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The relationship between online activities, netiquette and cyberbullying

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Americans' views on mobile etiquett

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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Cellphones and smartphones have become a mainstay in the lives of many Americans, and this has introduced new challenges into how users and non-users alike approach basic social norms and etiquette. People are sorting through new rules of civility in an environment where once-private conversations can easily be overheard in public places and where social gatherings can be disrupted by participants focusing on digital screens instead of their in-person companions.

This Pew Research Center report explores newly released survey findings about Americans' views about the appropriateness of cellphone use in public places and in social gatherings and the way those views sometimes conflict with their own behaviors.

The results are based on a nationally representative survey of 3,217 adults on Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel, 3,042 of whom are cellphone users.

For many Americans, cellphones are always present and rarely turned off - and this constant connectivity creates new social challenges

Some 92% of U.S. adults now have a cellphone of some kind, and 90% of those cell owners say that their phone is frequently with them. Some 31% of cell owners say they never turn their phone off and 45% say they rarely turn it off.

This "always-on" reality has disrupted long-standing social norms about when it is appropriate for people to shift their attention away from their physical conversations and interactions with others towards digital encounters with people and information that are enabled by their mobile phone.

It turns out that people think different kinds of public and social settings warrant different sensitivities about civil behavior. For instance, fully 77% of all adults think it is generally OK for people to use their cellphones while walking down the street and 75% believe it is OK for others to use phones on public transit. But only 38% think it is generally OK for others to use cellphones at restaurants and just 5% think it is generally OK to use a cellphone at a meeting.

Mobile devices play a complex role in modern social interactions - many Americans view them as harmful and distracting to group dynamics, even as they can't resist the temptation themselves

As a general proposition, Americans view cell phones as distracting and annoying when used in social settings - but at the same time, many use their own devices during group encounters.

When asked for their views on how mobile phone use impacts group interactions, 82% of adults say that when people use their phones in these settings it frequently or occasionally hurts the conversation. Meanwhile, 33% say that cell phone use in these situations frequently or occasionally contributes to the conversation and atmosphere of the group. Women are more likely than men to feel cell use at social gatherings hurts the group: 41% of women say it frequently hurts the gathering vs. 32% of men who say that the same. Similarly, those over age 50 (45%) are more likely than younger cell owners (29%) to feel that cellphone use frequently hurts group conversations.

When considering the impact of their mobile phone use on their own social interactions, 25% of cell owners say that when they use their phone in group settings, it takes at least some of their attention away from the group of people they are with at the time.

Fully 89% of cellphone owners say they used their phone during the most recent social gathering they attended

In spite of this widespread feeling that cellphone use during social gatherings can be more of a hindrance than a help, it is almost universally the case that people use their own cellphones during these gatherings and observe other members of their social groups doing the same.

In this survey, cellphone owners are asked to think about the most recent social gathering they attended and what they did with their cellphone while they were in the physical presence of others. Fully 89% said that they themselves used their phone during their most recent time with others, and 86% report that someone else in the group used their cellphone during the gathering.

When asked about some specific ways they might have used their cellphone during their most recent social gathering, a majority of cell owners indicated they used their phone to send or read a message, take photos or videos, or receive an incoming call. Fewer used their phones for such things as checking to see if they had any alerts, placing a call, using an app, or searching or browsing the web. In all, 89% of cellphone owners reported using their phone in at least one of these eight ways during their most recent social gathering.

Many are using their phones in social settings for purposes that are connected to the gathering

In addition to asking how these individuals used their mobile phones during their most recent social gathering, the survey also included a follow-up question asking what those users are hoping to accomplish by using their phone.

As it turns out, a share are trying to avoid or disengage from the people they are physically present with: 16% used their phone because they are no longer interested in what the group was doing; 15% wanted to connect with other people who are strangers to the group; and 10% used their phone to avoid participating in what the group was discussing.

However, it was more often the case that people used their cellphone in a manner tied to the gathering:

45% used their phone to post a picture or video they had taken of the gathering.

41% used their phone to share something that had occurred in the group by text, email or social networking site.

38% used their phone to get information they thought would be interesting to the group.

31% used their phone to connect with other people who are known to the group.

In all, 78% cited at least one of these four "group-contributing" reasons, compared with 30% who used their phone for one of the three "retreating-from-the-group" reasons.

When using their cellphones in public spaces, most users do so for information gathering and social purposes, rather than explicitly anti-social purposes

Constant mobility is also changing the ways in which Americans can interact with information and other people while outside the bounds of explicitly "social" settings. Indeed, many cellphone owners are using their mobile devices while out in public for a variety of reasons, and while their visible actions might seem rude or inconsiderate to an outside observer, in many instances they are using their phone to further their social engagement with others.

Cellphone users frequently use their phones while in public for basic social or information-oriented tasks, such as:

looking up information about where they are going or how to get there: 65% of cell owners do that frequently or occasionally

coordinating get-togethers with others: 70% do that frequently or occasionally

catching up with family and friends: 67% do that frequently or occasionally.

Many also report using their phones to pass the time or catch up on other tasks or to get information about the people they are planning to see, but these activities are less frequent.

Explicitly anti-social behavior while in public is considerably less common. Some 23% of cellphone owners say that when they are in public spaces they use their phone to avoid interacting with others who are nearby at least on occasion. Of course, those around the cellphone user may still experience various uses of cellphones as anti-social, even if that was not the intention of the user.

Young adults have higher tolerance for cellphone use in public and in social settings; they also are more likely to have used their phone during a recent social gathering

Those ages 18 to 29 stand out from their elders on virtually every aspect of how mobile activities fit into their social lives, how they act with their phones and their views about the appropriateness of using phones in public and social settings. Younger adults are more engaged with their devices and permissive in their attitudes about when it is OK to use a mobile phone. Of course, older adults, especially senior citizens, are generally less likely than younger adults to own a mobile phone in the first place and are also less likely to use their phone for activities other than voice calls. This might be a factor in some of these differences.

It is important to note, though, that Americans of all ages generally trend in the same direction about when it is OK or not to use cells in public settings. Fully "public" venues are viewed by all age groups as generally acceptable places to use one's cellphone, while usage in quiet or more intimate settings is mostly frowned upon by all.

Along with being more tolerant than their elders about cellphone use in public, younger adults also tend to use their phones for a wider range of purposes while out and about in public. For instance, 52% of cellphone owners ages 18 to 29 say that they frequently use their phone to look up information about where they are going while out in public, compared with 9% of cell users 65 and older who do this frequently. Similarly, 49% of younger cell users say they frequently use their phone to coordinate getting together with others while they are out and about, compared with just 12% of seniors.

Young adults who have cellphones are also more likely than seniors to have used their cellphone during their most recent social gathering. Fully 98% of young adults used their cellphone for one reason or another during their most recent get-together with others, compared with 69% of cell owners 65 and older.

About This Survey

Data in this report is drawn from Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel, a probability-based, nationally representative panel. This survey was conducted May 30, 2014 through June 30, 2014 among 3,217 adults, including 3,042 cellphone users. The margin of error on the full sample is plus or minus 2.2 percentage points and for the cell-user sample is 2.3 points. For more information on the American Trends Panel, please see the Methods section at the end of this report and these further details about the panel's construction, composition and maintenance.

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Cellphones and smartphones have become a mainstay in the lives of many Americans, and this has introduced new challenges into how users and non-users alike approach basic social norms and etiquette.

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Why is everyone on the internet so rude?

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With a presidential campaign, health care and the gun control debate in the news these days, one can't help getting sucked into the flame wars that are Internet comment threads. But psychologists say this addictive form of vitriolic back and forth should be avoided - or simply censored by online media outlets - because it actually damages society and mental health.

These days, online comments "are extraordinarily aggressive, without resolving anything," said Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. "At the end of it you can't possibly feel like anybody heard you. Having a strong emotional experience that doesn't resolve itself in any healthy way can't be a good thing."

If it's so unsatisfying and unhealthy, why do we do it?

A perfect storm of factors come together to engender the rudeness and aggression seen in the comments' sections of Web pages, Markman said. First, commenters are often virtually anonymous, and thus, unaccountable for their rudeness. Second, they are at a distance from the target of their anger - be it the article they're commenting on or another comment on that article - and people tend to antagonize distant abstractions more easily than living, breathing interlocutors. Third, it's easier to be nasty in writing than in speech, hence the now somewhat outmoded practice of leaving angry notes (back when people used paper), Markman said. [ Infographic: A Typical Day on the Internet]

And because comment-section discourses don't happen in real time, commenters can write lengthy monologues, which tend to entrench them in their extreme viewpoint. "When you're having a conversation in person, who actually gets to deliver a monologue except people in the movies? Even if you get angry, people are talking back and forth and so eventually you have to calm down and listen so you can have a conversation," Markman told Life's Little Mysteries.

Chiming in on comment threads may even give one a feeling of accomplishment, albeit a false one. "There is so much going on in our lives that it is hard to find time to get out and physically help a cause, which makes 'armchair activism' an enticing [proposition]," a blogger at Daily Kos opined in a July 23 article.

And finally, Edward Wasserman, Knight Professor in Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, noted another cause of the vitriol: bad examples set by the media. "Unfortunately, mainstream media have made a fortune teaching people the wrong ways to talk to each other, offering up Jerry Springer, Crossfire, Bill O'Reilly. People understandably conclude rage is the political vernacular, that this is how public ideas are talked about," Wasserman wrote in an article on his university's website. "It isn't."

Communication, the scholars say, is really about taking someone else's perspective, understanding it, and responding. "Tone of voice and gesture can have a large influence on your ability to understand what someone is saying," Markman said. "The further away from face-to-face, real-time dialogue you get, the harder it is to communicate."

In his opinion, media outlets should cut down on the anger and hatred that have become the norm in reader exchanges. "It's valuable to allow all sides of an argument to be heard. But it's not valuable for there to be personal attacks, or to have messages with an extremely angry tone. Even someone who is making a legitimate point but with an angry tone is hurting the nature of the argument, because they are promoting people to respond in kind," he said. "If on a website comments are left up that are making personal attacks in the nastiest way, you're sending the message that this is acceptable human behavior." [ Niceness Is in Your DNA, Scientists Find]

For their part, people should seek out actual human beings to converse with, Markman said - and we should make a point of including a few people in our social circles who think differently from us. "You'll develop a healthy respect for people whose opinions differ from your own," he said.

Working out solutions to the kinds of hard problems that tend to garner the most comments online requires lengthy discussion and compromise. "The back-and-forth negotiation that goes on in having a conversation with someone you don't agree with is a skill," Markman said. And this skill is languishing, both among members of the public and our leaders.

Follow Natalie Wolchover on Twitter @nattyover or Life's Little Mysteries @llmysteries. We're also on Facebook & Google+.

Copyright 2012 Lifes Little Mysteries, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Why Is Everyone on the Internet So Angry?

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With a presidential campaign, health care and the gun control debate in the news these days, one can't help getting sucked into the flame wars that are Internet comment threads. But psychologists say this addictive form of vitriolic back and forth should be avoided - or simply censored by online media outlets - because it actually damages society and mental health.

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Punishing Students for Gadget Use Will Make Their Tech Etiquette Worse

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At the start of this year, the President Barack Obama administration made a New Year's resolution for schools nationwide. It urged them to drop the "zero tolerance" approach to discipline, joining a growing chorus of critics of policies that dispense serious punishments for small rule violations.

The recommendation from the Department of Justice is nonbinding, but comes as schools across the country have been edging away from zero tolerance on their own. It's about time. The essence of zero tolerance is that normal but undesirable behavior counts as a strike against students. And students may get only one strike before they're out-sometimes literally, in the form of suspensions or even expulsions. Zero tolerance is well known to harm students, especially minorities, so its apparent demise should be a relief for kids and teenagers.

But the potential end of zero tolerance is also great news for a surprising part of society: the tech sector.

That's because technology - mobile in particular -- has come under fire in zero tolerance enforcement, sending students a warped message about technology and running counter to the Silicon Valley spirit that accepts making mistakes as normal-even beneficial-to personal and professional growth. At a time when today's tech leaders are concerned about educating tomorrow's innovators, putting an end to zero tolerance should be a top tech priority.

Absent such reform, tech leaders may well find themselves with a next generation that has learned that normal behavior can get them in trouble and that, once they are in trouble, there is no way for them to learn from their mistakes. Such fear and frustration are hardly the sentiments likely to inspire visionary new tech leaders for the 21st century.

#### Leah A. Plunkett

##### About

Leah A. Plunkett is Associate Professor of Legal Skills & Director of Academic Success at University of New Hampshire School of Law. She also does research with the Student Privacy Initiative at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She has taught at Harvard Law School and was the founder of the Youth Law Project at New Hampshire Legal Assistance, which represents teens in school discipline cases.

Although many in Silicon Valley might not realize it, zero tolerance tags them and their products with a bad rap. Google may hold itself to the credo of " don't be evil," but zero tolerance schools see a student with an Android phone in her hand as slipping over to the dark side. These schools often treat students' personal tech gear as contraband; in some places, such treatment disproportionately affects students of color. Even when students use their phones or other gadgets reasonably during the school day- taking a call from a parent serving abroad in the military, let's say-they can get in serious trouble. Even a one-time infraction- like a phone accidentally ringing during class -can result in some form of suspension and confiscation of the offending gadget.

When schools treat tech products in a similar way to alcohol, drugs, or weapons, tech companies should be concerned. This categorization signals to students that technology itself is dangerous and simply using it makes a person threatening.

These messages are unfair, and many students rightly regard them that way. A report released recently by researchers at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University on teens' perspectives on technology in schools found significant frustration among students over "teachers' reactions to what [students] perceived to be minor infractions of school mobile device policies (e.g., collecting phones if a student took a picture, or if the phone was seen at all)." Not surprisingly, these responses then "led to further questioning of the [schools' tech] policies" by students.

Such policies may be-in the words of one well-known teenage pundit-" way harsh." For example, in Manchester, New Hampshire-the largest school district in that state-the 2012-2013 high school handbook said that students were forbidden from being on "personal audio visual equipment, such as but not limited to MP3 players, iPods, Game Boys, cellular phones"anytime during the school day. "Using or displaying" this gear was a Level II offense (on a scale of 1-3) and could lead to in-school detention. Three or more tech transgressions became a Level III offense (the highest possible) and could lead to out-of-school suspension. Other Level III conduct included assault, gang activity, and use of explosives. (Perhaps the school district construed the phrase "tech boom" too literally?)

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Punishing Students for Gadget Use Will Make Their Tech Etiquette Worse

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At the start of this year, the President Barack Obama administration made a New Year's resolution for schools nationwide. It urged them to drop the "zero tolerance" approach to discipline, joining a growing chorus of critics of policies that dispense serious punishments for small rule violations.

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A decades-old family business, built on pleases and thank-yous, releases a guide to social-media manners.

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The future of social relations

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Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech

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Overview of responsesBackgroundTechnology experts embrace the use of networked communications technologies and are naturally inclined to find them to be

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Promoting Responsible and Ethical Digital Citizens

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EducationWorld is pleased to present this article by Christopher McGilvery, a lecturer at Angelo State University. The article originally appeared in TechEdge, a quarterly magazine published by Naylor LLC for Texas Computer Education Association members. To join or for more information, visit www.tcea.org.

Today's learners have the innate ability to easily navigate and use the Web. The Internet has evolved into a "participatory culture," allowing students to create, connect, and collaborate with a global audience. School districts put in place Acceptable Use Policies, which are a set of computer rules to ensure appropriate student usage of the Internet and technology equipment at school.

But educators need to think of ways to train today's generation to be responsible and ethical life-long learners of the digital age. Teachers must demonstrate, guide, and help students practice appropriate and professional behavior while actively participating in authentic learning experiences using blogs, wiki spaces, learning management systems, online research, and much more. The following tips can prepare students to be TECH SMART when using technology. (Note that when put together, the first letter of each of the following headings spell out TECH SMART.)

Take Care of Technology Equipment

Students must take care of the technology equipment, which can be viewed as a privilege. It is also important for students to learn to protect the technology resources (Cennamo, Ross, and Ertmer, 2010). Malware such as viruses, worms, and Trojan horses are even more prevalent today because of the increased use of email, fax, blogs, social media, etc. Students should be alert and active at all times when encountering suspicious messages, links, pop-up windows, etc. to prevent computers from being infected with malicious software (Cennamo et al., 2010). Students should immediately let their teacher know if there may be malware on a computer so that any problems can be addressed right away.

Explore Appropriate and Safe Sites for Learning and Research

The Internet is an immense storehouse of knowledge and should be used appropriately at all times. Students should use known and trusted digital resources (Cennamo et al., 2010). Teachers can initially provide students with a list of approved Web sites to use in class. However, students must be empowered to evaluate sites to make responsible and ethical decisions while surfing the Net. This practice will be helpful when students have to complete research for school or work. Students must be able to recognize if information on a site is valid and credible. Teaching students to critically evaluate Web sites will prepare them for their future education and profession (Pinkham, Wintle, and Silvernail, 2008).

Copyright Law, Fair Use Act, and Creative Commons Matter

Technology makes it easier to create, access, duplicate, and share information. It is therefore essential for teachers and students to understand the use of copyrighted material (Cennamo et al., 2010). Copyright laws protect an author's original work. The Fair Use Act permits the use of copyright material for educational and noncommercial purposes. To stay within safe parameters of the Fair Use Act, practice the "10% rule" when using others' work (as cited in Cennamo et al., 2010).

The Internet is an outlet for sharing one's creation, whether it may be an image, video, music, etc. These works are most likely protected by Creative Commons (CC). CC can be used to display a licensing mark on one's work to authorize sharing, reusing, remixing, and building on the creative works (Johnson, 2009). More students are actively sharing, reusing, remixing, and building creative projects, so it is important they understand these laws to ensure legal use of material in and out of the classroom.

Help Prevent Cyberbullying

Prevent cyberbullying by discussing it, addressing it, and reporting it. Students interact with one another via social networks, chat rooms, blogs, etc. daily. They can write just about anything on these platforms, which then can be forwarded to many with just a few clicks, causing more issues if the information is sensitive or hurtful to another (Levy, 2011).

The consequences of cyberbullying can be damaging, resulting in emotional stress, withdrawal from school, relocation, and even suicide (Cennamo et al., 2010). Teachers must provide a set of guidelines that addresses ways to prevent and handle cyberbullying.

First, discuss cyberbullying and how it is unacceptable.

Second, provide examples of cyberbullying to help students understand the importance of addressing this growing concern.

Third, students should report inappropriate online interactions to their parents, teachers, counselors, and administrators immediately, whether they are a victim or bystander.

Students need to know about the serious repercussions for intentionally harming someone online. Outlining cyberbullying guidelines can help students address and prevent threatening and inappropriate online behavior.

Self-image Is Important

Choose to promote a positive and professional image of self online. On social networking Web sites, students can share information about themselves globally (Dewall, Buffardi, Bonser, and Campbell, 2011). Keep in mind, however, that "Freedom of Speech does not equate to freedom of consequences..." (Oxley, 2010, p. 3).

