Alexander 1

Branson Alexander
Mrs. McGriff
ENC 1101
30 July 2018

Cyber Bullying Needs to be

a Criminal Offense

As technology evolves both positive and negative things go along with it. The positive
things such as sharing news, photos, videos, and creating fundraisers. The negative things of
cyberbullying and it causes a lot more damage than anyone thinks. Cyberbullying is the
phrase that describes a person bullying another person through electronic messages. It may not
be hurting people physically, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt them emotionally or
psychologically. Teenagers all over the world are affected, because Social media is the main
source to many problems. by this. Even if we try to stop, it’ll never completely stop, so why not
force a law to prevent this from happening. With all the rates of kids going through trauma and
potentially killing themselves, cyberbullying sounds like a crime to me. If we put laws on
Cyberbullying we can prevent kids from harming themselves and potentially killing themselves.
We can get the students to be comfortable going back to school. Also, provide a more happier
environment for everyone.

Everyone knows about cyberbullying because it happens to everyone, yet to most it’s not
a big deal. Since social media is the biggest source of all time the group of victims are mostly
kids/teenagers. (According to Mr. Russel he says “The uprising of social media has become one
of the biggest technological advancements…For example for may of the young people on social
media (those in elementary or middle school), I believe that it brings more negative damage than
 Alexander 2

positive.” Which is completely true, young adults or young children show more of ow immature
they are on social media. They hide in the dark and refrain from talking o someone face to face
about their own problems with certain people. They are easily targeted because social media is
the best way to look up all sorts of entertainment. Teens watch funny memes, vines, and all sorts
of interesting posts. Some of the ones can be very bad. Like if a child was bullied and was seen
as funny could that one incident be his downfall? “Of course not it’s not hurting anyone it’s all
fun and games”, people would think and say. It’s not all fun and games when someone goes too
far and the victim kills themselves. So, why should cyberbullying be illegal and why should we
have laws?

One way these laws can help is that it would decrease the number of victims that are high
school students. Every student has a bright future ahead of them, but can easily be tainted by
something else. It can be money problems, family, and other things however bullying can be
affect it too. According to Justin Patchin he has collected data stating by making a survey of high
school students. After his studies Patchin states that “every year it has slowly increased in
numbers over time. From 2006 to 2016 the average of cyberbullying has risen from 20% to 28%
which is obviously not good for many cases.” For one those were bullied stay home in fact
Patchin states “160,000 of students stay home from school every day because of bullying.”
. Patching also did another survey, but this time it was much bigger. He surveyed the
U.S. over 2 million students and 10% of the students have admitted they have skipped school
because they didn’t “Feel safe”. Now this is just bullying it is estimated that online over 5.4
Million students in high school has been bullied and at some point skipped school at least once
and “530,000” skipped many times. A number that big is unacceptable and to think it still hasn’t
been recognized or at least not recognized enough. These numbers could easily go down if we
force a law to show the importance of why cyberbullying in general isn’t “ok”.
 Alexander 3

Many people say why can’t other people stop it why does it have to be me? Well There
are many statistics on cyber-bullying such as the one from Teensafe.com. It shows the most
commonly reported types of cyberbullying and the numbers are just as surprising. “ About 87%
of students today have witnessed cyber bullying, yet they don’t tell anyone.” Which is a major
problem most people don’t stand up for others they’re most likely too scared to help because of
the very few reasons. “Someone else will step in” or maybe “I’m afraid that I’ll get bullied and
made fun of in the process” others simply just don’t even know how to help. It can be solved by
telling an adult teacher, parent, or report it to someone.

Another reason why we should have laws is to prevent the most horrible events
happening: Suicide. Suicide doesn’t just happen without a reason it always starts with something
negative. Teensafe.com shows more statistics that over 30% of victims of cyber bullying has had
thoughts of suicide and 10% attempted suicide. Megan Meier a 13-year old girl who was on her
MySpace you know doing what teenagers do on social media. Megan wanted to add a boy as a
friend, but it was obvious that her friend wasn’t friendly at all. The boy started slut shaming her
calling her fat. On top of that some of the kids created bulletin of all the negative things they say
about her. Of course they were false and weren’t true, but to Megan she was starting to believe it.
Her mother says “Most parents don’t have a clue how much there is.” By that she means how
much the internet stores and affects the new generation. Her mom kept telling her “Sign off”, but
she couldn’t stop because it was all over her screen like ads just popping up everywhere. Later in
the day when she ran upstairs crying there was nothing, but silence and her mom feared the
worse. That’s when she found her in the middle of the room hanging silently and lifeless.

