I've come across a Bill presented to the Queensland Parliament regarding the institution of anti-cyberbullying legislation. The Shadow Minister for Education and Training, Dr. Bruce Flegg, says that one in 10 schoolchildren are the victims of cyberbullying (Flegg, http://moggill.net/images/stories/cyber.pdf).
Dr. Flegg appears to be concentrating on the practice of schoolyard incidents such as fights or "bashings" being filmed and disseminated via the internet. The process of sharing the video evidence of such an event perpetuates the torment for the bullied child, so that the event lives on, not only in their memory but in a shared space in which their bully, the bully's friends, and the wider school community, can relive the incident again and again.
Part of Dr. Flegg's proposed solution to the problem of cyberbullying is the legalised, permanent confiscation of the equipment that a bully has used to cyberbully, such as the mobile phone that the footage has been captured on. I think Dr. Flegg has, at least partially, missed the point of cyberbullying. Part of the danger of cyberbullying is its ephemeral nature, the way in which the information is disseminated into a broader sphere, cyberspace. Confiscating a single piece of equipment will not remedy this fact for the bullied child. Certainly the confiscation acts as punishment for the bully; however the offensive material is still accessible online.
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