Students must think before they post something online and make it available for the world to see. A potential problem of which today's learners must be aware is that employers check for information about prospective candidates online (Oxley, 2010). It's essential that students understand that once they post an image, comment, etc. online, it's there forever. Teachers can help students promote a positive self-image online by asking them to reflect about these questions:

Would you want your parents to see or read what's online about you?

Will this affect your future career?

Would this hurt anyone's feelings?

How do you want to be seen by others?

Make Use of Netiquette

Be courteous and respectful when communicating with others online. It's best to think about and use "netiquette." Netiquette can be defined as rules for online communication (Aranda, 2007). Communication online is done on a variety of platforms, from social networks to email, and students must understand the different rules for each mode of communication. Online netiquette must be addressed in today's classrooms. Teachers should allow learners to practice netiquette by providing them opportunities to communicate online via email, blogs, social networks, etc. This will allow for opportunities to model netiquette.

The following are accepted norms when using communication technologies: Be aware of your audience; respect other's privacy; apply real-world rules; be nice; use proper writing style; do not send unsolicited emails; avoid personal attacks; learn the rules of the community; refrain from profanity; and don't use electronic devices while engaging in face-to-face interaction (as cited in Aranda, 2007). Use these norms to empower students to practice netiquette.

Always Give Credit to Original Source

When using someone else's work, it's important to give them credit. Copying or stealing someone else's work is illegal and is known as plagiarism. Students need to be educated about plagiarism and the consequences for not citing borrowed words from a source (Davis, 2011). Source citation should be taught to help students gain the knowledge and skills to cite properly.

A number of students plagiarize unknowingly because they use quotations and paraphrase from sources, but are unfamiliar with the citation rules (Insley, 2011). Students should be given opportunities to practice proper citation. This will help them understand how to prevent plagiarism. Teachers can also request that students start research early to collect sources and have students submit a draft to make any final edits before the due date (Insley, 2011). These steps can prepare today's learners to cite sources properly and prevent plagiarism.

Remember to Be Effective, Thoughtful, and Ethical Digital Creators

Educators must teach students to be effective, thoughtful, and ethical digital creators (DeVoss, Eidman-Aadahl, and Hicks, 2010). Students should be afforded opportunities to use digital tools to gain the necessary skills for the 21st century in order to help them be responsible users of technology.

Of course, teachers must set expectations and guidelines to ensure students use technology properly. Teachers can have students blog about what they're learning in class, create a video explaining the steps for a math problem, create a graphic timeline, dissect a frog in a virtual environment, etc. These opportunities and others can help students become responsible digital creators.

Think

There's always a purpose for technology use. Think of how, when, why, and for what purpose you're using it. Think of ways to be creative and innovative. Think about communicating and collaborating with others globally to learn about another country. Think about how much students can learn via the Internet. Think of using it to prepare today's learners to be successful citizens of the 21st century. Think of all the possibilities.

It takes a team to prepare today's digital citizens. Parents, teachers, counselors, and administrators must work together to help today's learners be TECH SMART when navigating through the virtual world. Download a printable TECH SMART poster here.

References

Aranda J.F., (2007). Journal of Instruction Delivery Systems, 21(4), 11-14.

Cennamo, K.S., Ertmer, P.A., and Ross, J.D. (2010). Technology Integration for Meaningful Classroom Use: A Standards-Based Approach, 1st ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Davis, L. (2011). Arresting student plagiarism: Are we investigators or educators? Business Communication Quarterly, 74(2), 160-3.

Dewall, N. C., Buffardi, L. E., Bonser, I. and Campbell, K. (2011). Narcissism and implicit attention seeking: Evidence from linguistic analyses of social networking and online presentation. Personality and Individual Differences, 51(1), 57-62.

DeVoss, D. N., Eidman-Aadahl, E., and Hicks, T. (2010). Because digital writing
matters, 1ST ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Insley, R. (2011). Managing Plagiarism: A preventative approach. Business
Communication Quarterly, 74(2), 183-7.

Johnson, D. (2009). Creative Commons and why it should be commonly understood. Library Media Connection, 27(6), 56-7.

Levy, P. (2011). Confronting cyberbullying. T.H.E. Journal, 38(5), 25-7.

Oxley, C. (2010). Digital citizenship: Developing an ethical and responsible online culture. ACCESS, 25 (3), 5-9.

Pinkham, C., Wintle, S. E., and Silvernail, D. L. (2008). 21st century teaching and learning: An assessment of student website evaluation skills.

Education World®
Copyright © 2012 Education World

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Help Kids Become Responsible Digital Citizens | Education World

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EducationWorld is pleased to present this article by Christopher McGilvery, a lecturer at Angelo State University . The article originally appeared in TechEdge, a quarterly magazine published by Naylor LLC for Texas Computer Education Association members. To join or for more information, visit www.tcea.org.

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It's not 'netiquette' that's in crisis, it's our time-crunched lives

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ast weekend, Nick Bilton of the New York Times published a spirited tirade against "impolite" people who leave him voicemails instead of sending texts, or send emails saying nothing but "thank you", or who commit sundry other offences against efficient digital communication. He'd successfully re-educated his parents, he explained, by ignoring his father's voicemails and communicating with his mother via Twitter.

Since then, it's been Digital Etiquette Week in the blogosphere. Gawker's Caity Weaver joined the anti-voicemail crusade - "Don't leave me a voicemail unless you're dying" - while Rebecca Greenfield, at the Atlantic, formulated her own new rule: "It's totally OK to ignore all voicemails - except for ones from parents." Matthew JX Malady, a writer for Slate, went so far as to call for the elimination of all email signoffs - "regards", "best wishes", and so on - and while he was at it, introductory salutations, too. "Dear? Hi? Hey?" he wrote. "Kill me now."

I know, I know: to varying degrees, the Netiquette Police all have their tongues in their cheeks. But when it comes to language and social customs, it's a good general rule that when people get so heated about other people not following some alleged "best" way of doing things, there's something else going on - and it's worth asking what.

The netiquette flap reminds me of the sporadic eruption, among British commentators, of objections to "Americanisms" creeping into the language. The extraordinary irritation these seem to provoke may say something about Britain's declining role in the world; it may say something about the individual complainants growing older, and wanting to assert some control over a fast-changing language. But what it isn't really about is "creeping Americanisms" - not least because a huge proportion of those much-hated phrases aren't Americanisms at all.

So why have the Netiquette Police forgotten the point, eloquently expressed a few days ago by Ian Leslie, that communication isn't solely about the most efficient transfer of information from one brain to another, but about the forging of relationships, and of the fabric of society itself? To this armchair psychotherapist, the answer seems pretty obvious: they have far too many incoming communications to deal with, and the demand that others be more "polite" is a cry for help - emitted moments before they vanish beneath the rising tide of emails, voicemails, texts and tweets.

Time for some tough love, then: all these people complaining about how other people use digital communications will find both the real problem and its solutions by looking a little closer to home. True, most voicemail systems are disastrously badly designed. (I'm terrible at keeping up with voicemails myself.) But if you really don't have time to listen to them, then it's your responsibility, as Kevin Drum points out, to disable your voicemail, or leave a message asking people not to leave a message.

If "thank you" emails are cluttering up your inbox in a genuinely problematic way, you need better habits of inbox management. (You'd like some tips? Glad you asked.) If you receive a lot of emails that you don't plan to answer at all, consider an auto-responder message, explaining the filtering criteria that you're using.

And if people starting their messages with "Hi", or ending them with "Regards", causes you significant emotional distress ... you probably need to see a good therapist.

You may protest, of course, that your job means you have no choice but to keep all these channels of communication open: perhaps you'd get fired if you disabled voicemail, or failed to respond promptly to every incoming email. If you can't take steps to reduce your workload, then, yes, desperately pleading with others to follow special rules of etiquette may be the only thing you can do - besides quitting. But at least, let's attribute the blame properly here. The problem isn't that people are impolite; it's that you have an impossible job, which makes unreasonable demands. Sadly, all too many people do.

None of this is an excuse for failing to show respect for other people's time. If you're emailing me and don't require a reply, by all means add a note explaining that. (Though if you do, your heartwarming courtesy will probably guarantee one anyway.)

But if we're truly entering an era in which every extra second is so desperately needed - to the degree that we can't spare a few moments to listen to voicemail, or open and read a "thank you" email - then that's a problem that new etiquette won't solve. It's a crisis we'll need to face, whether through political campaigns for saner working conditions or making the individual choice, where feasible, to manage with less money in return for less stress. Boycotting voicemail won't cut it.

Please submit all comments in response to this post via fax.

Regards,
Oliver

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It's not 'netiquette' that's in crisis, it's our time-crunched lives | Oliver Burkeman

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ast weekend, Nick Bilton of the New York Times published a spirited tirade against "impolite" people who leave him voicemails instead of sending texts, or send emails saying nothing but "thank you", or who commit sundry other offences against efficient digital communication.

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Texting isnt first new technology thought impair social skills

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Is text-messaging driving us apart? These days, we talk to each other a lot with our thumbs-mashing out over six billion text messages a day in the United States, and likely a few billion more on services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

But some worry that so much messaging leads, paradoxically, to less communication. When Sherry Turkle, the MIT clinical psychologist and author, interviewed college students, they said texting was causing friction in their face-to-face interactions. While hanging out with friends they'd be texting surreptitiously at the same time, pretending to maintain eye contact but mentally somewhere else. The new form of communication was fun, sure, but it was colliding with-and eroding-the old one.

"Our texts are fine," as one student said. "It's what texting does to our conversations when we are together that's the problem."

Plenty of people agree. Jenna Birch, a young journalist, recently argued that texting is inferior to talking face to face because it's too easy to misinterpret-over-overinterpret-tone. Worse, texting makes it more likely for her generation to dodge difficult emotional conversations, the "hard stuff." If we don't shape up, she warned, "we'll all end up on interconnected islands, together in our aloneness."

New technologies often unsettle the way we relate to one another, of course. But social ruptures caused by texting have a strong echo in the arguments we had a hundred years ago. That's when a newfangled appliance gave us a strange new way to contact one another en masse: the telephone.

**********

When Alexander Graham Bell introduced his telephone in March 1876, the invention was riddled with problems. The line was a crackly mess-prone to interference from nearby electrical lines-and it was powered by a battery that leaked acid. Still, it allowed for a remarkable, unmooring experience: For the first time, you could talk in real time to someone blocks or miles away. "It was like a voice from another world," marveled one early user. Bell quickly improved the quality, and customers thronged. In the first year, over 3,000 telephones sold; by 1900 there were over one million phones nationwide.

At first, the telephone was marketed mainly as a tool for business. Physicians and drugstores bought them to process orders, and business owners installed them at home so they could be quickly reached. The phone, proclaimed early ad copy, gave business leaders an ESP-like "sixth sense" of their far-flung operations.

The idea of using such a powerful tool for everyday conversation? That seemed laughable and obnoxious. One early social critic warned that the phone should not be used for the "exchange of twaddle between foolish women." Businessmen prohibited their wives from tying up the line, lest they interfere with commerce. "At the beginning, women were forbidden to use the phone-the business was supposed to have the priority," notes Michéle Martin, a professor emeritus at Canada's Carleton University and author of Hello, Central?

But it quickly became apparent that people wanted to talk-to socialize. One phone company manager in 1909 did a survey of usage and found that 30 percent of all calls were "idle gossip," lasting 7.5 minutes on average each. He didn't like this chitchat, but he was running against the stream. Eventually phone firms realized there was more money in selling lines for banter than for business. "They realized, 'We can make money off gossip and idle conversation and sociability on the telephone,'" says Claude Fischer, author of America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

Within a few years, phone companies were emphasizing how they could reduce isolation and bring friends together. A California firm in 1911 declared that its phone was "a Blessing to the Farmer's Wife," adding that "it relieves the monotony of life. She cannot be lonesome with the Bell Service."

Indeed, women quickly became the dominant users of the telephone. "In some ways it was liberating," Martin notes, because it gave housebound wives much more social contact-without the enormous work of maintaining visual appearances in face-to-face interactions.

Still, users struggled to figure out the social protocols of this new ethereal realm. How do you start a conversation when you can't see the person you're talking to? Thomas Edison advocated beginning each call with "Hello," but masters of etiquette cringed. "It sounded too much like a ship-to-ship call across to another," laughs Fischer-far too crude and abrupt, a barbaric yawp devoid of social grace. As one social critic sneered at the time: "Would you rush into an office or up to the door of a residence and blurt out 'Hello! Hello! Who am I talking to?'" Others argued that the phone might be fine for some things, but not for delicate communications-like inviting an acquaintance to dinner. ("Never excusable, save among very intimate friends," etiquette author Annie Randall White wrote in 1901.)

Nonetheless, the telephone quickly gave birth to curious new forms of socializing. Callers arranged regular weekly "visiting" calls, dialing remote family to catch up on news. "Distance rolls away and for a few minutes every Thursday night the familiar voices tell the little family gossip that both are so eager to hear," a Bell ad cooed in 1921.

Phone companies even boasted that the phone was an improvement over that stodgy, low-fi communication, the letter. "Correspondence will help for a time, but friendships do not flourish for long on letters alone," a 1931 Bell sales manual noted. "When you can't visit in person, telephone periodically. Telephone calls will keep up the whole intimacy remarkably well."

**********

Soon, though, social critics began to wonder: Was all this phone chatter good for us? Was it somehow a lesser form of communication than what had come before? "Does the telephone make men more active or more lazy?" wondered the Knights of Columbus in a 1926 meeting. "Does the telephone break up home life and the old practice of visiting friends?"

Others worried that the inverse would occur-that it would be so easy to talk that we'd never leave each other alone. "Thanks to the telephone, motor-car and such-like inventions, our neighbors have it in their power to turn our leisure into a series of interruptions," complained an American professor in 1929. And surely it couldn't be healthy to talk to each other so much. Wouldn't it create Too Much Information?

"We shall soon be nothing but transparent heaps of jelly to each other," a London writer moaned in 1897. Others fretted that the telephone sped up life, demanding instant reactions. "The use of the telephone gives little room for reflection," wrote a British newspaper in 1899. "It does not improve the temper, and it engenders a feverishness in the ordinary concerns of life which does not make for domestic happiness and comfort."

Perhaps the strangest thing was being in the room while a friend talked to someone else-someone outside the room. In 1880, Mark Twain wrote "A Telephonic Conversation," transcribing the half-a-conversation as he listened to his wife on the phone. To the observer, as the skit pointed out, a telephone call sounded like disjointed nonsense. Even phone companies worried about whether the device created new forms of rude behavior; a 1910 Bell ad warned about "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the Telephone."

In essence, the telephone was a teleportation device, bringing other people-including, disconcertingly, strangers-suddenly into one's home. Young ladies, some fretted, were at romantic risk. "The serenading troubadour can now thrum his throbbing guitar before the transmitter undisturbed by apprehensions of shot guns and bull dogs," a magazine article in Electrical World noted. Scamsters loved the phone.

"It changed people's ideas of social trust," notes Carolyn Marvin, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and author of When Old Technologies Were New. We could no longer read someone based on face-to-face social cues.

Indeed, some believed the phone improved our social behavior, because it forced a listener to pay closer attention to a speaker. Devoid of visual signals, we must be "all ears and memory," a pundit wrote in 1915: "The mind cannot wander." Plus, by eradicating distance, wouldn't the phone reduce misunderstanding? War, even? "Someday we will build up a world telephone system making necessary to all peoples the use of a common language, or common understanding of languages, which will join all the people of the earth into one brotherhood," gushed John J. Carty, AT&T chief engineer, in 1907.

These utopian views, of course, were wildly optimistic. But the gloomy views of pessimists, as Fischer notes, didn't come true either. Even Emily Post, the etiquette expert, came around to the telephone. By the 1920s, she'd accepted "Hello" as a suitable greeting, and even thought it was acceptable to invite someone to dinner with a call. "Custom which has altered many ways and manners has taken away all opprobrium from the message," she shrugged.

**********

Nowadays, the telephone call seems like a quaint throwback to a gentler era. When Jenna Birch, the journalist, started dating a man who insisted on calling her on the phone, she found it warm and delightful-though her friends thought the behavior odd. Phone calls now seem retro.

Academics have observed this shift, too. "My students just do not think of the phone as a mechanism of vocal interaction-they think of that as very rare," says John Durham Peters, a communication professor at the University of Iowa, and author of Speaking Into the Air. He doesn't think the shift to texting has degraded our interactions, though. By the middle of the 20th century, studies found that the telephone appeared not to have eroded social contact-indeed, some research found those with phones wrote more old-fashioned letters than those without. Similarly, modern surveys by the Pew Research Center have found that teenagers who text the most are also those who spend the most time face to face with friends. Communication, it seems, begets more communication, and-as Peters argues-just because talk happens in text doesn't mean it's not meaningful.

"Media scholars," he notes, "have this long romance with 'conversation' as the cure to the disease of media."

Still, it's not hard to be dispirited by the divided attention so many of Turkle's subjects bemoaned in their lives. Indeed, Michéle Martin, of Carleton, thinks we're living through a replay of the telephone, where the things that made it valuable-instant communications-are the same that made it annoying. "People believe they are liberated because they can bring the mobile phone everywhere," Martin says. "But at the same time they are slaves to it."

The poet Carl Sandburg captured that dissonance in a 1916 poem about the telephone. He imagined a telephone wire being aware of the disparate uses to which it was being put-coursing with conversations both deep and frivolous. "It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the tears, the work and want / Death and laughter of men and women passing through me, carrier of your speech."

Buy

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Texting Isn't the First New Technology Thought to Impair Social Skills

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Is text-messaging driving us apart? These days, we talk to each other a lot with our thumbs-mashing out over six billion text messages a day in the United States, and likely a few billion more on services like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. But some worry that so much messaging leads, paradoxically, to less communication.

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Technology Etiquette for the Emerging Generation

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Technology Etiquette for the Emerging Generation

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The vast majority of Generation Y believes it’s their right to be on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram during work hours. I would just add -- it’s also the right of your employer to let you go.

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Technology Doesn't Make Us Less Social; It Just Changes The Way We Socialize

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from the as-much-as-a-menace-to-society-as-baggy-pants-and-impertinent-hairdos dept

As the technology we hold in the palms of our hands continues to become more immersive, the narrative is pushed that smartphones and tablets are turning us into anti-social screen gazers, more interested in the world contained in the cloud than the world that surrounds us. But is this really a new narrative? Is it only now that we've become so entranced by streams of information that we've begun shutting out the sensory underload of everyday life?

This image, sent to us by Techdirt reader techinabox, shows that not much has changed over the last 100 years.

Yes, the printed word, applied to paper, is more interesting than conversing with others or simply staring vacantly into space. For most people in a forcibly "social" situation -- like waiting for mass transportation -- having a smartphone or newspaper to "disappear" into rather than trying to engage in conversation with dozens of people they don't know or care about is a plus, rather than an indicator of societal collapse. Put these people into situations with friends and acquaintances and its very likely the distractions will recede into the background. And even if they don't, there's likely a lot more "sharing" going on than can be perceived with the predisposed eye.
This "smartphones are inherently antisocial" narrative leads us directly to this -- a wholly hilarious dismantling of a restaurant's haughty pre-judging of its potential customers.