She’s not the only one, other victims like 16-year old Amanda Todd, High school
student Jessica Logan, 18-year old Tyler Clementi, and high school Sophomore-David Molak
and many others have committed suicide at a young age. “It’ll be fine” they say “suck it up” they
 Alexander 4

say, but these words mean nothing to these victims. According to Mr. Curtin and his other
researchers they’ve studied that in 2014 the suicide rates in the U.S. were 24% higher than in
1999. (Curtis, Warner, Hedegaard, 2016). The reason why this is increasing is because like I said
as technology rises so does cyberbullying. Always coming up with ways to send threatening and
malicious messages to not just kids, but adults to.

My third reason is making a happier environment. No matter where you’re at you

should feel safe, comfortable, and even wanting to go to school. School is meant for kids to learn
not for a place of hate. Students in general struggle with enough already why add more pain to
the person. If h/she stayed in school instead of having to hide from the world or even transfer to
other schools they are more likely to get better grades and get their degree. That isn’t just a
fact, but common sense. Students miss school a lot because of the fact that students think it’s
funny to pick on others according to Mr. Patte Johnston. These days “students” post things that
seem funny all over the internet not even considering the person’s feelings in general. If laws
were to be put up this will open up their eyes to get them to see how serious cyberbullying is.

As much as I support having laws on cyberbullying there are a couple reasons why
it shouldn’t be a law Most of these “Criminals” are kids. It’s obviously not right for someone to
bully someone. However, if there were laws on this most of these so called “Criminals” would be
adolescents. It would be too extreme for a kid who’s still in middle or high school to go to jail.
There would be so many of these kids being put in jail and if the victim did kill him or herself
then the bully’s punishment is living with that burden for the rest of their lives. Another reason is
that won’t change a thing even if you do put laws for cyberbullying it won’t change a thing.
When someone says “Don’t do that” we’re more likely going to do the opposite of what they tell
us. In this situation it’s the same thing that if cyber bullying laws were to be created it most
likely won’t change the fact there will always be a bully hiding in the dark. So even if you do put
 Alexander 5

laws and rules on cyberbullying the rates would probably go down a little but I’ll remain the
same just like any other law out there are people still break them regardless.

If a person were to cause physical harm to someone than that can be an offense, but for
some reason it’s different verbally. People can be cruel sometimes we all know it and not
everyone can take such punishment. People say to grow a pair, but if felt like the whole world is
making fun of you then you as a person wouldn’t feel so good either. That’s why there should
absolutely be a law on cyberbullying/bullying because if harassment goes too far when
Cyberbullying causes too much pain to one person so why not end it all or at least add
cyberbullying to the Violent acts and harassment law.
 Alexander 6

Works Cited

Englander, Elizabeth. “Harvard graduate school of education.: hepg.org. Harvard Education

Publishing Group, 19 September 2013. Web. https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ Accessed 6
April 2018

Gerdes, Louis I. "Preface to 'What Laws Will Best Prevent Cyber Crime?" Cyber Crime,
vol. 63, no 1, Jan.2009, pp. 213. Opposing Viewpoints,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010570105/OVIC?u=lincclin_sjrcc&xid=OVIC&
xid=44ea21e1 . Accessed 10 July 2018.

Johnston, Pattie. "Motivations being bullies then offenders versus pure bullies:
further suggestions for anti-bully education and practice." Education, vol. 134, no. 3,
March. 2018, p. 316+ Opposing Viewpoints,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A371193109/OVIC?
u=lincclin_sjrcc&sid=OVIC&xid=ae370391 . Accessed 12 July 2018.

Russel, Bahati. "Cyber Bullying and Social Media." HASTAC. 2 Dec. 2017. Web. 08 Aug.
2018. https://www.hastac.org/blogs/bahatiakili/2017/12/02/cyber-bullying-and-social-
Media

Gerdes, Louis I. "Preface to 'What Laws Will Best Prevent Cyber Crime?" Cyber Crime, vol. 63,
no 1, Jan.2009, pp. 213. Opposing Viewpoints,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010570105/OVIC?u=lincclin_sjrcc&xid=OVIC&
xid=44ea21e1 . Accessed 10 July 2018.
Teensafe. “Cyberbullying Facts and Statistics.” TeenSafe, 8 May 2017,
www.teensafe.com/blog/cyber-bullying-facts-and-statistics/. Accessed 7 August 2019.