Government's Role in Formulating Laws Against Cyberbullying: A Report

This report delves into the pervasive issue of cyberbullying, emphasizing the critical need for governmental intervention through the formulation of appropriate laws and legislations. The report explores the academic context of cyberbullying, defining it as online harassment, particularly on social media, and its detrimental effects on victims, including psychological distress, fear, and low self-esteem. The report presents arguments for strict punishments and regulations, referencing existing laws like the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 and the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, and advocates for regulating social media platforms and setting age limits to mitigate cyberbullying. It highlights real-life examples of cyberbullying, underscoring the need for effective communication and decision-making skills by the government to create impactful laws. The report concludes by reiterating the importance of government action, including age restrictions on social media and strict penalties for cyberbullying, to protect the well-being of children and teenagers, and to create a safer online environment. The report includes references to academic journals and online resources to support its findings.

ASSIGNMENT

Table of Contents.
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Academic context.........................................................................................................................1
Arguments....................................................................................................................................2
Real case example........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Today, cyberbullying is one of the major problems being faced by our world. It is
important to ensure that appropriate measures are being taken by the government and required
laws and legislations are being made (Hutson, 2016). These laws and legislations are going to
ensure that the practices of cyberbullying are being taken care of completely. In order to do this,
it is important to ensure that the government is regularly communicating with the victims of
cyberbullying and taking appropriate measures to deal with such problems. The present report
showcases in what manner the government can prepare appropriate laws and legislations to deal
with the issue of cyberbullying.
MAIN BODY
Academic context
As per the view of Baldry, Sorrentino and Farrington, (2019) Cyberbullying is the
activities of harassment or bullying. Such that generally it happens accidentality and It takes
place when teens, harasses or bullies others on the internet and specially on the social media
websites. It is often done using electronic means and is also known as online bullying. As per the
facts, today, it has been seen that cyberbullying carries over into the classroom as well. It
happens after school hours and the consequences tends to infiltrate the school's hallways and
classrooms during the school-days (Guo, 2016). It is impacting the overall growth and
development of the school children's. In order to deal with this issue, it is recommended for the
schools to ensure that they do not allow cellphones in their premises. Along with it, it is one of
the most essential requirement to set appropriate laws and legislations in the school premises so
that activities of cyberbullying does not take place.
Hinduja and Patchin, (2019) Critic that Cyberbullying is the use of technology to harass
and threaten or embarrass other people or it can be done in online as well. It is also evaluated by
the author that online bullying is considered upsetting and damaging because the victim did not
have any idea how many person might have seen the post and it will also lead to serious long-
lasting problem as well. It has been seen as the consequences of cyberbullying tends to cause
significant psychological and emotional distress to the victims. The experiences include fear, low
self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. It impacts the mental and emotional health of an individual
and tends to make them feel unsafe. This explains that the practices of cyberbullying needs to be
dealt with effectively. To deal with this issue, the government can pass important rules and
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regulations. These rules and regulations can help the government to be stricter and ensure that
the activities of cyberbullying are being tackled with effective measures. The law plays an
important role here, it is because without the practices of law it is not possible to imply strict
regulations on practices of cyberbullying (Brochado, Soares and Fraga, 2017). With appropriate
lawful practices, cyberbullying can be reduced. It is because each and every organization and
website on which cyberbullying tends to take place have to follow the set rules of government
and set policies. This can enhance the regulation and regulatory procedures on online platforms
and would ensure that practices of cyberbullying are not taking place.
Arguments
It has been analysed that Cyberbullying is the crime and I believe that the government
needs to strict the punishment on the cyberbullies. Strict punishment would allow the
cyberbullies to be aware of the consequences of the activities which they are going to perform.
Such that government of UK also establish the law for cyberbullying that is Protection from
Harassment Act,1997 in which it protects all the victim from harassment and such that stalking
behaviour, racial harassment or anti social behaviour by neighbours (Protection from
Harassment Act, 2018). Another act is Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, 1994 which
introduce different changes to an existing laws and the main motivation of this is to restrict the
outdoor rave parties. Therefore, I analysed that with the support of government laws and
legislation, the occurrence of Cyberbullying is reduces. Also, they are going to feel fearful while