If you can't read/see it, it says in boldly hand-written letters:
NO 'WiFi' ..........
TALK TO EACH OTHER.
CALL YOUR MOM.
PRETEND IT'S 1993.
LIVE.

The internet has no time for your neo-Luddite attitude, unnamed restaurant. Commenters quickly followed the line of thought to its logical conclusion.

NO "TELEPHONES". TALK TO EACH OTHER. FACE TO FACE ONLY. WRITE A LETTER. SEND A TELEGRAM TO YOUR MOM. PRETEND IT'S 1860. LIVE.

NO 'WRITING'... TALK TO EACH OTHER. THROW A ROCK AT YOUR MOM. PRETEND IT'S 10,000 BCE. LIVE.

NO 'HIGHER BRAIN FUNCTIONS' ...USE YOUR REPTILIAN BRAIN
EAT YOUR MOM'S CORPSE SHE DIED TO PROVIDE YOU WITH SUSTENANCE
PRETEND YOU HAVE JUST AROSE FROM THE SEA
SURVIVE

NO "MULTICELLULAR TRAITS"..... USE YOUR SYMBIOTIC MITOCHONDRIA
REPRODUCE ASEXUALLY, YOU'RE YOUR OWN PARENT
PRETEND IT'S 2BYA
EVOLVE

NO "LIFE." USE FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICAL FORCES TO FORM SPHERICAL OBJECTS REVOLVING AROUND ONE ANOTHER IN SPACE.
FUSE HYDROGEN INTO HELIUM USING GRAVITATIONAL PRESSURE TO PRODUCE HEAT AND LIGHT.
PRETEND IT'S 4.5BYA.
STABILIZE INTO EQUILIBRIA

NO "MATTER". EXIST IN THE VOID WITHOUT PURPOSE OR MEANING.
THERE IS NO "YOU", ONLY THE VAST CONCEPT OF NOTHING.
TIME DOES NOT EXIST.
BE

Nobody likes to be talked down to by a handwritten banner, especially one that insinuates that anyone without a WiFi signal will be forced to "live," rather than engage with their electronics. The world was a better place in 1993, according to this sign. It so, then it follows that life was at its truest form before life even began.

Which brings us to restaurants and their uneasy embrace of technology. A number have already declared they will kick out Google Glass wearers and cell phone users. Some chefs have insisted that photographing their food "robs" them of their "intellectual property." And one restaurant in particular blamed smartphones for its slow service, using a lot of anecdotal evidence disguised as research. Oddly, this "message" was delivered in the most "new media" fashion possible, via a (now deleted) Craigslist "rant."

Here's a portion of it.

26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food.

14 out of 45 customers take pictures of each other with the food in front of them or as they are eating the food. This takes on average another 4 minutes as they must review and sometimes retake the photo.

9 out of 45 customers sent their food back to reheat. Obviously if they didn't pause to do whatever on their phone the food wouldn't have gotten cold.

27 out of 45 customers asked their waiter to take a group photo. 14 of those requested the waiter retake the photo as they were not pleased with the first photo. On average this entire process between the chit chatting and reviewing the photo taken added another 5 minutes and obviously caused the waiter not to be able to take care of other tables he/she was serving.

Even if everything presented as fact were indeed true, the restaurant blames its service issues on its customers, rather than realizing two things: 1.) a comparison of two nights roughly a decade apart is hardly evidence of anything and 2.) there's a whole lot of positive aspects that are being ignored out of concern over turn time.

As a common venue for celebratory dinners, birthdays, and bachelorette parties, TAO Downtown does take lot of photos, Duxbury says, but that's "absolutely not" bad for the restaurant. "Those pictures go up on social media, some of them instantly on Instagram and Facebook, and it gets us out there," he says.

Other chefs, waiters, and restaurateurs echo this sentiment. John Kapetanos, owner of Ethos in Manhattan's Midtown East-the same neighborhood as the anonymous Craigslist poster-says maybe 10 percent of his customers ask the waiter to take a group photo; it's a favor that takes less than a minute and doesn't slow down service. Over the 12 years Ethos has been in business, Kapetanos says cellphones have added maybe five to 10 minutes to the average table time, but that he doesn't mind as long as diners at one table aren't bothering those at another. Jean-Marte, a waiter at a French restaurant in Midtown who declined to give his last name, concurs that taking photos of customers doesn't slow his stride. He adds that smartphones can even be quite helpful when dealing with foreign tourists who don't understand the menu. "It's easier for them to go on the website or on Yelp, and they can show you a picture and say, 'This is what I want,' " he explains.

Going further, the march of technology has sped up other aspects of food service, including inputting orders and settling bills.

It's just part of our lives now," says Michael Scelfo, chef and owner of the recently opened Alden & Harlow in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Back in the old days, if you wanted to pay with your credit card, someone had to physically go and carbon-copy it and write information on it. Now they can swipe it on their phone tableside. How much time does that save?"

The fear that technology controls our lives rather than vice versa is omnipresent and moves towards smart cars, connected household devices and Google Glass only feed into that. It's very tempting for even those who tout technological advances to express apprehension about the perceived progression towards a more introverted society that interacts mainly through third parties. This fear isn't entirely misplaced, but the real question is whether it should actually be viewed with trepidation.

Technology has changed the way we communicate, but it hasn't eliminated communication. The supposed dearth of face-to-face interaction can be traced all the way back to dated pursuits like reading newspapers or playing chess. Nothing really changes. We may find more people blundering down the street staring at a phone screen rather than the sidewalk in front of them, but extrapolating carelessness and (yes) rudeness into some sort of societal collapse isn't an original idea, or even a recent one. Anything beneficial is ignored to portray an army of dead-eyed techno-captives ruining the world, one Tweet/Instagram/Facebook update at a time. It's not any truer now than it was back when people stood shoulder-to-shoulder staring intently at the newspaper in front of them.

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Technology Doesn't Make Us Less Social; It Just Changes The Way We Socialize

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As the technology we hold in the palms of our hands continues to become more immersive, the narrative is pushed that smartphones and tablets are turning us into anti-social screen gazers, more interested in the world contained in the cloud than the...

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Tech Etiquette Rules — Using Good Manners with Your Devices

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Tech Etiquette Rules — Using Good Manners with Your Devices

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Cyberbullying: What Teachers and Schools Can Do

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If you are already registered on our website, you can sign in by selecting your partner organization below, then entering your email address and password on the next screen.

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Social Media's Affect on Human Interaction

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How does social media affect interaction in our society? Will face-to-face communication ultimately diminish because of these new social technologies. These questions are ones that many researchers have found extremely intriguing since the advent and popularization of social media in the last decade. Within this topic, social competency is an important ideal that most people strive towards, but there is evidence to support the claims that social media is actually harming people's ability to interact competently in an offline setting. Studies on the social competency of youths who spend much of their time on social media networks are sometimes very conflicting. For example, a study executed by the National Institute of Health found that youths with strong, positive face-to-face relationships may be those most frequently using social media as an additional venue to interact with their peers. As a pretty outgoing person myself, I find myself wanting to use social media as an extra outlet to interact with my friends, whether it is through a random funny post from Tumblr or posting pictures from our adventures. Although I personally agree with this study's findings, I also believe that social media can be an excellent avenue for introverted people to find a comfortable setting to interact. From my own experience, I see many of my friends who aren't as comfortable with face-to-face interactions thriving in an online environment. However, on a case-to-case basis, there can be dramatic differences. For example, a study performed by Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University, showed that a sample of high school students from Connecticut with problematic levels of Internet use were more likely to get into serious fights or carry a weapon. Despite the seriousness of this type of situation, I think that this study really focuses on the extremes of a certain situation, and not the norm of people's interactions on social networks. The other problem with this particular study is that the connection between this type of antisocial behavior and excessive Internet use has not been set in stone by comprehensive research. There is only a correlation, and it is not clear which behavior is causing the other. This discrepancy especially leads me to believe that social media is mostly positive for young people in my generation.

Despite my opinion that social media is positive, I definitely believe that face-to-face interaction must continue to be our main source of communication. According to Forbes magazine, only 7% of communication is based on the verbal word. That means that over 90% of communication is based on nonverbal cues such as body language, eye contact, and tone of voice. Technology's rampant popularization over the past decade in terms of social media has meant that texting, Facebook, and Twitter have inevitably taken over as the most efficient ways of communicating with each other. I do agree that the "efficiency factor," or our reliance on the most efficient ways of communication, is becoming one of the largest concerns for people in our interactions with one another. However, there needs to be a constant reminder that face-to-face interaction must remain a staple in our society because it is of a much higher quality and has the ability to satisfy so many more of our inherent social needs.

Social media of all kinds has become such an important part of our society that looking at it in a negative way will only set us back. We as a society must push forward and continue to incorporate social media in more positive ways. Social networking sites have been categorized as both beneficial and consequential to offline contact. Although I believe that it can be mostly positive, in some cases, both sides can be true; however, the affect that social media has on each person in this world is always different and can only be looked at on a case-by-case basis. The future of social media is also highly unknown. According to each company's respective reports, in March 2013, Facebook reported having 1.11 billion active users, Instagram reported having 100 million users, and Twitter had 200 million active users. These numbers have experienced immense growth even in the past year alone. This just proves the fact that social networking is a rapidly changing field, and even if we solve the question of how current social media affects interaction, more questions will continue to arise as these sites continue to change. So now the question remains: Is our society really ready to harness these new social media technologies to our advantage?

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Social Media's Affect on Human Interaction

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How does social media affect interaction in our society? Will face-to-face communication ultimately diminish because of these new social technologies. These questions are ones that many researchers have found extremely intriguing since the advent and popularization of social media in the last decade.

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Is technology killing the human touch?

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Cyberbullying

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This video is a dramatic scenario used to provoke thought about displaying personal resilience while online. It features a teenage female locking herself in a bathroom to avoid four female peers. The female s are played by actors.

Stacey runs down an alley, pursued by a group of girls.

Stacey runs into a community centre bathroom and locks the door of her stall just as a youth worker exits the second stall

Veronica, the group leader, pushes the bathroom door open but stops abruptly when s he sees the youth worker at the sink. She turns and exits.

Stacey's phone pings with a message notification.

The girls stand outside on their phones, texting Stacey.

Stacey's phone pings repeatedly, with the texts popping up in conversation bubbles aroun d her, reading "feelin @ home in the toilet w/all the other scum??" and "ur the reason deodorant exists" amongst them

As the notifications stream in rapidly, Stacey gets increasingly agitated. She begins to cry and puts her hands over her ears to block th e text sounds.

A mid shot of Veronica, relentlessly texting. Stacey brings her hands down and stares at the wall, her attention grabbed by a graffiti quote that says "THEY DON'T WRITE YOUR STORY...YOU DO."

Stacey stares at the quote, its meaning sinking in.

Veronica and her group enter the community centre, heading for the bathroom.

Stacey opens the bathroom door and faces Veronica.

Veronica stops in disbelief. Stacey walks past them, head held high and exits the community centre with the group following he r.

The group heckle Stacey who walks on, unaffected

The music builds as Stacey puts on her headphones, drowning out the insults. She walks on, a small smile on her face

Logo shows the Australian coat of arms above the words Australian Government, and the eSafety Commissioner with the web address esafety.gov.au

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This video is a dramatic scenario used to provoke thought about displaying personal resilience while online. It features a teenage female locking herself in a bathroom to avoid four female peers. The female s are played by actors. Stacey runs down an alley, pursued by a group of girls.

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Should children’s internet use be filtered?

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.

According to figures from the FBI and the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Comey's annual salary as of January 2015 was $183,300. Without a raise or bonus, Comey will make $1.34 million over the remainder of his job.

That suggests the FBI paid the largest ever publicized fee for a hacking job, easily surpassing the $1 million paid by U.S. information security company Zerodium to break into phones.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Comey was asked by a moderator how much the FBI paid for the software that eventually broke into the iPhone.

"A lot. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months for sure," Comey said. "But it was, in my view, worth it."

The Justice Department said in March it had unlocked the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone with the help of an unidentified third party and dropped its case against Apple Inc , ending a high-stakes legal clash but leaving the broader fight over encryption unresolved.

Comey said the FBI will be able to use software used on the San Bernardino phone on other 5C iPhones running IOS 9 software.

There are about 10 million 5C iPhones in use in the United States, according to estimates from research firm IHS Technology. Eighty-four percent of iOS devices overall are running iOS 9 software, according to Apple.

The FBI gained access to the iPhone used by Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2.

The case raised the debate over whether technology companies' encryption technologies protect privacy or endanger the public by blocking law enforcement access to information.

(This version was officially corrected to change active U.S. 5C iPhone estimates to 10 million from 16 million in paragraph 8 after analyst IHS corrects figure.)

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judicial process / court cases / court decisions

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FBI paid more than $1.3 million to break into San Bernardino iPhone

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Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said on Thursday the agency paid more to get into the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters than he will make in the remaining seven years and four months he has in his job.

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A Brazilian judge has overturned a suspension of Facebook Inc's WhatsApp messaging application that affected some 100 million users, after many people voiced frustration at the second such freeze in five months in the South American country.

On Monday, a judge in the north-eastern state of Sergipe had ordered Brazil's five main wireless operators to block access to WhatsApp for 72 hours. The reason for the order was not made public due to legal secrecy in an ongoing case before the state court.

However, a different judge from the state tribunal intervened on Tuesday to cancel the ruling following an appeal from WhatsApp's lawyers, the court said in a statement.

The judge who ordered the suspension, Marcel Maia Montalvão, in March ordered the imprisonment of a Brazil-based Facebook executive in a dispute over law enforcement demands for data from the company's encrypted messaging service for use in a drug trafficking investigation.

The executive was freed after about 24 hours, when an appeals court overturned his arrest.

WhatsApp had said in a statement on Monday that it was "disappointed" at the judge's decision to suspend its services, saying it had done the utmost to cooperate with Brazilian tribunals, but it did not possess the information the court was requesting.

The company has said in the past that it does not store encrypted information from WhatsApp messages.

The incident comes as technology companies face mounting pressure from governments around the world to help them eavesdrop on users and censor data.

The suspension of WhatsApp services had frustrated many in Brazil, where more than three quarters of mobile phone subscribers use the app.

"It was an invasive measure," said Mariana Pepeu, a 23-year-old student in Rio de Janeiro. "But the laws for the internet are very recent and they are still being written (in Brazil)."

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WhatsApp block in Brazil overturned after court appeal and user complaints

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A Brazilian judge has overturned a suspension of Facebook Inc's WhatsApp messaging application that affected some 100 million users, after many people voiced frustration at the second such freeze in five months in the South American country. On Monday, a judge in the north-eastern state of Sergipe had ordered Brazil's five main wireless operators to block access to WhatsApp for 72 hours.

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Microsoft Wins Major Case To Prevent Government From Seizing Emails Stored Overseas

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Fashion Photographer Los Angeles & Orange County Video Production

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UK Supreme Court Chooses Microsoft Dynamics

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Microsoft Wins Major Case To Prevent Government From Seizing Emails Stored Overseas

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A federal appeals court Thursday said prosecutors cannot force U.S. companies like Microsoft to turn over customer emails and other data stored on servers overseas - a ruling the government suggested could hamper national security investigations. The three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S.

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To Big Brother or Not to Big Brother: the Internet Safety v. Parental Control Debate

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As the founder of an Internet safety startup with a passionate and active user base, I get hate mail and fan mail everyday. The fan mail is from parents who value our service, while the hate mail is from kids who are using their iPod Touches with our software installed. A sample:
"... should be allowed because it's just games...what is wrong with that?! I hate this software."

"Thank you so much for offering this solution to protect our children."

No points for guessing who said what.

In an age where children are more technology savvy than their parents, and parents arguably more worldly wise than their children, it is interesting to see this dichotomy in our user community. To be loved and hated for doing the right thing is weird. Of course, you can't make everyone happy. But it is still intriguing.

Sexting, online predators, and child pornography are part of the lexicon that every parent worries about. While these are extreme occurrences and relatively rare, there are the mundane transgressions that happen in every household. For instance, according to a Pew Internet study, 70% of teens are exposed to pornography accidentally on the web. As a responsible parent, what do you do? Do you cut off the Internet? But what if Internet access is built into the portable gaming device, how do you control that? For a movie, you can look up the MPAA rating and decide if it is appropriate for your child's age. How do you do that for billions of websites?

Many parents setup parental control software on their computers, which filter the Internet and ensure only age appropriate content flows through. In addition to filtering content, many solutions keep track of Internet usage and generate activity reports. This allows parents to be a watchdog for Internet access and take remedial action when a violation occurs. More importantly, depending on whether you are an optimist or pessimist, these solutions either disincentives children from doing anything inappropriate or forces them to find technology-assisted creative workarounds to circumvent the rules.

I came across a raging debate on an open source software forum where members were divided over even the need for parental control software to protect children. Children need to be exposed to the real world so that they can make the right choices when they grow up, one faction says. If spying on your kids is the only way to keep them safe, then you are not a good parent, retorts the other.

I think they are arguing over the wrong problem. The issue is not a question of whether a parent should or should not play the role of an all-seeing omnipresent Big Brother. I think the right argument is over what is appropriate for our children. This is usually based on the social context of our times, since what was inappropriate 50 years ago is concerned perfectly appropriate today.

So here is a hypothesis. What if a parent can negotiate with a child a contract on what content would be inappropriate and what activity monitoring would be appropriate based on his or her age level. What if parents with children in similar age groups, geographies and social contexts can identify with a group that is closest to their preference, and help determine the group's customized content filtering and activity monitoring levels. And what if Internet safety providers were to configure and offer a series of pre-determined filtering levels that are aggregations of polls and negotiations by each group.

A self-organizing Internet safety social network would have seemed impossible a decade ago, but in the age of social media, this type of collaboration is not only possible, but also a natural way to go about the task. Whereas a survey would provide a snapshot in time, a social network approach would represent a continuously evolving measure of the participants' preferences. The challenge would be to ensure that there is enough unbiased data to draw meaningful statistical conclusions, but going by how vocal both parents and children are around this topic, that doesn't appear to be a problem.

Perhaps this approach would bring about a synergy between the viewpoints held by parents and children, and the seemingly opposing goals of parental control and Internet safety. Perhaps you can make everyone happy after all.

Related

healthy living Internet censorship internet-porn Sexting

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To Big Brother or Not to Big Brother: the Internet Safety v. Parental Control Debate

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As the founder of an Internet safety startup with a passionate and active user base, I get hate mail and fan mail everyday. The fan mail is from parents who value our service, while the hate mail is from kids who are using their iPod Touches with our software installed.

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What is cyberbullying?

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Lock Screen: At These Music Shows, Phones Go In A Pouch And Don't Come Out

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Before the folk rock band The Lumineers released their newest album, Cleopatra, in April, they played a series of secret shows. Emphasis here on "secret."

"There was a large concern about the album being sort-of released via grainy video and leaked out online," said Wesley Schultz, the band's lead singer.

