efforts to school professionals, other youth-serving professionals, community and after-school organizations, faith-based organizations, NGOs, and of course parents and youth. This multidisciplinary team should be created at the local level, and – if and when done well – it should be shared with, and promoted by, organizations at the state level (such as the Department of Education, Department of Family and Child Services, and similar entities) to the rest of the state. This will then enable other local areas to model their own multidisciplinary team from the initial, pioneering local team. As an eventual consequence, teams will spring up – consisting of a variety of professionals who play a role in stemming the tide of sexting – all around a state, each uniquely positioned and equipped to combat the problem.

Prevention should also occur through formal research of sexting. We need to identify correlative and contributive factors to the problem. We need to empirically determine and assess the range of consequences that befall a victim of sexting. We need to find out – if possible – a demographic and personality profile of those most likely to participate, and whether their background, past, upbringing, and life experiences render them more susceptible than others. Finally, we need formal evaluation studies to uncover best practices in dealing with sexting that can be shared with stakeholders and other constituent organizations.

I was in Naperville, Illinois about two weeks ago for a cyberbullying summit sponsored by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office.  The audience was comprised of select stakeholders in education, law enforcement, and technology industry.  The most relevant companies and constituencies were there.  Attorney General Lisa Madigan was on hand to kick the event off with some opening remarks.  Michelle Collins from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) followed with some general comments about cyberbullying and sexting and highlighted some of the efforts of the NCMEC in online safety education and prevention.  Next, I participated in a panel of experts along with Hemanshu Nigam from MySpace, Andrew Chaulk from the Vermont Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, and Nancy Willard from the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use.  We each provided a short introduction to our background and initiatives, then opened it up to the audience for questions and discussion.  As expected, it was a great discussion.

During lunch, Sarah Migas from the Illinois AG’s office described their efforts to educate youth, parents, educators and others about online safety issues.  In the afternoon we all were broken up into smaller groups to discuss in depth a particular scenario.  My group (Go Red Team!) discussed a sexting case from a few months ago.  We brainstormed possible prevention and response solutions and then presented our analysis to the larger group as a whole.  All in all it was a great event.

It is essential to bring all of these players together on a regular basis to develop a coordinated community response to cyberbullying.  Having pretty much everyone at the table really made for some interesting discussions.  The Illinois AG’s office is very much ahead of the curve with respect to these issues.  Stay tuned for more great resources from this group in the future.

An interesting controversy has emerged in the last couple of weeks over the word “meep.”  What does meep even mean?  Frankly, it doesn’t really matter.  In fact there are numerous and varied definitions of, and uses for, the word meep.  The most frequent use among adolescents, it seems, is to replace an inappropriate word with meep, as in “What the meep!?!”

So the recent controversy emerged when students at Danvers High School in Massachusetts threatened to disrupt the school environment by muttering, yelling, and collectively spewing the word meep during class time.  Danvers Principal Thomas Murray was tipped off about the planned disruption and preemptively threatened to suspend students who spoke the word or showed up to school with the word printed on clothing.  This, of course, incited folks from around the country to contact Mr. Murray to express their dissatisfaction with this seemingly ludicrous policy.  To be sure, the courts have ruled that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”  That said, school officials do have the right to restrict speech and/or discipline students for speech or behavior that results in (or has a high likelihood of resulting in) a substantial and material disruption of the learning environment.  In this case, I think it is clear that the students involved were in fact planning a substantial disruption.  So, it doesn’t matter that the speech involved wasn’t really even a real word.

When I was in middle school, my classmates and I started humming in English class.  The teacher was getting pretty upset by this and was walking around the classroom trying to identify the offending party.  When he went to one side of the classroom, students in the other side would start humming.  When he moved to the other side, the other students stepped up and continued the humming.  Clearly, the act of humming is not obscene or otherwise generally subject to discipline in any environment outside of the school.  But at school, if it causes or threatens to cause a substantial disruption, it can (and should be) stopped.  In our case, the teacher refused to administer our planned quiz until the humming stopped.  It didn’t, so we all failed the quiz.  To this day I have a hard time identifying prepositions!

This is an important case because as much as I agree with everyone that restricting the use of a nonsensical word is in itself nonsensical, it is necessary that school administrators have the ability to maintain an appropriate, civil, and safe learning environment at school.  Educators need the support of parents and other community members when they take actions to ensure an appropriate school climate.  This is especially true since many forms of relational aggression, including cyberbullying, are often more subtle and therefore may not be automatically identifiable as something warranting intervention.   At the same time, they also need to be held accountable when their policies or practices cross the line of being overly restrictive.  In the case of meep, from what I have seen, I think they were being reasonable in their efforts to prevent a disruption from occurring.  What do you think?  Is Principal Murray going too far with this?