Editorial One
The government has done well to tighten the law making cyberbullying a culpable offence, providing for punitive measures that would include a prison term and a hefty fine.
Parliament approved the ‘Harmful Digital Communications Bill’ on June 30, 2015 which makes cyberbullying a criminal offence.
While the case of Roast Busters is widely believed to be the proximate cause of the legislation, cybercrime including ‘online bullying’ has been on the rise in recent years.
Harassment online
Cyberbullying is seen as causing harm and harassment through information technology networks in a repeated and deliberate manner. According to the legal definition in America, “Cyberbullying could be limited to posting rumours or gossips about a person in the internet, bringing about hatred in others’ minds or it may go to the extent of personally identifying victims and publishing materials severely defaming and humiliating them.”
New Zealand is no exception.
Social media sites such as Facebook are extensively used by people to advance their personal agenda in the guise of ‘voicing the views of the community,’ while there are various other democratic means to do so. According to prominent lawyers, there are legal provisions to address such issues but often people do not give credence to such bullies because ‘they are self-appointed and self-style leaders with selfish interests.’
“Reacting to their blabbers is pointless but there will come a stage when they will be brought to justice. The new law provides for action against such people,” the lawyer said.
Tearing people apart
It is sad that almost every good human deed and innovation has a dark side, created by antisocial elements and those who crave for attention.
Social media may have brought millions of people together, but it has torn many others apart. Once, bullies taunted their victims in the playground; today they use smartphones to do so from afar. Media reports of ‘Facebook suicides’ caused by cyberbullying are all too common.
Character assassination is rife, as are malicious e-mails, texts and other forms of e-torment.
A recent review of the academic literature on cyberbullying suggests, conservatively, that at least a quarter of school-age children are involved as either victim or perpetrator.
New Smartphones
The Economist reported last year that a new generation of smartphone apps is unlikely to help. With names like Whisper, Secret, Wut, Yik Yak, Confide and Sneeky, they enable users to send anonymous messages, images or both to ‘friends’ who also use the apps.
“Some of the messages self-destruct after delivery; some live on. But at their heart is anonymity. If you are bullied via Facebook, Twitter or text, you can usually identify your attacker. As a victim of an anonymous messaging app you cannot: at best you can only guess which ‘friend’ whispered to the online world that you might be pregnant,” the publication said.
Public apathy
If anonymity frees people, so does public apathy; the good ones who decide that silence is golden, allowing those self-appointed leaders to continue their onslaught.
Unsurprisingly, none of this is deterring venture-capitalists. ‘Whisper,’ which was launched less than two years ago, raised more than US$20 million from blue-chip funds such as Sequoia Capital. ‘Secret,’ at less than two months’ old, scored almost US$9 million from a group that includes Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and actor Ashton Kutcher’s A-Grade Investments.
Bullying Apps
Not every venture capitalist is as sanguine about investing in what have been dubbed “bullying apps”. In a 12-tweet diatribe, Marc Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape and is now a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, a hot Silicon Valley VC firm, took issue with both the apps and those investing in them.
“As designers, investors, commentators, we need to seriously ask ourselves whether some of these systems are legitimate and worthy,” he wrote; “… not from an investment return point of view, but from an ethical and moral point of view.”
Three years ago, the then Justice Minister Judith Collins said that while bullying has since long been a problem, its reach and impact has increased considerably in the digital age.
“Bullying is no longer confined to the classroom or playground. Bullies are targeting their victims by cell phone, instant messaging and social networking websites. We must not underestimate the devastating impact this new form of bullying has particularly on young people. It is continuing to increased truancy, failure at school and profession and emotional problems such as depression, self-harm and suicide.”
Similarly, spreading hatred through racist comments and provocative remarks are equally harmful. It is hoped that the firm hand of the law will hold the perpetrators tight and bring them to justice, if not today, at least tomorrow.
All of us have the right to protection against such social menaces than reckless use of freedom of speech, which serves no one in particular, except the hate therapists.
