Few, at least in the United States, doubt the value of granting each individual their own slice of freedom. This glorious concept is limited in theory only by as much necessary to ensure that the freedoms of others remain intact. But it is here that an age-old ponderance arises. At what point is it necessary to limit our civil liberties in order to protect those of another? This question may not be new but it has only recently been considered in regards to a novel complication – the World Wide Web. As our world has expanded into the virtual frontier and spilled onto the realm of avatars, blogs, and Facebook pages, it was left unregulated in the same wild-west spirit as the other new frontiers before it. It may be time to tighten the reins from within the legal arena.
Over a decade ago, the Supreme Court declared the internet to be “a wholly new medium – a vast platform from which to address and hear from a worldwide audience of readers, viewers, researchers, and buyers (O'Neil).” This holistic view of the internet was dampened only by the first limitation of free speech over the internet after Reno vs. the American Civil Liberties Union prompted the regulation of sexually explicit pictures. But there is no question that harm is being done – in particular to the youngest and most vulnerable citizens. The past few years alone have come and gone leaving behind tragic stories of young people hurt by the sheer anonymity of the internet and the emboldened actions of the people behind a keyboard. A group of teenagers from Lakeland, Florida taped the beating of a fellow student and threatened to air the video online after they claimed the victim ‘talked trash’ on a social network. Students in colleges across the country struggled to re-establish their reputations after fellow students made comments about alleged promiscuous behavior or drug use on JuicyCampus.com which harmed their job and educational prospects. In Pennsylvania, students anonymously released a ranking of 25 teenage girls based on sexual criteria. In Vermont, 13-year-old Ryan Patrick Halligan kills himself after viewing instant messages that called him gay (Billitteri). Fifteen hundred skeptical viewers watched and did nothing, threw insults, or egged him on while Abraham Briggs aired his suicide on a Bodybuilding website. And Megan Meiers hung herself in her closet after a boy, who turned out to be a falsified identity of a 49 year old neighbor, told her that the world would be better off without her via a MySpace message (Malone).
This last case prompted a swift legal response, at least in Missouri, which culminated in a law being changed to allow for harassment charges to extend beyond telephone and written communications to include text messages and internet postings. This law against ‘cyberbullying’ went so far as to “impose criminal liability on the basis of the ‘intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress (O'Neil).’” Though police initially said that the woman accused of sending the messages, Lori Drew, had committed no crime, she was eventually convicted of three misdemeanor charges of computer fraud under a technicality within MySpace’s terms of service. The terms stipulate that users must “submit truthful and accurate” information when registering. In a stretch of the law, prosecutors argued that Lori Drew effectively accessed MySpace unlawfully when she created a profile under a fictitious name and identity. This “unauthorized access” violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 which was intended to be used to prosecute hackers (Miners).
Though these few tragic cases may seem isolated in their intensity, the problem is also as plentiful as young internet users. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has even taken notice – labeling “electronic aggression” as an emerging public health issue among problems like HIV/AIDS and obesity. Surveys similar to one conducted by Jaana Juvonen, a psychology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, found that as many as 70 percent of teenage internet users had experienced “at least one incident of online intimidation” in the last year (Billetteri).
It seems advantageous to use the legal system, as it has been used in the past, to protect those harmed by the free expression of others. But, as put by Parry Aftab, an internet privacy and security lawyer, “There’s a big conflict in knowing where to draw the line between things that are rude and things that are illegal (Billetteri).” There also seems to be a rift between the expectation for liability on the internet and liability due to actions in real life. It is hard to imagine a person being held accountable for a mean word sending a suicidal teen to commit the act – if said in person. While morally reprehensible, it isn’t reasonable to hold one accountable for the mental instability of another. And yet, most reasonable people would expect that people committing acts like Lori Drew should be punished accordingly. What accounts for this rift? Perhaps it is the tendency for mean-spirited remarks to be more malicious when passed through the internet where the sender doesn’t have to see the immediate harm done. Or perhaps it is the particularly mortifying potential of remarks on the internet to be more available to a wider audience made privy to a humiliation over a longer period of time. Either way, attacks over the internet seem to be wearing away at the fabric of social decency.
Please feel free to offer your comments and enter this discussion about internet safety for young people. Should and/or can people be held criminally or financially liable for things they post on the internet which cause harm to others?
