Cyberbullying is bullying using digital devices such as mobile phones, computers, and tablets. Cyberbullying can be carried out through text messages, social networks, forums, or online games where people can view, participate, or share content. Cyberbullying involves sending, posting, or transmitting negative, harmful, false, or offensive content about someone else. This may include sharing personal or personal information about someone that causes embarrassment or humiliation. Some cyberbullying crosses the border with illegal or criminal behavior. This essay aims to study ethical and legal issues of cyberbullying and analyze articles devoted to the problem of the activity of criminals on the Internet.
The article describes various cases of cyber violence against young girls that led to suicide attempts or death. The legal issue regarding cyberbullying is the problem of impunity for criminals. Pendergrass and Wright claim that cyberbullying attempts have become quite common and often lead to the suicide of adolescents and children aged 9 to 21 years (133). From this statement, it can be concluded that if cyberbullying continues, criminals can manipulate their victims while remaining unpunished.
The ethical issue of cyber violence is a significant decrease in victims’ self-esteem due to the constant negative impact of the perpetrator through social networks. The victims of criminals are people who a priori have low self-esteem since it is much easier to influence them than people with a high opinion of themselves. The victims were constantly bullied in schools because of photos and personal materials posted on the Internet (Pendergrass and Wright, 132). Another ethical issue is the problem of empathy, since people, especially teenagers, are often not inclined to empathize with victims of cyberbullying, but on the contrary, continue the bullying started on the Internet.
The persecutors should undoubtedly be held accountable for crimes against the victims. Whether it is suicide or only attempts, the criminal must still be responsible for his actions. This is because bullying harms the health, psychological state, and the rest of the victim’s life. Unfortunately, it is difficult to solve some crimes since a criminal can sufficiently disguise his identity. However, legal authorities still need to take a more careful and less sparing approach to punishment for cyberbullying. Death related to cyberbullying is a case related to illegal and the corruption of underage teenagers.
My friends and I are very attentive and cautious about behavior on the Internet. This probably helps us protect ourselves from cyberbullying and further problems associated with it. I try not to communicate with strangers; if someone unfamiliar writes to me, I do not respond to messages or block contact. In addition, I do not post personal information on my pages to avoid possible problems in the future. Moreover, I do not open letters from strangers, and in any correspondence, I try to be polite so as not to provoke the appearance of adverse situations.
Many different recommendations and legal documents try to regulate the policy of behavior in social networks. States seek to establish rules of conduct in cyberspace, control the spread of Internet viruses and establish a cyber court for criminals operating on the Internet (Chernenko et al.). These solutions are undoubtedly correct and necessary, but they require time to establish and develop. I believe that the owners of social networks need to monitor suspicious users’ activity more carefully and limit the entry of personal data of users in their programs, such as location, phone number, home address, and place of study, to prevent potential cybercrimes.
In conclusion, the Internet is a good place for people from different parts of the world to communicate, but it is also where people can often face cybercrimes. To protect themselves from further problems, users must approach the issues of posting personal information on their social media pages with caution. In addition, it is essential to control contacts since a real criminal can hide behind any account that can harm a person’s life and incur virtually no responsibility.
Works Cited
Chernenko, Elena, Demidov, Oleg and Lukyanov, Fyodor. “Increasing International Cooperation in Cybersecurity and Adapting Cyber Norms”. Council on Foreign Relations, 2018, Web.
Pendergrass, William and Wright, Michelle. “Cyberbullied To Death: An Analysis Of Victims Taken From Recent Events”. Issues in Information Systems, vol. 15, no. 1, 2014, pp. 132-140.