So the band decided to lock up people's phones - not take them away, exactly, but just lock them up for the show. Like a timeout.

At the concerts, The Lumineers started working with a company called Yondr, which created a locking pouch for people to hold their phones in during performances. Audience members keep the pouches with them, and they stay sealed as long as they're inside an established "phone-free zone," but unlock outside of that.

Schultz said he was surprised at how well it works.

"If you can set it up so that people can't get to their phones as easily or are deterred, people actually really welcome that," he said. "It's just such a strong force of habit in our lives right now."

Schultz has taken it a step further and adopted the mentality in his personal life: At his wedding, he and his wife asked guests to check their phones at the door.

"It wasn't because of any sort of a, 'I don't want photos of anyone at the wedding' - it was more, we wanted people to be present," he said.

That's become somewhat of a mantra for entertainers these days.

As Beyonce herself told fans at a recent show, "Y'all gotta put the camera phones down for one second and actually enjoy this moment."

Adele, too: "Yeah, I want to tell that lady as well, can you stop filming me with a video camera? Because I'm really here in real life - you can enjoy it in real life."

Smartphones may be ubiquitous, but there are still limits to common courtesy. Recently the movie theater chain AMC backed off a proposal to allow texting in cinemas after it garnered enormous public backlash.

Schultz thinks that sense of decency should extend to live music.

"I think of it like, if we had that same attitude and you went to see Hamilton, people would be totally up in arms about that," Schultz said. "But for some reason it's completely acceptable to do at shows."

(That said, Hamilton isn't immune to cellphone faux pas either. As The New York Times reported, the musical's star Lin-Manuel Miranda once chastised a certain celebrity on Twitter for incessant texting. Meanwhile, Patti LuPone grabbed a phone away from one audience member in the middle of Shows for Days.)

In this environment, Yondr has found fans of its own in artists like Alicia Keys and comedians like Dave Chappelle, Louis C.K. and Hannibal Buress.

It's not just about cutting the distractions of glowing screens and, worse, ringing phones. For some, there's also a concern of creative security.

According to a Washington Post article, Keys hired Yondr for a concert where she planned to premiere new songs from her first album since 2012's Girl on Fire. Louis C.K. did the same when he was trying out a new set at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood.

A new patent granted to Apple - for infrared technology that could disable smartphone cameras remotely from the stage - might make those pouches obsolete one day. But the idea is the same.

Not everyone has reacted positively to the idea of a "phone-free zone," however.

"Even at one of the shows, a guy brought in a knife with him - just, he usually carries a knife, I guess - and he tried to stab through the case," Schultz said. "And it's got steel, I think, woven into it. So his knife got stuck in the thing, and then when he had to leave, he had the embarrassing deal of having to tell the people that he tried to open it, and they had to pry his knife loose."

Will Yondr, or methods like it, eventually become the norm in entertainment? Schultz thinks so: "Something tells me in a little while we'll kinda look back and say, 'We were a little out of control with our use of phones - we didn't really know boundaries. We were sort of working it out.' "

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Lock Screen: At These Music Shows, Phones Go In A Pouch And Don't Come Out

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Before the folk rock band The Lumineers released their newest album, Cleopatra, in April, they played a series of secret shows. Emphasis here on "secret." "There was a large concern about the album being sort-of released via grainy video and leaked out online," said Wesley Schultz, the band's lead singer.

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CBS Investigates: Testing the Boundaries of Tech Etiquette. Taryn Winter Brill reports

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CBS Investigates: Testing the Boundaries of Tech Etiquette. Taryn Winter Brill reports

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CBS Early Show's Taryn Winter Brill goes undercover and pushes the boundaries of rude behavior: when it comes to cell phone use, texts, tweeting in public, etc.

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Tech vs. Talk: Is Technology Changing Human Relationships?

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Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sam Yagan

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Tech vs. Talk: Is Technology Changing Human Relationships?

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Moderator Alex Witt, Anchor, MSNBC's "Weekends with Alex Witt"; Correspondent, NBC News Speakers Genevieve Bell, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Senior Fellow, Intel Corp. Linda Burch, Co-Founder and Chief Education and Strategy Officer, Common Sense Media Sherry Turkle, Author; Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sam Yagan, Vice Chairman, Match Group; Co-Founder, OkCupid Are humans becoming so dependent on their smartphones, tablets and laptops that they're losing the ability to relate to one another?

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Technology Addiction and What you Can do About It. | Ben Halpert | TEDxSaintThomas

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Technology Addiction and What you Can do About It. | Ben Halpert | TEDxSaintThomas

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Technology Dependence

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Originally aired on 401 Sunset. This segment discusses society's dependence on technology and how technology is impacting our life. The pros and cons of technology use are brought forward and the viewer is left with a question; what would they do if there was an apocalypse and technology ceased to exist/work.

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Plugging in and tuning out

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How Public Schools Can Constitutionally Halt Cyberbullying

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By: Naomi Harlin Goodno*

Introduction

Schoolyard bullying has been around for generations, but recently it has taken on a new, menacing face¾cyberbullying. Now adolescents use technology to deliberately and repeatedly bully, harass, hassle, and threaten peers. No longer does the bullying end once the school day ends. With the use of technology, groups of bullies can relentlessly and anonymously attack twenty-four hours a day for the whole world to witness. There is simply no escape. Cyberbullying follows victims from their schools to their homes to their personal computer screens, with fresh injuries inflicted every time a new person clicks on an Internet site to witness or join in the bullying. Adolescents use Internet sites like YouTube, or social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, to repeatedly mock others by creating web pages, videos, and profiles. Adolescents use their cell phones to take photos anytime and anywhere (including bathrooms)[1] and then instantaneously post them online for others to rate, tag, discuss, and pass along.[2]

Cyberbullying is one of the top challenges facing public schools.[3] There are many recurring legal problems confronting public schools. By way of example, assume there are two public middle school children, Joe and Jane. Joe punches Jane on the school's property between classes. The school is well within its rights to suspend Joe.[4] Assume instead that Joe punches Jane off of school grounds, after school ends, and as the children are walking home. Because the assault took place off of school property and after hours, the school does not have jurisdiction to punish Joe; rather, it is a matter for the parents and law enforcement.[5]

Assume instead that Joe creates an animated video game of Jane from his personal home computer at night. In the game, Joe shows himself and other students punching Jane. Joe posts the game on the Internet and it is quickly passed along to over one hundred other students at the same school, many of whom join in the virtual punching of Jane. Some students log on to the site while at school, using their personal smart phones and laptops, and other students log onto the site after school at home using their personal computers. Jane is terrified to go to school.

Can the school punish Joe or any of the other students? In this hypothetical, Joe created the website off-campus and after school hours, so how is it different, if at all, from Joe physically punching Jane off-campus and after school hours? Is Joe's website protected by free speech? Can the school search Joe's and the other students' personal cell phones or laptop computers to see if and when the website was accessed? How does the public school respond, if at all, to this situation without trampling the constitutional and legal rights of the students?

Neither the legislatures nor the courts have been able to give public schools clear and consistent guidance on how to answer these questions. Indeed, in a recent Third Circuit opinion, the court was deeply divided on how to decide such issues.[6] There is also a circuit split on these issues making it ripe for the Supreme Court of the United States to resolve.[7] Cyberbullying raises issues that require a fine balance between protecting the constitutional rights of public school students while also creating a safe learning environment.

The purpose of this Article is to set forth a comprehensive model cyberbullying policy for primary and secondary public schools that meets educational goals and considers constitutional challenges. This first Part of this Article explores the current problems caused by cyberbullying and why these problems are unique from off-line bullying. Because of the unique problems caused by cyberbullying, some state legislatures are beginning to enact specific laws to address cyberbullying. The current statutes are summarized in Appendix A of this Article. Those statutes, however, provide little to no direction on how public schools should create cyberbullying policies that are constitutional while also meeting statutory requirements. Thus, Appendix B of this Article sets forth a model cyberbullying policy for public schools.

The second and main Part of this Article considers three constitutional challenges public schools face in adopting a cyberbullying policy. First, public schools wrestle with how to define "cyberbullying" without violating the students' First Amendment rights to free speech. The crux of the problem concerns speech that students make off of school grounds but that impacts other students at school (for example, creating a website at home, which is then accessed at school, that harasses another student). This Part sets forth a novel way of approaching the conflicting legal precedents by separately considering jurisdictional and substantive issues. The second constitutional challenge is composing a cyberbullying policy that does not violate due process rights or that is written in language that is unconstitutionally vague or overbroad. The third constitutional challenge is formulating a way for school officials to know when they can search students' personal electronic devices without violating the Fourth Amendment.

The final Part of this Article addresses pedagogical concerns such as reporting requirements, disciplinary matters, and educating students, parents, and school officials about cyberbullying. All of these topics should be considered in order to construct a comprehensive cyberbullying policy. The model cyberbullying policy for public schools set forth in Appendix B of this Article adopts language that attempts to combat cyberbullying while complying with constitutional requirements and meeting educational goals.

I. Current Problems

Cyberbullying is a major problem causing significant harm.[8] There is no dispute that students today use e-mail, messaging, texting, and social networking sites on almost an hourly basis to stay in touch with one another.[9] In one survey of thirteen- to seventeen-year-olds, thirty-five percent reported being the targets of Internet harassment including "rude or nasty comments, rumors, and threatening or aggressive messages."[10] As one teenage victim stated: "It makes me hurt both physically and mentally. It scares me and takes away all my confidence to make me feel sick and worthless."[11] Indeed, in March of 2011, the White House held a special conference that specifically focused on bullying prevention where the President concluded that cyberbullying is a serious problem facing the United States.[12] Cyberbullying is linked to "low self-esteem, family problems, academic problems, school violence, and delinquent behavior . . . [and] suicidal thoughts."[13] Studies have shown that, of adolescents who have contemplated suicide, "cyberbullying victims were almost twice as likely to have attempted suicide compared to youth who had not experienced cyberbullying."[14]

Recent cases: There have been far too many recent cyberbullying cases that have ended in such tragedy. One case involved Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, who leaped to his death after his roommate secretly taped and posted online a video of Clementi having a "sexual encounter" with another young man.[15] Perhaps even more troubling are those cases that involve young school-age children, both in middle school and high school. Such cases sadly illustrate how a child's vulnerabilities are escalated by the use of the wider forum of technology. There were the three middle school boys who invited fellow students to "kick a ginger" on a specific day which led to the attacks on at least seven red-haired middle school children.[16] There were middle school boys who created a video game on a website where "they virtually 'beat up' one of their classmates on a regular basis and invited others to join them in the beatings."[17] There were other middle school children who created a website where "middle school girls were pictured on a 'Hot or Not' list that was e-mailed around to be voted on."[18]

There was thirteen-year-old Megan Meier, who committed suicide after being cyberbullied by a classmate's parent who adopted a false identity on MySpace as a boy, wooed her, and then viciously turned against her and posted that "[t]he world would be a better place without [her]."[19] There was the fourteen-year-old boy who sent death threats on Facebook to two other classmates he believed were interested in his girlfriend.[20] There were the three Louisiana high school students who were arrested for cyberstalking after they created competing websites with the posting of insults and graphically violent poems.[21] There were two Florida girls, aged fifteen and sixteen, who were arrested for creating a fake Facebook page in another classmate's name and posting a picture of the girl's face on a "nude prepubescent girl's body" with other disturbing images and statements.[22]

There was also Phoebe Prince, who was relentlessly cyberbullied by the students at her high school for three months before she hung herself.[23] Classmates posted multiple threads on Facebook about how Phoebe was an "Irish slut" and a "poser."[24] Ultimately, six teenagers were criminally charged-including two boys charged with statutory rape of a minor-after the group of teenagers taunted, threatened, shoved, and sent demeaning text messages to Phoebe.[25] One of the most troubling aspects of Phoebe's case is that the school administrators were well aware of the cyberbullying[26] and, yet, the school did not take any action.[27] "How long can the school department ignore the increasing rate of bullying before reality sets in?" two students asked in a school newspaper article.[28]

Public schools without guidance: For school-age children, incidents of cyberbullying are often ignored.[29] Schools are ill-equipped to deal with cyberbullying.[30] Indeed, such failures open up school districts to lawsuits.[31] For example, a student's family sued a New York school district for failing to protect their homosexual son from cyberbullying.[32] There is no question that schools must be more proactive about stopping students from cyberbullying.[33] But the blame does not lie completely with the schools. Many schools want to help but do not know where the boundaries of discipline begin and where they end. "Schools are finding themselves at a loss, particularly because of vague laws,"[34] or because there are no laws or policies at all, to instruct them on how to address cyberbullying. When can a school legally punish a student for speech that occurs off-campus? To what extent can schools search students' personal computers and cell phones for evidence of cyberbullying without running afoul of the students' constitutional rights?

These are the questions haunting the school districts. School administrators know that there is a problem, but they do not know to what extent they are allowed to be a part of the solution. Across the nation, principals have responded to student-on-student cyberbullying in "dramatically different ways."[35] One principal of a middle school shared his frustration about student cyberbullying incidents: "All we are doing is reacting, . . . . We can't seem to get ahead of the curve."[36] Another middle school principal said that for schools it is a lose-lose situation: "I have parents who thank me for getting involved [with cyberbullying incidents] . . . and parents who say '[i]t didn't happen on school property, stay out of my life.'"[37]

Courts in conflict: Courts are conflicted in how to deal with cyberbullying and they fail to clearly specify whether (and when) a school has jurisdiction to regulate off-campus speech that bullies others.[38] The Supreme Court has yet to rule on this issue and lower courts are all over the board.[39] For example, one district court found that a school could not discipline a student who created a webpage entitled "Satan's web page," in which he listed names of students under the heading "people I wish would die."[40] Although the student admitted he may have used school computers, the court held that the school's disciplinary measures violated the student's First Amendment rights because there was "[no] proof of disruption to the school on-campus activity."[41] In contrast, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upheld as constitutional the expulsion of a student who created a website called "Teacher Sux," in which the student made derogatory comments about a teacher-including why the teacher should die.[42]

The Third Circuit's recent decisions are illustrative of the unclear law concerning cyberbullying. Very recently, in June 2011, the Third Circuit revisited en banc two of its recent opinions concerning cyberbullying. In one case, the court initially upheld as constitutional a school's disciplinary action of a student who created a fake, offensive MySpace page of a principal-but that decision was reversed by a deeply fractured en banc court.[43] The other en banc opinion held that a school's disciplinary action was unconstitutional for very similar behavior.[44] The law in the area of schools regulating cyberbullying is unmistakably in flux, which leaves schools without clear guidance as to how to address the problem.

A. Bullying versus Cyberbullying

It is apparent that neither the courts nor the schools are clear on how legally to deal with the rampant problem of cyberbullying. What makes the legal framework for cyberbullying so difficult? The answer, as set forth in this Subpart, is that cyberbullying differs from off-line bullying such that current laws and school policies are often inadequate to deal with this new forum for bullying.

Cyberbullying, for the purposes of this Article, is distinguishable from off-line bullying by the use of electronic technology to deliberately and repeatedly harass or intimidate fellow students. Off-line bullying, done face-to-face, has long been a problem in our school system.[45] While schools and state legislatures have historically taken some steps to curtail schoolyard bullying,[46] these steps are insufficient to address cyberbullying because the scope of cyberbullying is much more immense than off-line bullying. New technology has not only allowed for new outlets to bully-it has changed the face of bullying. Cyberbullying presents new problems that "old-fashioned" antibullying laws and policies cannot address for at least six reasons.

First, cyberbullying, unlike off-line bullying, is ubiquitous. Harassing statements and comments made on the Internet can be made on- and off-campus, day and night.[47] The victim's perception, and perhaps the reality, is that an entire school, neighborhood, and community can be involved in the bullying.[48] With a few keystrokes, the bullying statements can be "circulated far and wide in an instant."[49] Therefore, antibullying policies that only address on-campus bullying cannot sufficiently address cyberbullying, yet courts and school officials are confused as to how and to what extent schools can regulate off-campus speech.

Second, cyberbullying allows for much greater anonymity than off-line bullying.[50] Bullies can easily take on fake Internet identities or even take on the identities of other students so that "victims often do not know who the bully is, or why they are being targeted."[51] As one fifteen-year-old explained: "I get mean messages on Formspring,[[52]] with people telling me I'm fat and ugly and stupid. I don't know what I ever did to anyone. I wish it wasn't anonymous."[53] Because of anonymity, cyberbullies may not fit the profile of the typical bully.[54] For example, three Louisiana students were recently arrested for cyberbullying, despite the fact that they were all honor students.[55] Anonymity, therefore, not only creates problems for school officials who are investigating cyberbullying (school officials may be at a loss as to what would entail constitutional searches in their investigations) but also may impact which remedies for cyberbullying are most effective.

Third, cyberbullying gives bullies physical distance from their victims while at the same time allowing for a greater audience-which may encourage even more bullying.[56] The audience mentality allows for others to "join in on 'the fun'" who may not have done so in a physical confrontation.[57] Moreover, audience members can easily perpetuate the bullying by adding online comments or by simply forwarding messages and links to others. [58] Off-line bullying policies fail to address how cyberbullying quickly involves numerous parties.

Fourth, children are often more technologically adept than adults. Children use and explore new technologies every day,[59] while teachers and parents remain oblivious.[60] This allows for undetected and unregulated outlets for bullying.

Finally, cyberbullying, unlike off-line bullying, is permanent and "usually irrevocable,"[61] trailing its victims from childhood to adulthood. Not only does cyberbullying follow students from school to their homes, but harassing statements can be accessed and relived over and over again, even years later. As one commentator aptly put it: "The Web never stops and it never forgets."[62] Because of the possible life-long impact of cyberbullying, it is crucial that school officials are equipped with the legal and necessary tools to try to prevent it.

It is largely because of these differences between cyberbullying and off-line bullying that many current antibullying statutes and school policies are inadequate. As the next Subpart addresses, even states with antibullying statutes have gaps that do not cover all aspects of cyberbullying.

B. Current Statutes and Policies

Appendix A of this Article sets forth a chart analyzing the current state and federal antibullying laws as well as proposed bills. Overall, on the positive side, a large majority of state legislatures have enacted antibullying laws. However, some of these state laws fail to address cyberbullying, and even those laws that have tried to do so often give inadequate guidance to public school administrators on how to enforce the law without violating students' constitutional and legal rights.

Specifically, the District of Columbia and forty-five states have enacted general antibullying laws (mainly targeting off-line bullying).[63] Only Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota lack such statutes.[64] Hawaii[65] and Michigan,[66] along with the federal government,[67] have proposed antibullying laws, which are currently pending. While forty-three states require public schools to have a policy regarding bullying,[68] only a minority of those states have model school policies.[69]

The gaps in these laws become even more evident when looking at how cyberbullying is specifically addressed. Again, the good news is that some states attempt to address the cyberbullying problem in antibullying statutes. Six states expressly prohibit "cyberbullying,"[70] and twenty-eight states prohibit "electronic harassment,"[71] which likely encompasses most aspects of cyberbullying.

