In America we have this right we're kind of obsessed with. It's called Free Speech. If you haven't heard of it, typically this right allows anyone to say anything he or she pleases, apart from shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre (unless the theatre is on fire). Appreciation for such a right is all the more magnified on the Internet where the people are particularly chatty and very aware of their ability to speak their minds.
But surely we know there are amendments to this free speech right. And one of these amendments concerns "cyber-bullying" -- a fairly vague term, which gets a lot of people in trouble.
A recent story in The New York Times reports on a teenager in Miami, Fla., Katherine Evans, who was suspended from her high school for starting a Facebook group shunning a teacher who had scorned her. Evans invited students and former students to join the group and use it as a space to vent about the teacher. "To those select students who have had the displeasure of having Ms. Sarah Phelps, or simply knowing her and her insane antics: Here is the place to express your feelings of hatred," Evans wrote in the group's description.
Evans was suspended for cyberbullying, and, in an effort to have the suspension removed from her record, so that she may successfully endure higher education, she is now suing her principal for suspending her, which her lawyer says was an infringement on her free speech. Yes. Because it's always smart to scrub the stain of suspension from one's record with a big, headline-making lawsuit.
For students, Facebook isn't the first platform available for teacher defiling. When I was a wee lass in high school and college, it was customary to create one's class schedule based on reviews on the sites RateMyTeacher.com and RateMyProfessors.com, where former students had the opportunity to give their instructors a grade. (Tables. Turned.) While often helpful resources, the sites could also turn into online hubs for menace and slander. (And in typical dork fashion, I would occasionally fight the slanderers on forums that defaced those teachers who had done right by me.)
Last month, Boston University declared that teachers are now subject to cyber-bullying as a result of these sites, as well as Facebook and MySpace. According to the article, teachers are regularly on the "receiving end of smear campaigns" on such sites where students rant about everything "from workloads to teaching styles to the flattering cut of their jeans."
But at what point does plain old, constitutionally protected free speech turn into cyber-bullying?
According to WiredSafety.org, an online safety, education, and help group, "cyberbullying is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones." Doesn't seem to apply in the present case.
Another site, CyberBullying.org, defines it as involving "the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others."
It's unclear whether Evans intended to harm her teacher via the Facebook group. But as for the "free speech" argument, this right is regularly ignored where students and minors are concerned ("Because I'm the principal/parent, that's why!"). And devising a mean-spirited Facebook group, while potentially harmless in the physical world, can be particularly damaging to one's own reputation, not to mention one's chances of getting into a top university.
? Nicole Ferraro, Site Editor, Internet Evolution
Channel: Personalization & privacy, Security, Web 2.0
Tags: Social Networking
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