" A group of guys hit the “send all buttonâ€, and just like that, a picture meant for the eyes of one person gets shared with hundreds. The young girl who was pictured in the photo becomes so embarrassed and upset after all the nasty messages and taunting she receives, that the only option she feels she has left is to take her own life. This is the story of Jessica Logan, an 18 year old high school student. ( NObullying.com Paragraph 9). The ability to anonymously send things online, and for secrets or embarrassing photos to go viral, like Jessica, has abruptly ended the lives of thousands of men and women. The regulation of internet content as it applies to the right of freedom of speech on the internet has become a common day controversy.
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The current situation with cyber-bullying creates a slippery slope, as many people believe that the government telling people what they can and can not say on the internet is against the First Amendment, “ ...Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech†(Bill of Rights Institute Paragraph 7). Others believe that through the monitoring the online postings thousands of suicides a year could be prevented. “Until recently, no laws specifically addressed cyberbullying†(FindLaw Paragraph 6), but even though these laws have been implemented, many people believe the punishments are not sufficient, “cyberbullying may often be treated as a civil, rather than a criminal matter†( FindLaw Paragraph 6). Many parents of victims believe that these situations should not be simply a civil matter, but should be judged as harshly as physical bullying, which can be charged as a criminal matter, I believe that the government should be able to step in for monitoring of a specific students web user if the said student has been accused of cyber-bullying, also that monitoring of the web’s population as a whole and deleting or restricting their postings is a direct infringement of the First Amendment. Cyber-bullying should be taken as seriously as physical bullying and therefore should be considered a criminal act, not just a civil
The current situation with cyber-bullying creates a slippery slope, as many people believe that the government telling people what they can and can not say on the internet is against the First Amendment, “ ...Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech†(Bill of Rights Institute Paragraph 7). Others believe that through the monitoring the online postings thousands of suicides a year could be prevented. “Until recently, no laws specifically addressed cyberbullying†(FindLaw Paragraph 6), but even though these laws have been implemented, many people believe the punishments are not sufficient, “cyberbullying may often be treated as a civil, rather than a criminal matter†( FindLaw Paragraph 6). Many parents of victims believe that these situations should not be simply a civil matter, but should be judged as harshly as physical bullying, which can be charged as a criminal matter, I believe that the government should be able to step in for monitoring of a specific students web user if the said student has been accused of cyber-bullying, also that monitoring of the web’s population as a whole and deleting or restricting their postings is a direct infringement of the First Amendment. Cyber-bullying should be taken as seriously as physical bullying and therefore should be considered a criminal act, not just a civil