The problem is that, of those states with antibullying statutes, only ten states have model policies.[72] Those ten model policies fail to fully and adequately give school officials guidance on how to deal with the unique aspects of cyberbullying, further compounding the problem.[73] For example, neither "cyberbullying" nor "electronic harassment" is even mentioned in the California Department of Education's "Sample Policy for Bullying Prevention."[74] Likewise, the model antibullying policies for Oklahoma and Rhode Island[75] also fail to include any reference to cyberbullying. Indeed, Colorado's model policy readily identifies its own gaps: "the [school] district should consult with its own legal counsel to determine appropriate language."[76] Such model policies give little guidance to school administrators about how to deal with cyberbullying.

Even those state legislatures that have created model school policies referencing "cyberbullying" fall short. For example, the Delaware, Florida, Ohio, and South Carolina[77] model school policies define cyberbullying, but fail to give public school officials any guidance on how to apply the definition so as not to run afoul of free speech and other constitutional and legal protections.

Thus, while state legislatures, for the most part, are taking great strides by including cyberbullying in their antibullying legislation, there has been little to no guidance on how public school officials can legally implement policies to deal with cyberbullying. The remainder of this Article attempts to set forth a constitutional model cyberbullying policy that public schools can adopt and put into action.

II. A Constitutional Cyberbullying Policy for Primary and Secondary Public Schools: Considering First Amendment, Due Process, and Fourth Amendment Challenges

It is imperative to note at the outset that students' civil rights must be protected. Indeed, "[t]he vigilant protection of constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of American schools."[78] As one judge explained:

In order to maintain a thriving democracy, students cannot be unreasonably encumbered in their freedom to express moral, political, and social ideals and beliefs. The classroom is peculiarly the "marketplace of ideas." The Nation's future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas which discovers truth "out of a multitude of tongues, (rather) than through any kind of authoritative selection." . . . Schools should foster an environment of learning that is vital to the functioning of a democratic system and the maturation of a civic body.[79]

The exercise of students' civil rights in public school, however, has to be "applied in light of the special characteristics of the school environment."[80] The constitutional rights of public school students "are not automatically coextensive with the rights of adults in other settings."[81] Thus, in addressing the First Amendment, Due Process, and Fourth Amendment issues related to cyberbullying in public schools, there must be a balance between safeguarding students' constitutional rights and allowing public school officials to maintain a safe and thriving learning environment.[82] This Part of the Article attempts to set forth an analysis that strikes this balance.

A. First Amendment Issues: Defining "Cyberbullying"

It is well established that the First Amendment right to freedom of speech extends to students in public schools.[83] As the United States Supreme Court declared over forty years ago, public school students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."[84] However, the Supreme Court also recognized the need for schools to be able to exercise a certain amount of authority over the speech of their students to retain order and control of the educational environment.[85] One of the main concerns is that school cyberbullying policies will run afoul of the First Amendment and interfere with students' rights to free speech.[86] Therefore, to address whether or not a specific cyberbullying policy is constitutional, the extent to which student speech is protected by the First Amendment must be carefully examined. There is no Supreme Court case squarely on point.[87] The split in lower courts' decisions shows that the law is ambiguous.[88] Even the Supreme Court has expressed confusion over how precedents apply to the burgeoning issues involving student free speech, stating that "[t]here is some uncertainty at the outer boundaries as to when courts should apply school speech precedents."[89]

This Subpart sets forth a novel First Amendment constitutional framework to consider when analyzing public school cyberbullying polices. The two-prong framework involves both a jurisdictional and substantive inquiry:[90] (1) The school must first decide whether it has jurisdiction over the speech. The legal standard differs depending on whether the speech originated on- or off-campus (the harder cyberbullying cases usually involve speech originating off-campus);[91] if the school has proper jurisdiction, then (2) the school must determine whether, as a matter of substantive law, it can indeed regulate the speech. This second inquiry will fall into two subcategories: (i) whether the school is able to categorically regulate the speech; and if not, then (ii) under the " Tinker standard,"[92] whether the speech materially disrupts class work or substantially impinges on the rights of others.[93]

1. Jurisdictional Matters

Speech Originating On-Campus: There is Supreme Court precedent dictating that schools have jurisdiction to regulate speech that originates on school campuses,[94] or at school-sanctioned activities that are equivalent to being on the school campus.[95] Therefore, in the cyberbullying context, it appears to be within the school's jurisdiction to regulate speech that originates on-campus whether the student uses the school's resources or the student uses his or her own personal technology while on-campus.

Speech Originating Off-Campus: The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether schools have jurisdiction over student speech that originates off-campus or is not related to a school-sponsored activity. There are, however, a number of cases that deal with this issue, some of which involve the Internet.[96] Unfortunately, the holdings in these cases are inconsistent.[97]

The cases can be grouped into three general categories. First, in a few cases, the courts skip the jurisdictional question all together.[98] However, the Third Circuit reversed a district court decision in which the jurisdictional question was not addressed.[99] Thus, it would behoove one, especially given that most cyberbullying originates off-campus, to thoroughly address the jurisdictional issue before attempting to regulate any off-campus speech.[100]

Second, some courts require that it must be "foreseeable" that the speech would reach the campus for the school to regulate it. If it was "foreseeable" that the speech would reach campus, then it can be regarded as "on-campus" speech and the school would have jurisdiction over it.[101]

Third, some courts have ruled that there must be a "sufficient nexus" between the speech and the school before a school has the jurisdiction to punish the student speech.[102] However, courts are split as to what constitutes this "sufficient nexus." Some courts have broadly applied the rule finding the connection is established if the speech is directed at a school-specific audience;[103] or if the speech has been brought on to the campus, even if it was not the student in question who did so.[104] Other courts, however, have narrowly applied the rule and found no substantial nexus between the speech and the school because the student speech, "did not attempt to engage other students in any on-campus behavior."[105]

Given that cyberbullying easily spreads (Internet links and text messages can easily be forwarded to numerous people with the click of a button), courts should adopt the broad application of the "sufficient nexus" test. For purposes of a cyberbullying policy, schools should consider using both the "foreseeability" and the "sufficient nexus" language.[106] Such a jurisdictional requirement will also likely protect a cyberbullying policy from a challenge that the policy is constitutionally overbroad.[107] These legal standards are incorporated in the Model Cyberbullying Policy in Appendix B of this Article.

2. Substantive Matters

Once the school's jurisdiction has been established, the next inquiry is whether the school can regulate the speech without violating the First Amendment. Based on precedent, schools can do so in two instances: (i) if the speech is categorically prohibited, or (ii) if the Tinker standard is met. Each of these rules will be taken in turn.

Categorically prohibited speech: Schools can wholly regulate two categories of speech, and a cyberbullying policy should address both.[108] First, under Hazelwood, schools can regulate speech that "bear[s] the imprimatur of the school."[109] Thus, for example, if a cyberbully uses the school's emblem on an Internet message intended to harass another student, the school can discipline the cyberbully regardless of whether the speech originated on- or off-campus.

Second, it is widely accepted that, even under the broadest reading of the First Amendment, "true threats" are not protected.[110] Though the threshold for determining whether a statement is a "true threat" is fairly high, courts have held that, "[i]n light of the violence prevalent in schools today, school officials are justified in taking very seriously student threats against faculty or other students."[111] Any school cyberbullying policy that requires punishment for a student who makes a "true threat" against a teacher or another student will be constitutional.

Courts, however, often do not decide whether particular speech reaches the level of a true threat because they often do not have to. If a court finds that the speech can be regulated by the Tinker standard (requiring a lower threshold), then the school's actions will be constitutionally justified regardless of whether the speech constituted a true threat.[112] This leads to the second type of speech that schools can regulate¾student speech which satisfies the Tinker standard. This second type of speech is addressed in the next Subpart of this Article.[113]

Student Speech that can be regulated under the Tinker Standard: In the 1969 seminal case Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for a high school to suspend students for wearing black armbands in silent protest of the Vietnam War.[114] The Court recognized that a school had authority to control student speech but that "it must be able to show that its action was caused by something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint."[115] The Court set out a two-part standard for when schools could constitutionally regulate student speech: "[C]onduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason-whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior-materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech."[116] Therefore, under the Tinker standard, schools can regulate student speech that either (i) materially disrupts the operation of the school, or (ii) substantially impinges upon the rights of others.[117]

Schools, therefore, should incorporate the language of the Tinker two-part standard into their cyberbullying policy.[118] There is, however, some ambiguity in its application. Courts have unevenly applied the first Tinker standard (that schools can regulate student speech that causes "material disruption").[119] Courts tend to consider speech as having materially disrupted school activities if administrators are forced to interrupt their regular duties to deal with the disruption.[120] The disruption must be a real disturbance and something more than a "buzz" about the speech.[121] However, when the speech is violent, threatening, or sexually explicit, courts have often found that there was a material disruption.[122] Moreover, courts have also found that schools may discipline students for speech where "a forecast of substantial and material disruption was reasonable."[123]

Notably, Tinker is different than most cyberbullying cases because Tinker involved political speech. Arguably, then, the threshold for establishing a "material disruption" may be lower for purely hurtful speech.[124] As one scholar noted, "cyberbullying incidents that occur at school-or that originate off-campus but ultimately result in a substantial disruption of the learning environment-are well within the school's legal authority to intervene."[125]

Though Tinker clearly set out a two-prong standard under which a school may regulate student speech, the trend has been for courts to focus on the first prong (regulating speech that causes a material disruption). Courts have, for the most part, ignored the possibility of the second prong (regulating speech that substantially impinges on the rights of others).[126] Although many courts have not yet embraced this second prong of Tinker, the prong may cover many instances of cyberbullying. For example, if a cyberbully harasses a victim to the point at which the victim misses school or suffers emotional distress, then a school could arguably discipline the cyberbully on the grounds that the student substantially impinged on the rights of another student.

In sum, by combining precedent (although ambiguous at times) a school should be able to draft a cyberbullying policy that would survive First Amendment free speech challenges. First, the policy should establish that the school will regulate any student speech within its jurisdiction, which includes (i) all speech originating on-campus and (ii) speech originating off-campus if it was "foreseeable" that the speech would reach campus or if there is a "sufficient nexus" between the off-campus speech and the school. Once jurisdiction is established, then the cyberbullying policy should set forth that the school can (i) wholly regulate speech that "bear[s] the imprimatur of the school" or contains "true threats," or (ii) regulate speech that "materially disrupts" school operations or "substantially impinge[s] on the rights" of others at the school.[127]

B. Due Process Issues: Creating a Nonvague Policy with Proper Notice Requirements

In addition to First Amendment challenges, school policies may also be challenged as unconstitutionally vague.[128] A regulation is unconstitutionally vague, and thus a violation of due process, if it does not give "fair notice of the regulation's reach" and requires students "to guess as to the contours of its proscriptions."[129] Thus, there are two possible vagueness challenges to school cyberbullying policies: the policy is (1) vague as to the definition of what constitutes cyberbullying, or (2) fails to give proper notice of the regulation. Each of these issues will be taken in turn.

1. Nonvague Explanation of "Cyberbullying"

Specificity of terms is especially important when a regulation, such as a public school cyberbullying policy, is a "content-based regulation of speech."[130] Although a school has "a certain degree of flexibility in its disciplinary procedures," its regulations may still be found to be unconstitutionally vague or overbroad.[131] The most common reason for a court to sustain a vague or overbroad challenge of a school policy is when specific terms within the policy are not defined.[132] Therefore, a cyberbullying policy should set forth a clear definition of "cyberbullying."

As discussed more fully in Part II.A above, this definition should include language as set forth in Hazelwood, Watts, and Tinker.[133] For example, a cyberbullying policy can prohibit the use of electronic devices to make an electronic communication that is meant to: (1) be a "true threat" against a student or school administrator;[134] (2) "materially disrupt" school operations;[135] or (3) substantially "impinge on the rights" of others at the school.[136] This third prohibition of "impinging on others" could include: creating "reasonable fear of harm to the student's person or property;"[137] creating "a substantially detrimental effect on the student's physical or mental health;"[138] "substantially interfering with a student's academic performance . . . [or] interfering with the student's ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided by a school;"[139] or being "so severe, persistent, or pervasive" so as to cause "substantial emotional distress."[140]

The United States Supreme Court has found that for antidiscrimination statutes, "[e]numeration is the essential device used to make the duty not to discriminate concrete and to provide guidance for those who must comply."[141] Thus, another way to make the term "cyberbullying" less vague is to set forth a prohibition of cyberbullying based on enumerated characteristics, such as those describing traditionally protected groups or identity-based groups.[142] For example, in its definition of cyberbullying, the policy should prohibit cyberbullying on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity to remove any doubt that cyberbullying is prohibited regarding any of these characteristics.[143] As one study showed, schools that have policies with enumerated categories report less bullying than schools that do not.[144] Policies should be drafted so that inclusion of enumerated categories does not affect protection for students who do not fall into any of them.[145]

2. Providing Proper Notice

To make certain that students' due process rights are not violated, cyberbullying policies must give students and parents notice of the details of the policy. There are three considerations to ensure proper notice is given. First, the cyberbullying policy must clearly set forth what conduct is forbidden. For example, one student raised a successful due process challenge to discipline stemming from a violation of the school's cyberbullying policy because the policy failed to "put students on notice that off-campus speech or conduct which cause[d] a disruption to school activities may subject them to discipline."[146] The court explained such notice was necessary so that students could "modify their conduct in conformity with the school rules."[147] Therefore, a cyberbullying policy should clearly set forth the what, who, and when. In other words, the policy should not only define what constitutes "cyberbullying" and against whom it is prohibited (such as enumerated groups of individuals), but it must also explain when the school can exercise jurisdictional authority over the conduct.[148]

Second, the school must ensure that students and parents receive actual notice of the cyberbullying policy. Students' due process rights are implicated if they do not have adequate and actual notice of a school's policy regarding punishment for certain acts. To meet the actual notice requirement, one scholar suggests that schools should be required to create cyberbullying policies that require parents to receive copies of the school's cyberbullying policy, along with information on how to prevent cyberbullying and what to do if their child is being cyberbullied.[149] Florida's model bullying policy does just that; it suggests that the student handbook include the bullying policy, that school officials should inform all students and parents in writing of the bullying policy at the beginning of each school year, and that there should be an annual process for discussing the policy with students in a student assembly.[150] Another way schools can fulfill the actual notice requirement is to implement an "acceptable use policy" for the use of the school's technology resources, which establishes that school technology cannot be used to cyberbully another student. The "acceptable use policy" should be in the form of a contract, which parents and students must sign before students are able to use the school's technology resources.[151]

Third, as some state statutes already require, a valid cyberbullying policy should also include a procedure for immediately notifying parents if the school discovers that their child is involved in a cyberbullying incident. Eleven state statutes require schools to notify the parents of both the victim and the cyberbully.[152] The West Virginia statute requires schools to notify parents of any student involved in a cyberbullying incident.[153] Some scholars suggest that schools should notify the alleged cyberbully's parents prior to any investigation.[154] After the investigation, the cyberbully and his parents should be notified of the potential consequences to which they may be subjected.[155]

C. The Fourth Amendment Issues: Allowing for Reasonable Searches and Seizures

The Fourth Amendment raises additional concerns in cyberbullying cases. Once an incident of alleged cyberbullying is reported to school officials, how can the school investigate the allegations without violating the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures?[156] To put the issue in context, consider the illustrative hypothetical set forth in the Introduction of this Article: Joe and Jane are middle school students. Jane's parents discover that Joe has posted on the Internet an animated game depicting himself and other students punching Jane. Joe has forwarded a link to the game to many of his school friends, who have in turn forwarded it to other students. During school hours, while on-campus, numerous students, including Joe, have logged onto the website and participated in the game. Jane's parents report the website to school officials.

Can school officials search Joe's cell phone and personal laptop computer to see if he did indeed create the website? Can school officials search other students' personal electronic devices to see if they accessed the website? If the school decides to search Joe's cell phone, can school officials also search the cell phone for other instances of cyberbullying or violations of school rules? All of these questions pose novel issues under the Fourth Amendment. There are no Supreme Court cases on point. Moreover, those states that have drafted model bullying policies also fail to address these issues.[157] Schools, therefore, are once again left without any guidance. The discussion below aims to answer these questions.

1. The T.L.O. Legal Standard

The controlling authority on the Fourth Amendment application to schools is the 1985 Supreme Court case New Jersey v. T.L.O.[158] This case involved a teacher who found high school students smoking in the bathroom in violation of school rules.[159] School officials searched one student's purse for cigarettes.[160] After finding cigarettes, the school official continued to search the purse and subsequently found drug paraphernalia.[161] The student sought to suppress the evidence found in the purse as a violation of the Fourth Amendment.[162] The Supreme Court first determined that, under the Fourth Amendment, students have a legitimate expectation of privacy in the private property they bring to school.[163] The students' interest, however, must be balanced against the interest of school officials "in maintaining discipline in the classroom and on school grounds."[164]

The Court established a two-step inquiry for determining when it is reasonable for a public school official to search students' personal property.[165] First, the search must be justified at inception, meaning there must be "reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school."[166] Second, the scope of the search must be "reasonably related to the objective of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction."[167] Based on this two-prong test, the Court in T.L.O. held the search of the student's purse did not violate the Fourth Amendment because it was based on an individualized suspicion that she had violated the school rules (first that she was smoking and second that she was using illegal drugs) and was not overly intrusive.[168] Notably, under T.L.O., once a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing exists, a search of a student's personal belongings does not require the student's consent or the consent of his parents.[169]

Although courts have not specifically dealt with the Fourth Amendment's role in cyberbullying, two cases have applied the T.L.O. test to the possession and use of cell phones in violation of school rules. In Klump v. Nazareth Area School District, the school had a policy prohibiting use or display of cell phones during school hours.[170] The student, Klump, violated the rule when his cell phone fell out of his pocket during class.[171] After his teacher confiscated his phone, the teacher, along with the principal, then used the phone to call nine other students listed in Klump's phone directory to determine if they were violating school policy.[172] They also accessed Klump's text messages and e-mail, and had an instant messaging conversation with Klump's younger brother without identifying themselves.[173] The school officials asserted that they found a drug-related text message while searching the phone.[174] The court held the search was unreasonable.[175] While the teacher was justified in seizing the cell phone because it violated the school policy, the search of the phone failed the first part of the T.L.O. test because it was not justified at inception.[176] The teacher and principal had no reason to suspect that Klump was violating any other school policy other than the possession of the cell phone, thus, seizure alone would have been acceptable. Notably, there were no facts suggesting that Klump had used his cell phone while on-campus.[177] Instead the school authorities were impermissibly searching the phone "as a tool to catch other students' violations."[178]

In the second cell phone case on point, J.W. v. Desoto County School District, the school district also had a policy prohibiting students from possessing or using cell phones at school.[179] Student R.W. was caught violating this policy when he opened his cell phone to retrieve a text message during class.[180] The teacher took R.W.'s phone, opened it, and viewed personal photos stored on it.[181] R.W. was ordered into the principal's office where the principal and police sergeant also opened the phone and examined the photographs.[182] One photo showed another student holding a B.B. gun.[183] Based on that photo, R.W. was expelled for having gang pictures.[184] The court applied the T.L.O. test and upheld both the seizure and search of the phone.[185] The court explained that upon witnessing a student violating the rule, it was reasonable for a school official to seek to determine to what end the student was improperly using the phone.[186] The court noted the student could have been using his cell phone at school to cheat or communicate with another student who would also be subject to discipline.[187]

The court in Desoto distinguished Klump by explaining that in Klump the student unintentionally violated the school policy (the phone fell out of his pocket) and the school officials used that accident as a pretext for a "fishing expedition."[188] In contrast, here R.W. knowingly violated the rules by bringing the phone on school grounds and then using it.[189] Moreover, as opposed to the "fishing expedition" that occurred in Klump (misleadingly calling other students and responding to text messages and emails using a student's electronic identity),[190] in R.W.'s case the search by the school officials was limited to a search of the phone.[191]

Incorporating the T.L.O. Standard into a Cyberbullying Policy: the search must (1) have "reasonable grounds;" and (2) be limited in "scope." Cyberbullying policies should incorporate the two-prong test articulated in T.L.O.[192] First, the policy should indicate that school officials[193] can search a student's personal electronic device for evidence of cyberbullying only when there are "reasonable grounds" that the search will lead to evidence of cyberbullying by that person (presumably a violation of a school rule). The policy should also make clear that, unlike in Klump, school officials should not be allowed to misleadingly use the search as a ploy to try to catch other students violating the rules.