performing any activities of cyberbullying to other people and specially teenagers on the internet.
It is important to ensure that such activities can cause harm and damage to the lives of the people
and law can be prepared accordingly after undertaking these things into consideration. This is
one of the most important aspect which needs to be considered here while making related.
Appropriate laws and legislations plays and important role because they tend to create a
system under which each and every individual living in the society have to accept them. It does
not matters if some of them accepts it of some of them does not, the law binds the society and
ensures it safety and security (Kwak, Blackburn and Han, 2015). Strict laws on the practices of
cyberbullying can help the society to ensure that it is safe from such criminal practices and is
safe from any other related criminal practices that are taking place in the society. The
government can take a variety of steps that can help it to maintain better growth and
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development within the society and would ensure that set development is taking place in
eliminating the practices of cyberbullying.
These steps include regulating the social media platforms on a regular basis and setting
up teams to take immediate actions on the practices of cyberbullying (Brochado, Soares and
Fraga, 2017). Along with it, the government can set up age limits on usage of social media
platforms. This can help the government to ensure that teenagers are not using the social media
platforms and practices of cyberbullying are not taking place.
Real case example
David Knight was unaware to the website which is created for him and after some
months there had been a website that make fun of David as well as his family, in which abusive
words are used such that he is gay or dirty. The main motive to make this website is to invited
others to actively be involved to smash the boy. After this, people personally sent many hateful
e-mail to him. This affect David the most, but he did not physically harm himself (Real life
example of Cyber-bullying. 2018).
Another example is of Jodi Plumb was shocked when she received terrible comments
from the website such that people telling about her weight, and they even estimate the time of
death as well. Then her mother went to school and ask to take strict action. But Jodi has been
attacked twice for the same and now people also takes picture of her for posting in a website.
In order to ensure that appropriate laws and legislations are being made in order to deal
with the practices of cyber bullying. It is important for government to make use of effective
skills and techniques. The skills which can be used by the government includes effective
communication. It is important for the government to understand in what communication takes
place between a cyberbully and an individual using the internet (Baldry, Sorrentino and
Farrington, 2019). Understanding the communication techniques can help the government to
make appropriate laws and legislations. It is also been seen important for the government to
communicate with the victims of cyberbullying. This can help the government to provide them
with required assistance and as per their problems bring forth appropriate lawful practices.
The other effective skill which the government can make use of is decision making.
Appropriate decision making can help the government to make effective laws and ensure that
appropriate laws are being made (Palladino, Nocentini and Menesini, 2016). It can enhance the
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development of the right legislations and would ensure that right laws and legislations are being
made.
CONCLUSION
Cyberbullying is making the teens and children face both mental and physical issues in
well-being. It is important for the government to ensure that appropriate laws and legislations are
brought into practices in order to deal with the problem of cyber bullying. As per the drawn
conclusions, it has been found out that the government in order to deal with the practices of
cyber bullying needs to ensure that appropriate age restrictions are being implemented on social
media platforms. Also, it is important to strict the punishment for cyberbullying practices as
well.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Baldry, A. C., Sorrentino, A. and Farrington, D. P., 2019. Cyberbullying and cybervictimization
versus parental supervision, monitoring and control of adolescents' online
activities. Children and Youth Services Review. 96. pp.302-307.
Brochado, S., Soares, S. and Fraga, S., 2017. A scoping review on studies of cyberbullying
prevalence among adolescents. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse. 18(5). pp.523-531.
Guo, S., 2016. A meta‐analysis of the predictors of cyberbullying perpetration and
victimization. Psychology in the Schools. 53(4). pp.432-453.
Hinduja, S. and Patchin, J.W., 2019. Connecting adolescent suicide to the severity of bullying
and cyberbullying. Journal of School Violence.18(3). pp.333-346.
Hutson, E., 2016. Cyberbullying in Adolescence. Advances in nursing science. 39(1). pp.60-70.
Kwak, H., Blackburn, J. and Han, S., 2015, April. Exploring cyberbullying and other toxic
behavior in team competition online games. In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 3739-3748). ACM.
Palladino, B.E., Nocentini, A. and Menesini, E., 2016. Evidence‐based intervention against
bullying and cyberbullying: Evaluation of the NoTrap! program in two independent
trials. Aggressive behavior. 42(2). pp.194-206.
Online
Real life example of Cyber-bullying. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://sites.google.com/a/cypanthers.org/cease-cyber-bullying/real-life-examples-of-
cyber-bullying>.
Protection from Harassment Act. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/9-508-9243>.
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