As Klump and Desoto illustrate, what constitutes "reasonable grounds" will be a fact-specific inquiry.[194] For example, applying the first prong of the T.L.O. standard to the illustrative hypothetical set forth at the beginning of this Part of the Article, if Joe, or any other student, was impermissibly using (not just possessing)[195] his electronic device at school, then there would be reasonable grounds to search it to determine to what ends the student was improperly using the electronic device. The analysis, however, is slightly more complex if the only fact before school officials is a call from Jane's parents reporting alleged cyberbullying (or an allegation of cyberbullying only from Jane). Then school officials would have to consider factors such as the perceived credibility of the person making the report[196] and whether the electronic record (e.g., a history of postings or visits to a website, emails, or bullying text messages on a cell phone) is likely to still be accessible.

A school's cyberbullying policy should also include language incorporating the second prong of the T.L.O. standard, namely a search of a student's electronic device should be limited in scope.[197] If there is suspicion of only a cyberbullying text message, or accessing a website as in the hypothetical set forth above involving Joe, then photographs stored on the electronic device should be left alone. As the Court stated in T.L.O, teachers and school administrators should use their "common sense" in determining the appropriate scope of the search.[198] Generally, call logs and text logs will be within the scope of the search to determine who else may have received or sent the bullying message, or may have accessed or posted on the bullying website.[199] However, as addressed in Klump, school officials should not misleadingly or anonymously contact students on these logs to dupe them into admitting further violation of school rules.[200]

2. Special Legal Concerns for Sexting

Sexting is the sending or receiving of sexually explicit messages, images, or videos between cell phones, or posting them on the Internet (such as on Facebook or MySpace).[201] Unfortunately, sexting is becoming all too popular among high school and middle school students.[202] These messages are often sent because of romantic interests but can quickly turn into an unforgiving and relentless form of cyberbullying.[203] Because many child pornography laws prohibit the distribution of child pornography without exception, minors who sext each other can be, and indeed have been, criminally prosecuted.[204] The possibility of criminal legal liability can also confront school officials. There are currently no statutory exceptions allowing for school officials to possess or distribute nude images of minors;[205] therefore, school officials who are investigating allegations of cyberbullying that involve sexting could be subject to state and federal criminal felony charges.[206] One Pennsylvania school board is currently under criminal investigation for improper conduct and disseminating child pornography when it was alleged that phones displaying pornographic images and video clips involving minor students were passed around and viewed by more school employees than necessary to investigate the incident.[207]

Moreover, courts have yet to address the possible civil liability of school officials who uncover and examine nude photos of students. The American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU") recently pursued a private suit against a Pennsylvania district attorney (after privately settling with the school district) when explicit photos on a female student's cell phone were discovered by the principal and turned over to the district attorney.[208] In this case, a teacher confiscated a female student's cell phone when the student used it during class.[209] The teacher turned the phone over to the principal who informed the student that he had found sexually explicit photos and turned them over to law enforcement.[210] The cell phone contained photos of the female student in various states of nudity intended to be seen only by the student's boyfriend and herself.[211] The ACLU alleges the student's phone was illegally searched.[212] Courts have historically been stricter in enforcing the Fourth Amendment when student nudity is involved.[213]

Thus, for a school district and its officials to avoid criminal or civil legal liability, if a cyberbullying investigation leads to the uncovering of images of nude minors, those images should never be distributed or shown to other school officials.[214] The school official should promptly contact law enforcement and turn the material over to authorities without distributing it. While school officials can discuss the nature of the material with each other for investigative and disciplinary purposes, cyberbullying policies should strictly prohibit the dissemination or showing of any nude images of children to anyone other than law enforcement.[215]
III. A Comprehensive Cyberbullying Policy: Including Legally Valid "Policy Considerations"
While cyberbullying is a new and dangerous type of bullying that raises many novel and complex constitutional issues, the sole purpose of a cyberbullying policy-to halt cyberbullying-should not be forgotten. There are at least three other guidelines that schools should consider in order to create a comprehensive cyberbullying policy: (1) how to set forth procedures that properly respond to and report cyberbullying incidents; (2) how to adopt legally valid and proportionate remedies once a cyberbullying incident has occurred; and (3) how to educate students, parents, and school officials about the vices of cyberbullying.[216] This Part of the Article will address these additional issues by incorporating the best elements of already existing statutory requirements along with some refinements to ensure that the model cyberbullying policy in Appendix B of this Article is not only constitutional, but also comprehensive.[217]

A. Procedures for Responding to and Reporting Cyberbullying Incidents

As discussed in a previous Subpart of this Article, a school must provide notice of its cyberbullying policy to students and parents in order to survive constitutional challenges.[218] This notice should also include information on how to identify, respond to, and report cyberbullying incidents.[219] Because of the often sensitive nature of cyberbullying (particularly if it involves sexting), the reporting provision should specifically identify the school official[220] who will be a "safe contact" person for students who wish to report incidents of cyberbullying.[221]

In addition, because some students have "indicated that when they reported cyberbullying incidents to teachers, these conversations were not confidential and in some instances resulted in additional retaliatory harassment,"[222] the reporting provision should allow for anonymous and confidential reporting.[223] This could be implemented in a number of ways, such as an anonymous online form on the school's website or an anonymous drop box inside the school. However, because the reliability and credibility of an anonymous report cannot be ascertained, school officials should neither take disciplinary action[224] nor search a student's personal electronic devices solely based on an anonymous tip.[225] Nevertheless, based on an anonymous tip, school officials could research the Internet on their own (to see if certain websites exist) or interview students and parents.

Finally, the reporting provision of a cyberbullying policy should put students and parents on notice that school officials may report cyberbullying incidents to law enforcement depending on the criminal nature, gravity, or repetition of the offense.[226] Fines and imprisonment for criminal behavior are possibilities.[227]

B. Proportionate Remedies for Cyberbullying Incidents

Schools have many options in how to respond to cyberbullying. Such options include suspending, expelling, or counseling the student as well as contacting the appropriate authorities.[228] While certain state statutes mandate specific remedies,[229] a majority of states leave it to schools to create remedies and punishments for cyberbullying.[230] Courts generally defer to the school's judgment of what level of punishment is appropriate.[231] The court may weigh public policy interests in determining whether the punishment is too harsh, but unless the facts fall heavily on the side of harm to the student, courts will accept the form of punishment that a school chooses.[232] As one court stated, "we are mindful that '[i]t is not the role of the federal courts to set aside decisions of school administrators which the court may view as lacking a basis in wisdom or compassion.'"[233] Because of the vastly different ways schools can respond to cyberbullying, some have called for uniform policies.[234]

Schools may, for example, adopt a tiered approach to consequential remedies, which would allow schools to take into consideration the nature of the offense and the age of the student. For a first time or minor offense, schools can mandate the cyberbully attend mandatory counseling and education sessions. For a second or more serious offense, schools can prohibit students from participating in school activities such as sports or student government. Prohibiting a student from participation in a school-sponsored activity is often ideal because, while it might be a stern punishment, it will not have the serious detrimental effect on the student's academic record that school suspension would have. Additionally, to avoid tragic school shootings like what occurred at Columbine High School,[235] it is particularly important for schools to discipline cyberbullies who are involved in student activities and purportedly serve as role models to other students. For a serious incident of cyberbullying that includes violent speech, school suspension or expulsion may be warranted.[236] In such cases, there may also be civil and criminal liability outside the school's jurisdiction.[237]

In addition to consequential remedies, cyberbullying policies should also include preventive remedies. A false accusation of cyberbullying might trigger retaliation, which would then lead to actual cyberbullying. Thus, when considering preventive remedies, schools should also prohibit retaliation or false accusations against a target or witness of cyberbullying.[238] In addition to delineating prohibited conduct, the cyberbullying policy should also indicate the types of behavior the school wishes to promote.[239] For instance, the policy should reflect that schools expect students to be "good citizens-not passive bystanders-[and to report incidents] if they are aware of bullying or students who appear troubled."[240] Finally, after an incident of cyberbullying, schools should provide post-care counseling to both the cyberbully and victim[241] and, when necessary, "file a complaint with the Internet site or service to have the material removed."[242]

C. Educating Students, Parents, and School Officials

Because cyberbullying is a new phenomenon, it takes time, unfortunately, for the law to catch up to the problem. Thus, it is imperative that a comprehensive cyberbullying policy provide for educational opportunities whenever possible. As the Florida Department of Education has explained, education about bullying is an important tool that can help "change the social climate of the school and the social norms with regards to bullying."[243]

Florida law mandates that schools develop "a procedure for providing instruction to students, parents, teachers, school administrators, counseling staff, and school volunteers on identifying, preventing, and responding to bullying or harassment."[244] The law, however, provides little guidance as to what those programs should include.[245] Student training and education should start at a young age, since instances of cyberbullying have been reported by students as young as ten.[246] An educational program for students should train students on: (1) the meaning of cyberbullying and the need to refrain from engaging in it-even if meant as a joke-since there are possible repercussions within the school or even within the justice system;[247] (2) how to be an ally to peers who are being bullied;[248] and (3) how to protect themselves from being cyberbullied.[249] Schools should consider allowing students to play an active role in developing the school's cyberbullying educational programs.[250]

In addition to providing educational opportunities for students, schools should also train parents and school officials. Maryland law, for example, mandates such training.[251] Part of the training program for school officials should include training specific faculty members to be "safe contacts" to whom students may report incidents of cyberbullying.[252] Parents may be in the best position to prevent their children from "abusing available technology, or putting themselves at risk of being cyberbullied."[253] Parents should be educated in how to identify and prevent incidents of cyberbullying.[254] Schools can educate and train parents by various methods including meetings and assemblies at the school, newsletters from the school or district, half-time programs at school sports events, and parent workshops.[255] Parents should also be educated on the consequences of cyberbullying to send a clear message that schools will not tolerate cyberbullying.[256]

Conclusion

Cyberbullying presents a danger to schoolchildren. Because cyberbullying involves the Internet and the use of cell phones, it is more pervasive, relentless, and cruel than off-line bullying. There is simply no escape for victims of cyberbullying. Indeed, cyberbullying follows a victim from their school to their home, and possibly to their adult life. Legislatures and public schools are taking measures to combat cyberbullying. However, with this new medium for bullying comes many new and challenging legal issues.

These new issues can be resolved. A cyberbullying policy that carefully adopts language to deal with a public school's jurisdiction over off-campus speech that either materially disrupts school activities or impinges on another student's rights should address First Amendment concerns. A cyberbullying policy that sets forth clear definitions of terms and gives proper notice to students and parents should ensure that due process is met. And finally, a cyberbullying policy that establishes a reasonable process by which school officials can conduct searches of students' personal electronic devices when investigating cyberbullying claims should address Fourth Amendment issues. The model cyberbullying policy set forth in Appendix B attempts to do just that-to provide a step in the right direction so that public schools can ensure a safe environment without trampling students' constitutional and legal rights.
Appendix A
Chart of Current State and Federal
Antibullying Statutes

State Antibullying Statute

Statute requires schools to enact bullying policy?

Statute specifically includes the terms "cyberbullying" or "electronic harassment"?

Model Antibullying School Policy provided?

Statute requires notice be given to parents?

Appendix B
Model Cyberbullying Policy For Public Schools[370]

It is the policy of this school that all students and school employees enjoy a safe and secure educational setting. The school prohibits cyberbullying, as defined herein. Nothing in this policy is intended to infringe on the constitutional rights of students or school employees.

1. Definitions

(a) The term "cyberbullying"[371]

(i) means the use of any electronic communication, by individuals or groups, to

(1) make a true threat against a student or school employee;[372]

(2) materially disrupt school operations;[373] or

(3) substantially impinge on the rights of another student such as, but not limited to: creating reasonable fear of harm to the student's person or property; creating a substantially detrimental effect on the student's physical or mental health; substantially interfering with a student's academic performance or interfering with the student's ability to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided by the school; or being so severe, persistent, or pervasive as to cause severe emotional distress.[374]

(ii) includes conduct that is based on, but not limited to, a student's actual or perceived[375] race, color, national origin, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity, distinguishing physical or personal characteristic, socioeconomic status, or association with any person identified in section 1(a)(ii).

(b) As used in this policy, the term "electronic communications" means communications through any electronic device, including, but not limited to, computers, telephones, mobile phones, pagers, and any type of communication, including, but not limited to, emails, instant messages, text messages, picture messages, and websites.[376]

2. School Jurisdiction[377]

(a) No student shall be subjected to cyberbullying by an electronic communication that bears the imprimatur of the school regardless of whether such electronic communication originated on or off the school's campus.

(b) The school shall have jurisdiction to prohibit cyberbullying that originates on the school's campus if the electronic communication was made using the school's technological resources or the electronic communication was made on the school's campus using the student's own personal technological resources.

(c) The school shall have jurisdiction to prohibit cyberbullying that originates off the school's campus if: [378]

(i) it was reasonably foreseeable that the electronic communication would reach the school's campus; or

(ii) there is a sufficient nexus between the electronic communication and the school which includes, but is not limited to, speech that is directed at a school-specific audience, or the speech was brought onto or accessed on the school campus, even if it was not the student in question who did so.
3. Notice[379]
(a) Parents shall receive written notice of this cyberbullying policy at the beginning of each school year.

(b) There shall be an annual process for discussing this policy with students in a student assembly.

(c) For access to the school's technological resources, including but not limited to email and Internet access, students and parents shall review, sign, and return the school's acceptable use policy which prohibits the use of the school's technological resources for cyberbullying.[380]

(d) This policy, along with the school's acceptable use policy as described in section 3(c), shall be prominently posted at school on student bulletin boards and in computer labs, and on the school's website.

4. Investigations

(a) Parents shall be notified as soon as practicable if their child is involved in a school investigation concerning cyberbullying.[381]

(b) School officials may search and seize a student's personal electronic device, including but not limited to cell phones and computers, if:[382]

(i) the student is using the electronic device at school in violation of school rules; or

(ii) the school official

(1) has reasonable grounds for suspecting the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the school rules; and

(2) the search is limited in scope by being reasonably related to the objective of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.

(c) Reasonable grounds, as set forth in section 4(b)(ii)(1), will not be established solely on anonymous reports.[383]

(d) If the cyberbullying victim or student reporting the cyberbullying is willing, the school shall initiate an interview to determine the nature of the bullying, the name of the participants, where and how the information was being sent, and how far the images or messages have spread.[384]

(e) Any evidence of cyberbullying discovered during an investigation should be preserved. Such actions may include, but are not limited to, saving the victim's cell phone, text, or email messages; and printing or copying posts or other electronic communications available on websites before removing them.[385]

(f) If, during the course of a cyberbullying investigation, images of nude minors are discovered, those images should not be distributed or shown to other school officials. The school official who discovered the image should promptly contact law enforcement.[386]

5. Reporting[387]

(a) Specific faculty members [insert names here] will be the main contacts for students who wish to report incidents of cyberbullying. Students, parents, and other school officials may also contact the principal to report incidents of cyberbullying.

(b) Anonymous and confidential reports of cyberbullying incidents are allowed, but they will not provide the sole basis for a search of a student's personal electronic device or for disciplinary action.

(c) School officials may report incidents of cyberbullying to law enforcement depending on the criminal nature of the offense, or the gravity and repetition of the offense.

6. Remedies[388]

(a) An individual student whose behavior is found to be in violation of this policy will be subject to discipline. In determining the disciplinary action, the school will take into consideration the nature of the offense, the age of the student, and the following:

(i) For a first-time or minor cyberbullying offense, the school may mandate that the student attend mandatory counseling and education sessions.

(ii) For a second or more serious cyberbullying offense, the school may prohibit the student from participating in school activities or events.

(iii) For a serious incident of cyberbullying, the school may suspend or expel the student.

(b) No student shall retaliate or make false accusations against a target or witness of cyberbullying.

(c) Whenever practicable, the school shall provide counseling to all students involved in a cyberbullying incident.

(d) Whenever practicable, the school shall file a complaint with Internet sites or services containing cyberbullying material to have the material removed.

7. Education[389]

(a) The school shall provide an annual educational program for students, parents, and school officials. This education program shall train individuals:

(i) on the meaning of and prohibition against cyberbullying, including the provisions of this policy;

(ii) how students can report cyberbullying incidents;

(iii) how students can be an ally to peers who are being cyberbullied; and

(iv) how students can protect themselves from being cyberbullied.

(b) The school shall encourage students to play an active role in developing the school's cyberbullying educational programs.

* Associate Professor of Law, Pepperdine University School of Law. I am deeply thankful to Professor Bernie James for his mentoring. I would also like to thank Lindsey Forrester Archer, Holly Townson, and Whitney McEachran for their thorough research and a special thanks to Elizaveta Kabanova for her research and last-minute editing suggestions.

[1]. Cindy Long, Silencing Cyberbullies, NEAToday (May 2008), http://www.nea.org/home/4104.htm. The article notes that in one cyberbullying incident "a 'popular girl' placed her digital camera under a bathroom partition to capture an 'unpopular' girl in a compromising position." Id.

[2]. See, e.g., Sameer Hinduja & Justin W. Patchin, Cyberbullying: Identification, Prevention, and Response, Cyberbullying Research Center, http://www.cyberbullying.us/Cyberbullying_Identification_Prevention_Response_Fact_Sheet.pdf (last visited Sept. 16, 2011).

[3]. Mary Ellen Flannery, Top Eight Challenges Teachers Face This School Year, NEAToday (Sept. 13, 2010), http://neatoday.org/2010/09/13/top-eight
-challenges-teachers-face-this-school-year/ ("[N]early one in three teens say they've been victimized via the Internet or cell phones. A teacher's role-or a school's role-is still fuzzy in many places. What legal rights or responsibilities do they have to silence bullies, especially when they operate from home?").

[4]. See, e.g., Thomas v. Bd. of Educ., 607 F.2d 1043, 1052 (2d Cir. 1979). The court explained:

When school officials are authorized only to punish speech on school property, the student is free to speak his mind when the school day ends. In this manner, the community is not deprived of the salutary effects of expression, and educational authorities are free to establish an academic environment in which the teaching and learning process can proceed free of disruption. Indeed, our willingness to grant school officials substantial autonomy within their academic domain rests in part on the confinement of that power within the metes and bounds of the school itself.

[6]. See J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain Sch. Dist., 593 F.3d 286 (3d Cir. 2010), vacated, reh'g granted en banc, No. 08-4138, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 7342, at *1 (3d Cir. Apr. 9, 2010), rev'd en banc, No. 08-4138, 2011 WL 2305973, at *1 (3d Cir. June 13, 2011). In this case, the court was deciding whether a school could discipline a student for creating, on a home computer, a vulgar and fake MySpace page of the school's principal. Snyder, 2011 WL 2305973, at *1. Finding that the school could not discipline the student, the en banc court was fractured-seven judges joined the majority, five judges concurred and six judges dissented. Id. at *8, *18, *22.

[8]. A proposed bill that would make cyberbullying a federal crime sets forth the following findings of fact:

Congress finds the following: . . .

(4) Online victimizations are associated with emotional distress and other psychological problems, including depression.

(5) Cyberbullying can cause psychological harm, including depression; negatively impact academic performance, safety, and the well-being of children in school; force children to change schools; and in some cases lead to extreme violent behavior, including murder and suicide.

(6) Sixty percent of mental health professionals who responded to the Survey of Internet Mental Health Issues report having treated at least one patient with a problematic Internet experience in the previous five years; 54 percent of these clients were 18 years of age or younger.

Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2010).

[9]. "Most teens text daily." Amanda Lenhart, Teens, Cell Phones and Texting: Text Messaging Becomes Centerpiece Communication, Pew Internet & Am. Life Project, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1572/teens-cell-phones-text
-messages (last visited Sept. 19, 2011) (noting that teenagers' use of cell phones and texting has increased from 45% to 75% since 2004, and that 72% of teens are texters); Jill Tucker, Social Networking Has Hidden Dangers For Teens, S.F. Chronicle (Aug. 9, 2009, 08:31 PM), available at http://www.sfgate.com
/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/10/BA9T1954T7.DTL#ixzz1J3WA1cEI ("While teens are spending more and more time on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace¾with 22 percent saying they check their sites more than 10 times a day¾they don't seem to be aware of the long-term personal havoc they could create with a click of a button."); see also id. (explaining "51 [percent of teens] check their sites more than once a day").

[10]. Bullying/Cyberbullying Prevention Law: Model Statute and Advocacy Toolkit, Anti-Defamation League, 5 (Apr. 1, 2009), http://www.adl.org/civil
_rights/Anti-Bullying%20Law%20Toolkit_2009.pdf; see also Bullying, Berkshire Dist. Attorney's Office, http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=berterminal
&L=3&L0=Home&L1=Crime+Awareness+%26+Prevention&L2=Parents+%26+Youth&sid=Dber&b=terminalcontent&f=parents_youth_bullying&csid=Dber (last visited Aug. 31, 2011). The article explained:

Bullying is the most common form of violence. Some 3.7 million youth engage in it, and more than 3.2 million are victims of bullying annually.

An estimated 160,000 children miss school every day out of fear of attack or intimidation by other students . . . .

72% of teens report 'at least one incident' of bullying online (name calling, insults via IM or social networking sites).

90% did NOT report the incident to an adult.

[11]. Hinduja & Patchin, supra note 2, at 1.

[12]. See Jenny Walker, White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, CyberBullyingNews.com (Mar. 10, 2011), http://www.cyberbullyingnews.com
/2011/03/white-house-conference-on-bullying-prevention-watch-live-today/.

[13]. Randy Taran, Cyberbullying: Strategies to Take Back Your Power, Huffington Post (Jan. 17, 2011, 12:12 PM), http://huffingtonpost.com/randy
-taran/cyberbullying-10-ways-to_b_807005.html.

[14]. Sameer Hinduja & Justin W. Patchin, Cyberbullying Research Summary: Cyberbullying and Suicide, Cyberbullying Research Center (2010), http://www.cyberbullying.us/cyberbullying_and_suicide_research_fact
_sheet.pdf.

[15]. Linsey Davis & Emily Friedman, NJ Gov. Wonders How Rutgers 'Spies' Can Sleep at Night After Clementi's Suicide, ABC News (Sept. 30, 2010), http://abcnews.go.com/US/suicide-rutgers-university-freshman-tyler-clementi
-stuns-veteran/story?id=11763784.

[16]. Victoria Kim & Richard Winton, School Holds Tolerance Seminar as 3 Boys Are Arrested in 'Ginger' Attacks, L.A. Times, Nov. 30, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/30/local/la-me-ginger-attacks1-2009dec01.

[17]. Long, supra note 1.

[19]. Christopher Maag, A Hoax Turned Fatal Draws Anger but No Charges, N.Y. Times, Nov. 28, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/28hoax.html?
_r=2&oref=slogin.

[20]. Michelle Kim, Boy, 14, Arrested for Cyber-Bullying 12-Year-Olds, NBC N.Y., Mar. 14, 2011, http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/117966829.html.

[21]. Students Arrested for Cyber Bullying, WAFB La.'s News Channel, http://www.wafb.com/global/story.asp?s=2774728& (last visited Aug. 29, 2011).

[22]. Jason Beahm, Teen Cyberbullying Arrest: Fake Facebook Page, FindLaw Blogs (Jan. 21, 2011, 12:15 PM), http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2011
/01/teen-cyberbullying-arrest-fake-facebook-page.html.

[23]. Russell Goldman, Teens Indicted After Allegedly Taunting Girl Who Hanged Herself, ABC News (Mar. 29, 2010), http://abcnews.go.com/Technology
/TheLaw/teens-charged-bullying-mass-girl-kill/story?id=10231357.

[24]. Emily Bazelon, What Really Happened to Phoebe Prince? The Untold Story of Her Suicide and the Role of the Kids Who Have Been Criminally Charged For It, Slate (July 20, 2010, 10:13 PM), http://www.slate.com/id
/2260952/entry/2260953.

[25]. Erik Eckholm & Katie Zezima, 6 Teenagers Are Charged After Classmate's Suicide, N.Y. Times, Mar. 29, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010
/03/30/us/30bully.html.

[26]. Bazelon, supra note 24.

[28]. Frank LoMonte, States Should Protect Student Journalists, Philly.Com (Aug. 11, 2010), http://articles.philly.com/2010-08-11/news/24971988_1_student
-journalism-student-reporters-number-of-school-systems.

[29]. Hinduja & Patchin, supra note 2, at 2. This study determined that:

Parents often say that they don't have the technical skills to keep up with their kids' online behavior; teachers are afraid to intervene in behaviors that often occur away from school; and law enforcement is hesitant to get involved unless there is clear evidence of a crime or a significant threat to someone's physical safety.

[30]. Rick Nauert, Social Workers Struggle to Deal with Cyber Bullying, PsychCentral (Jan. 11, 2011), http://psychcentral.com/news/2011/01/11/social
-workers-struggle-to-deal-with-cyber-bullying/22507.html ("Although cyber bullying is growing in prevalence, new research suggests nearly half of elementary, middle and high school social workers feel ill-equipped to deal with such victimization."). The article explains:

In a survey of nearly 400 school social workers at the elementary, middle and high school levels who were members of the Midwest School Social Work Council, the researchers found that while all respondents felt that cyber bullying can cause psychological harm, including suicide, about 45 percent felt they were not equipped to handle cyber bullying, even though they recognized it as a problem.

Further, only about 20 percent thought their school had an effective cyber bullying policy.

"If there's no policy in place to guide them, staffers are flying solo in this area, and that can be a liability," said Singer.

[32]. Eckholm & Zezima, supra note 25.

[33]. Jan Hoffman, Online Bullies Pull Schools Into the Fray, N.Y. Times, June 27, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/style/28bully.html?_r=1&sq
=hoffman&st=cse&scp=3&pagewanted=all. The author notes:

Many principals hesitate to act because school discipline codes or state laws do not define cyberbullying. But Bernard James, an education law scholar at Pepperdine University, said that administrators interpreted statutes too narrowly: "Educators are empowered to maintain safe schools," Professor James said. "The timidity of educators in this context of emerging technology is working to the advantage of bullies."

[34]. Cdnogen, Research Post: School Officials Handle Cyber Bullying, StudentWebStuff.com (Oct. 1, 2009, 10:45 AM), http://www.studentwebstuff.com/mis/showthread.php?t=8123. The article notes:

It is time to address cyber bullying in detail, so that educational institutions can be well aware of their legal rights and responsibilities. This requires clearly defining the scope of cyber bullying and early detection of activities. From these, schools should be able to better assess and decrease the number of cases through prevention strategies.

[35]. Hoffman, supra note 33.

[36]. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

[38]. See infra Part II.A.

[39]. See infra Part II.A.

[40]. Mahaffey v. Aldrich, 236 F. Supp. 2d 779, 781-82 (E.D. Mich. 2002). The student added a disclaimer to his page, "[D]on't go killing people and stuff." Id. at 782. Although unintended, the webpage was circulated to other students at the school. Id. at 786.

[42]. J.S. ex rel. H.S. v. Bethlehem Area Sch. Dist., 807 A.2d 847, 851 (Pa. 2002).

[47]. Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 1 (explaining that for victims of cyberbullying "there is no refuge and victimization can be relentless"); see also David Kravets, Cyberbullying Bill Gets Chilly Reception, Threatlevel (Sept. 30, 2009, 6:37 PM), http://www.wired.com/threatlevel
/2009/09/cyberbullyingbill/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired27b+%28Blog+‑+27B+Stroke+6+%28Threat+Level%29%29. The article quotes Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) explaining: "Bullying has gone electronic . . . This literally means kids can be bullied at any hour of the day or the night, or even in the victims' own home." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).Representative Sanchez proposed the "Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act," which would make cyberbullying a federal offense. H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2010).

[48]. Hinduja & Patchin, supra note 2, at 2.

[49]. Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 1.

[50]. Mike Hardcastle, What is Cyberbullying? Bullying Comes Home, About.Com TeenAdvice, http://teenadvice.about.com/od/schoolviolence/a
/cyberbullying1.htm (last visited Aug. 31, 2011). The article states:

Bullying has been around forever but cyberbullying is different because it lets a bully remain anonymous. It is easier to bully in cyberspace than it is to bully face to face. With cyberbullying a bully can pick on people with much less risk of being caught . . . .

The detachment afforded by cyberspace makes bullies out of people who would never become involved in a real life incident. The Internet makes bullying more convenient and since the victim's reaction remains unseen people who wouldn't normally bully don't take it as seriously.

[51]. Hinduja & Patchin, supra note 2, at 2. See also H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2010) ("Congress finds . . . [e]lectronic communications provide anonymity to the perpetrator and the potential for widespread public distribution, potentially making them severely dangerous and cruel to youth.").

[52]. Formspring, http://www.formspring.me/ (last visited Aug. 29, 2011). Formspring is a question-and-answer-based social website which allows its users to anonymously set up a profile page, from which anyone can ask them questions. See generally id. The questions and their given responses are then published on the user's profile page, including links to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The site's anonymity has been criticized for generating hateful comments because it allows minors to ask questions and give responses related to sexual experiences and preferences for all the public to see, share, and comment on. Tamar Lewin, Teenage Insults, Scrawled on Web, Not on Walls, N.Y. Times, May 5, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/us
/06formspring.html.

[54]. Hardcastle, supra note 50 ("Bullies are natural instigators and in cyberspace bullies can enlist the participation of other students who may be unwilling to bully in the real world. Kids who stand around doing nothing in a real life bullying incident often become active participants in online harassment.").

[55]. Students Arrested for Cyber Bullying, supra note 21 ("All of the students involved are honor students.").

[56]. See, e.g., Long, supra note 1. The article states:

Unlike the schoolyard bully of yesteryear, the cyberbully can hide behind online anonymity and attack around the clock, invading the privacy of a teen's home. With young people spending most of their free time online or texting their friends, digital bullies not only have ready access to victims, but also an audience-because without witnesses, virtual bullying loses its punch.

[57]. Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 1.

[58]. How Is Cyberbullying Different to Other Forms of Bullying?, TeachToday, http://www.teachtoday.eu/en/Teacher-advice/Cyberbullying/How
-is-cyberbullying-different-to-other-forms-of-bullying.aspx (last visited Aug. 29, 2011) (explaining that "bystanders can become perpetrators if they pass on emails or text/picture messages or take part in an online discussion").

[59]. See, e.g., H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2009) ("Congress finds the following: (1) Four out of five of United States children aged 2 to 17 live in a home where either they or their parents access the Internet. (2) Youth who create Internet content and use social networking sites are more likely to be targets of cyberbullying.").

[60]. Sameer & Patchin, supra note 2 (explaining that parents and teachers may not be able to keep track or even know what to do if cyberbullying is discovered).

[61]. Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 1.

[62]. Rick Rojas, When Students' Controversial Words Go Viral, What Is the University's Role?, L.A. Times (Mar. 27, 2011), http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la‑me‑college‑speech‑20110327,0,2970965
.story (reporting on the recent story where a college student posted a YouTube video, in which she complained and mocked Asian students, leading to death threats against her and her subsequent voluntary withdrawal from school).

[63]. See infra Appendix A.

[64]. See infra Appendix A.

[65]. S.B. 2094, 25th Leg. Reg. Sess. (Haw. 2010).

[66]. Matt's Safe School Law, H.B. 4162, 95th Leg. Reg. Sess. (Mich. 2007); H.B. 4580, 96th Leg. Reg. Sess. (Mich. 2010).

[67]. S. 3739, 111th Cong. (2010). This proposed bill, if passed, would amend the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act to allow federal funding for schools that have bullying prevention programs. See also Megan Meir Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H.R. 1966, 111th Congress (2009). This proposed bill, if passed, would make it a federal crime to cyberstalk.

[68]. See infra Appendix A.

[69]. Eighteen states have model school policies, including Alaska, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. See infra Appendix A.

[70]. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15-341 (37) (2011); Kan. Stat. Ann. 72-8256 (2009); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 71, § 37O (2011); Nev. Rev. Stat. § 388.133 (2010); N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 193-F:4 (2011); Or. Rev. Stat. § 339.356 (2010).

[71]. Ala. Code § 16-28B-5 (2011); Alaska Stat. § 14.33.200 (2011); Cal. Educ. Code § 32282 (West 2011); Fla. Stat. § 1006.147 (2010); Ga. Code Ann. § 20-2-751.4 (2011); Idaho Code Ann. § 18-917A (2011); 105 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/27-23.7 (2010); Ind. Code § 20-33-8-0.2 (2010); Iowa Code § 280.28 (2010); Kan. Stat. Ann. 72-8256 (2009); Md. Code Ann., Educ. § 7-424 (West 2010); Minn. Stat. § 121A.0695 (2010); Miss. Code. Ann. § 37-11-67 (2010); Nev. Rev. Stat. § 388.122 (2010); N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 193-F:4 (2011); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 18A:37-14 (West 2011); N.M. Code R. § 6.12.7 (LexisNexis 2010); N.C. Gen. Stat. § 115C-407.15 (2010); Okla. Stat. tit. 70, § 24-100.4 (2011); Or. Rev. Stat. § 339.351 (2010) (Definitions); 24 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 13-1303.1-A (2010); R.I. Gen. Laws § 16-21-26 (2011); S.C. Code Ann. § 59-63-140 (2010); Va. Code Ann. § 22.1-279.6 (2011); Wash. Rev. Code § 28A.300.285 (2010); Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-4-314 (2011).

[72]. Those ten states are California, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Oklahoma, Nebraska, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Washington. See infra Appendix A.

[73]. See supra Part I.A.

[74]. Sample Policy for Bullying Prevention, Cal. Dep't of Educ., http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/se/samplepolicy.asp (last updated Oct. 25, 2010).

[75]. Safe Schools Guide: Selected Strategies and Resources, Okla. Dep't of Educ. (2005), http://www.sde.state.ok.us/Schools/SafeHealthy/pdf
/SafeSchlGuide.pdf; Guidance on Developing Required Policies on Bullying, Rhode Island Dep't of Educ., http://www.ride.ri.gov/psi/docs/child_family
/substance/bullying%20guidance%20and%20modelpolicy%2011-21-03.pdf (last visited Aug. 29, 2011).

[76]. Colorado Association of School Boards Sample Policy on Bullying Prevention and Education, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (2001), http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/safeschools/bullying_casbpolicy.html.

[78]. Shelton v. Tucker, 364 U.S. 479, 487 (1960).

[79]. J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain Sch. Dist., No. 08-4138, 2011 WL 2305973, at *23 (3d Cir. June 13, 2011) (Fisher, J., dissenting) (citations omitted) (quoting Keyishian v. Bd. of Regents, 385 U.S. 589, 603 (1967)).

[80]. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969).

[81]. Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 682 (1986).

[82]. See, e.g., Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 266 (1988) (pointing out that students' First Amendment rights in public schools must be applied in light of the special characteristics of the school's environment, and that a school does not need to tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with the school's educational mission-even if the government would not be able to censor similar speech outside the school).

[83]. See e.g., Tinker, 393 U.S. at 506.

[85]. Id. at 507 ("[T]he Court has repeatedly emphasized the need for affirming the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials, consistent with fundamental constitutional safeguards, to prescribe and control conduct in the schools.").

[86]. See Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393, 418 (2007) (Thomas, J., concurring) ("I am afraid that our jurisprudence now says that students have a right to speak in schools except when they don't."); Tova Wolking, Comment, School Administrators as Cyber Censors: Cyber Speech and First Amendment Rights, 23 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 1507, 1529 (2008) ("The chilling effect of punishing student speech merely because it is unpleasant or disagreeable threatens the foundations of democracy. . . . It follows that discouraging students from engaging in discourse and critical thinking, even if it is juvenile or silly, is antithetical to a healthy democracy.").

[88]. C ompare J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain Sch. Dist., 593 F.3d 286 (3d Cir. 2010), rev'd en banc, No. 08-4138, 2011 WL 2305973, at *12 (3d Cir. June 13, 2011) (holding that the school could not discipline a student for speech created off-campus) with Wisniewski v. Bd. of Educ. of the Weedsport Cent. Sch. Dist., 494 F.3d 34, 40 (2d Cir. 2007) (holding that the school can regulate student speech created off-campus where it was reasonably foreseeable that it would reach the school campus). See also infra Part II.A(1)-(2); David Kravets, Cyberbullying Bill Gets Chilly Reception, Wired.Com (Sept. 30, 2009), http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/09/cyberbullyingbill/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired27b+%28Blog+‑+27B+Stroke+6+%28Threat+Level%29%29. This article explains how Representative Sanchez proposed legislation, the "Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act," which would make cyberbullying a federal offense. Id. The legislation was criticized as being "unconstitutionally vague" and a "breach of free speech." Id.

[89]. Morse, 551 U.S. at 401.

[90]. Although courts do not systematically address these two inquires, as this Part will lay out, a survey of student speech precedent lends itself to this framework.

[91]. See Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 5-6. The authors point out:

As a significant amount of cyberbullying is created on computers, cell phones and other devices that are not owned by the school, or are not located on school property, but still affect the school environment and the welfare of the students, it is important to ensure that schools are given adequate legal framework to address the issue.

[93]. While this Part of the Article analyzes how public schools might have the right to regulate some off-campus speech, other scholars have argued that " Tinker Stopped Itself at the Schoolhouse Gate." Aaron H. Caplan, Public School Discipline for Creating Uncensored Anonymous Internet Forums, 39 Willamette L. Rev. 93, 140 (2003).

[94]. Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 270 (1988) (holding that schools can regulate student speech in school-sponsored newspapers); Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 683 (1986) (holding that lewd offensive speech given at a school assembly is punishable).

[95]. Morse, 551 U.S. at 401, 408 (explaining that a student "cannot stand in the midst of his fellow students, during school hours, at a school-sanctioned activity and claim he is not in school" and promote illegal drug use) (internal quotations omitted).

[97]. Compare Doninger v. Niehoff, 527 F.3d 41, 43-44 (2d Cir. 2008) (ruling that the school had authority to take away a student's right to participate in student government when the student posted online comments that substantially disrupted the school), Wisniewski v. Bd. of Educ., 494 F.3d 34, 40 (2d Cir. 2007) (holding that the school can regulate student speech where it was reasonably foreseeable that it would reach the school campus), J.S. ex rel. H.S. v. Bethlehem Area Sch. Dist., 807 A.2d 847, 869 (Pa. 2002) (finding that the school can regulate speech originating off-campus, but directed at the school), and Killion v. Franklin Reg'l Sch. Dist., 136 F. Supp. 2d 446, 459 (W.D. Pa. 2001) (allowing a school to regulate speech where the school disciplined a student for creating, and sharing with his friends via email, a website which was insulting and degrading to one of the teachers), with Beussink ex rel. Beussink v. Woodland R-IV Sch. Dist., 30 F. Supp. 2d 1175, 1180 (E.D. Mo. 1998) (finding that the decision to discipline a student for off-campus speech was unacceptable because it was based on the principal's emotional reaction and not any real fear that the speech would cause material disruption), Emmett v. Kent Sch. Dist. No. 415, 92 F. Supp. 2d 1088, 1190 (W.D. Wash. 2000) (holding that because the speech was created off-campus, there was not enough of a connection to the school for the school to have jurisdiction over the speech), and J.C. ex rel. R.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified Sch. Dist., 711 F. Supp. 2d 1094, 1118 (C.D. Cal. 2010) (finding that the student speech originating off-campus did not substantially disrupt school activity and so the school had no authority to punish the student for that speech).

[98]. See, e.g., LaVine v. Blaine Sch. Dist., 257 F.3d 981, 991 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding school discipline constitutional, without any jurisdictional analysis, where the student wrote a violent poem off-campus but showed it to his teacher).

[104]. Killion v. Franklin Reg'l Sch. Dist., 136 F. Supp. 2d 446, 455 (W.D. Pa. 2001) ("Further, because the Bozzuto list was brought on-campus, albeit by an unknown person, Tinker applies."); see also Bethlehem, 807 A.2d at 865 (holding that "where speech that is aimed at a specific school and/or its personnel is brought into the school campus or accessed at the school by its originator, the speech will be considered on-campus speech.").

[106]. Some courts have looked at both whether it was "foreseeable" that the speech would reach campus and whether there was a "sufficient nexus." For example, after considering the many various rulings concerning student off-campus speech, the court in Beverly Hills analyzed both whether the conduct was foreseeable and whether there was a substantial nexus between the speech and the school. Beverly Hills, 711 F. Supp. 2d at 1108.

[107]. Compare Flaherty v. Keystone Oaks Sch. Dist., 247 F. Supp. 2d 698, 705-06 (W.D. Pa. 2003) (holding school policy constitutionally overbroad where there were no "geographical limitations"), with Layshock, 496 F. Supp. 2d at 605 (upholding constitutionality of school policy over overbroad claim because policy set forth "geographical limitations").

[108]. See infra Appendix B (setting forth a proposed Model Cyberbullying Policy for Public Schools).

[109]. Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 271 (1988) (allowing the school to delete school newspaper articles discussing teen pregnancy and divorce from school-sponsored newspaper).

[111]. Lovell ex rel. Lovell v. Poway Unified Sch. Dist., 90 F.3d 367, 372 (9th Cir. 1996).

[112]. See, e.g., LaVine v. Blaine Sch. Dist., 257 F.3d 981, 989 (9th Cir. 2000) (upholding, under the Tinker standard, the school's emergency expulsion of a student who showed a teacher a poem, which the student had written while at home, that described the graphic killing of the student's classmates).

[113]. It could be argued that under Fraser a school might have a third category of speech it can wholly regulate, namely lewd, vulgar, or plainly offensive speech. In Fraser, a student gave an "elaborate, graphic, and explicit sexual metaphor" in a speech he gave at a school assembly. Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 675 (1986). The Court held that, as part of a school's duty to teach "the essential lessons of civil, mature conduct," the school could discipline the student. Id. at 683. In later interpreting Fraser, the Court, however, seems to limit its holding to speech that occurs only on-campus. See Hazelwood, 484 U.S. at 266-67 (noting that under Fraser "the government could not censor similar speech outside the school") (emphasis added); J.S. ex rel. Snyder v. Blue Mountain Sch. Dist., No. 08-4138, 2011 WL 2305973, at *12 (3d Cir. June 13, 2011) (en banc) (" Fraser's 'lewdness' standard cannot be extended to justify a school's punishment of J.S. for use of profane language outside the school, during non-school hours."); Saxe v. State College Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 213 (3d. Cir. 2001) ("According to Fraser, then, there is no First Amendment Protection for . . . plainly offensive speech in school.") (emphasis added).

[114]. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 514 (1969).

[115]. Id. at 509.

[116]. Id. at 513. Many courts that have analyzed the issue of off-campus student speech have applied the Tinker "material disruption" standard. See, e.g., J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified Sch. Dist., 711 F. Supp. 2d 1094, 1110 (C.D. Cal. 2010); Killion v. Franklin Reg'l Sch. Dist., 136 F. Supp. 2d 446, 455 (W.D. Pa. 2001); Beussink ex rel. Beussink v. Woodland R-IV Sch. Dist., 30 F. Supp. 2d 1175, 1178 (E.D. Mo. 1998). Often courts have taken the phrase "in class or out of it," to mean that Tinker gave schools the right to regulate off-campus speech. Beverly Hills, 711 F. Supp. 2d at 1103. Note that the Third Circuit has left open the issue of whether Tinker should apply to off-campus speech at all. See Blue Mountain, 2011 WL 2305973, at *7 ("The Supreme Court established a basic framework for assessing student free speech claims in Tinker, and we will assume, without deciding, that Tinker applies to J.S.'s speech in this case.") (emphasis added). In Blue Mountain, the concurrence observed:

I write separately to address a question that the majority opinion expressly leaves open: whether Tinker applies to off-campus speech in the first place. I would hold that it does not, and that the First Amendment protects students engaging in off-campus speech to the same extent it protects speech by citizens in the community at large.

Id. at *16 (Smith, J., concurring).

However, as set forth in this Part of the Article, except for the concurrence in Blue Mountain, scholars and other courts have collectively assumed, as did the majority in Blue Mountain, that the Tinker standard applies to all public school student speech whether originating on- or off-campus. In addressing Blue Mountain, and a similar en banc Third Circuit case, Judge Jordan explains:

Our Court today issues en banc decisions in two cases with similar fact patterns. In both the case presently before us and in J.S. v. Blue Mountain School District . . . we are asked whether school administrators can, consistent with the First Amendment, discipline students for speech that occurs off campus. Unlike the fractured decision in J.S., we have reached a united resolution in this case, but there remains an issue of high importance on which we are evidently not agreed and which I note now, lest there be any misperception that it has been resolved by either J.S. or our decision here. The issue is whether the Supreme Court's decision in [ Tinker] can be applicable to off-campus speech. I believe it can, and no ruling coming out today is to the contrary.

Layshock v. Hermitage Sch. Dist., No. 07-4465, 2011 WL 2305970, at *12 (3d Cir. June 13, 2011) (en banc) (Jordan, J., concurring) (footnote omitted).

[118]. See infra Appendix B.

[119]. For example, in both Layshock and Bethlehem the issues revolved around whether a material disruption was caused by a fake MySpace profile of school officials. Although both cases applied the "material disruption" Tinker standard, they came to opposite holdings. Compare Layshock, 2011 WL 2305970, at *1, with J.S. ex rel. H.S. v. Bethlehem Area Sch. Dist., 807 A.2d 847, 868 (Pa. 2002).

[120]. See Doninger v. Niehoff, 527 F.3d 41, 50 (2d Cir. 2008) (holding that two administrators were disrupted when called away from scheduled meetings and school activities to deal with the influx of phone calls from the community that were in response to a student's blog post). But see Beverly Hills, 711 F. Supp. 2d at 1117 (stating that an administrator who was charged with student discipline was not disrupted from her regular activities when dealing with the consequences of a student video posting on YouTube).

[122]. In Emmett, the court reasoned that the suspension of a student who had created a derogatory comment about a teacher was improper in part because the speech did not contain any threats. Emmett v. Kent Sch. Dist. No. 415, 92 F. Supp. 2d 1088, 1090 (W.D. Wash. 2000).

[124]. Recent cases show a trend of finding that hurtful speech can cause a material disruption. For example, in Emmett, the student speech was artistic in nature: the website was created as a satire of the school's homepage and on it were ironic mock obituaries of the student's friends. Emmett, 92 F. Supp. 2d at 1090. The court, noting that the student speech was much closer to political satire than violent threats, did not allow the school to discipline the student. Id. Contrastingly, in Wisniewski, the court noted that the student speech was not a sophisticated satire of school administrators but merely a violent depiction of the death of a teacher on a student's icon for instant messaging. Accordingly, the court found that the speech was threatening and violent and posed a real threat of material disruption to the school. Wisniewski v. Bd. of Educ., 494 F.3d 34, 35-39 (2d Cir. 2007). These two cases illustrate that courts are more likely to find that a student's speech is not subject to school discipline if it is political or artistic in nature. See also Bethlehem, 807 A.2d at 865 -66 (distinguishing bullying speech with the type of political speech addressed by Tinker).

[125]. Hinduja & Patchin, supra note 2.

[126]. The court in Beverly Hills stated: [L]ower [c]ourts have not often applied the 'rights of other' prong from Tinker . . . the Court is not aware of any authority . . . that extends the Tinker rights of others prong so far as to hold that a school may regulate any speech that may cause some emotional harm to a student. This Court declines to be the first.

J.C. ex rel. R.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified Sch. Dist., 711 F. Supp. 2d 1094, 1122-23 (C.D. Cal. 2010). However, the Third Circuit has suggested that the Tinker right-of-others prong could be used to justify a school's antiharassment policy. Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch. Dist., 240 F.3d 200, 217 (3d. Cir. 2001) (noting that while the precise scope of the rights-of-others prong is unclear, it might be applicable to a school's defense of its policy). The Eighth Circuit, however, has chosen only to apply the second prong of Tinker in cases where the student conduct could "result in tort liability." Bystrom ex rel. Bystrom v. Fridley High Sch., 822 F.2d 747, 752 (8th Cir. 1987).

[127]. See infra Appendix B.

[128]. See, e.g., Layshock v. Hermitage Sch. Dist., 496 F. Supp. 2d 587, 604 - 06 (W.D. Pa. 2006) (cyberbullying case where plaintiff challenged school's discipline of a student on grounds that the school policy was vague).

[129]. Sypniewski v. Warren Hills Reg'l Bd. of Educ., 307 F.3d 243, 266 (3d Cir. 2002) (internal quotation marks omitted).

[130]. Id. at 266 (citing Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 871 - 72 (1997)).

[131]. Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 686 (1986).

[133]. See infra Appendix B.

[134]. See Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 707 -08 (1969).

[135]. Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 513 (1969).

[136]. Id. at 509.

[137]. Anti-Bullying/Anti-Harassment Policies, Iowa Dep't of Educ., http://educateiowa.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1154:anti-bullyinganti-harassment-policies&catid=411:legal-lessons&Itemid=2656 (last visited Aug. 29, 2011).

[141]. Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 628 (1996).

[142]. See, e.g., Latest Hate Crime Statistics, FBI (Nov. 22, 2010), http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2010/november/hate_112210/hate_112210 (listing statistics for specific groups covered by hate crime laws).

[144]. Harris Interactive, From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America 9 (2005), available at http://www.glsen.org/binary-data/GLSEN
_ATTACHMENTS/file/499-1.pdf.

[145]. For example, the cyberbullying policy can simply state that students are prohibited from cyberbullying other students "including, but not limited to [list enumerated categories]." Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 11 (emphasis added).

[146]. J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified Sch. Dist., No. CV 08-3824 SVW, at *14 (C.D. Cal. 2009), available at www.lawyersusaonline.com/wp-files/pdfs/jc-v-beverly-hills.pdf (order granting plaintiff's summary adjudication motion on third cause of action). In Beverly Hills, a case extensively cited in Part II.A supra, the published portion of the court's opinion only ruled on the first two causes of action concerning the First Amendment issue and qualified immunity. J.C. ex rel. R.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified Sch. Dist., 711 F. Supp. 2d 1094, 1097 (C.D. Cal. 2010) ("An order regarding Plaintiff's due process claim, the Third Cause of Action, will follow shortly."). For plaintiff's third cause of action, that the school cyberbullying policy violated due process, the court wrote a separate, unpublished order. See J.C. v. Beverly Hills Unified Sch. Dist., No. CV 08-3824 SVW, at *14 (C.D. Cal. 2009), available at www.lawyersusaonline.com/wp
-files/pdfs/jc-v-beverly-hills.pdf.

[148]. For example, New Hampshire's bullying prevention statute allows for the school to take action if bullying or cyberbullying "[o]ccurs off of school property or outside of a school-sponsored activity or event, if the conduct interferes with a pupil's educational opportunities or substantially disrupts the orderly operations of the school or school-sponsored activity or event." N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 193-F:4 (2011). See also Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 13 (adopting similar language).

[149]. Darryn Cathryn Beckstrom, State Legislation Mandating School Cyberbullying Policies and the Potential Threat to Students' Free Speech Rights, 33 Vt. L. Rev. 283, 315 (2008).

[152]. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222d (2010); Del. Code Ann. tit. 14, § 4112D (b)(2)(j) (2011); Fla. Stat. § 1006.147 (2010); Ga. Code Ann. § 20-2-751.4 (2011); Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 71 § 37O(d)(viii) (2011); N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 193-F:4 (2011); N.Y. Educ. Law § 2801-a (McKinney 2009); Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3313.666 (West 2011); Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 37.001(a)(6) (West 2009); Utah Code Ann. 1953 § 53A-11a-301 (West 2011); W. Va. Code Ann. § 18-2C-3 (2011).

[153]. W. Va. Code Ann. § 18-2C-3(b)(5) (2011).

[155]. Cal. Sch. Bd. Ass'n, Cyberbullying: Policy Considerations for Boards, Governance and Policy Services: Policy Briefs, 5 (July 2007), www.csba.org/Services/Services/PolicyServices/~/media/Files/Services/PolicyServices/SamplePolicies/Cyberbullying.ashx.

[156]. U.S. Const. amend. IV; New Jersey v. T.L.O, 469 U.S. 325, 333 (1985) (holding that the Fourth Amendment's "prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to searches conducted by public school officials").

[158]. New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985).

[159]. Id. at 328.

[162]. Id. at 329.

[163]. Id. at 338.

[164]. Id. at 339. In determining a balance between the two interests, the Supreme Court stated that "[i]t is evident that the school setting requires some easing of restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject. The warrant requirement, in particular, is unsuited to the school environment . . . [as it would] unduly interfere with the maintenance of the swift and informal disciplinary procedures needed in the school." Id. at 340.

[165]. Id. at 341.

[166]. Id. at 342. Note that the Court declined to rule on whether "individualized suspicion is an essential element of the reasonableness standard . . . adopt[ed] for searches by school authorities." Id. at 342 n.8.

[170]. Klump v. Nazareth Area Sch. Dist., 425 F. Supp. 2d 622, 627 (E.D. Penn. 2006).

[171]. Id. at 630.

[174]. Id. at 631.

[177]. Id. at 640.

[179]. J.W. v. Desoto Cnty. Sch. Dist., No. 2:09-cv-00155-MPM-DAS, 2010 WL 4394059, at *1-2 (N.D. Miss. 2010).

[190]. Klump vs. Nazareth Area Sch. Dist. 425 F. Supp. 2d 622, 630 (E.D. Penn. 2006).

[191]. Desoto, 2010 WL 4394059, at *5.

[192]. See, e.g., infra Appendix B.

[194]. Klump, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 640.

[196]. If the victim or student reporting the bullying is willing, schools should initiate an interview to determine the nature of the bullying, the name of the participants, the location and the manner in which the information is being sent, and the distance that the images or messages have spread. See Nancy Willard, Educator's Guide to Cyberbullying, Cyberthreats & Sexting, Ctr. for Safe and Responsible Use of the Internet, 9 (2005), http://www.cyberbully.org/cyberbully/documents/educatorsguide.pdf. Policies should mandate all evidence be preserved. Id. at 8. This requires that any messages received by the victim (cell phone text messages and voicemails) should not be deleted, emails should be saved and printed, and posts should be printed before removal is requested. Id. Additionally, any information found through the school district's investigation should be saved and documented. Id. One state's department of education has endorsed a policy that requires perpetrators, victims, witnesses, teachers, and staff members to be interviewed. Policy for Prohibiting Bullying, Harassment and Intimidation, Ga. Dep't of Educ., 6 (Sept. 9, 2010), http://www.toombs.k12.ga.us/system/policies/bullying
_policy.pdf (last updated Mar. 31, 2011).

[197]. New Jersey v. T.L.O, 469 U.S. 325, 341 (1985).

[198]. Id. at 343.

[200]. Klump, 425 F. Supp. 2d at 640.

[201]. Sexting, supra note 154, at 1.

[202]. Id. The study explains: [T]he National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy released data from late September and early October of 2008 which identified that 19% of teens (aged 13 to 19) had sent a sexually-suggestive picture or video of themselves to someone via email, cell phone, or through another form of online interaction, while 31% had received a nude or semi-nude picture from someone else.

[203]. See, e.g., Jan Hoffman, A Girl's Nude Photo, and Altered Lives, N.Y. Times, Mar. 26, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sexting.html?_r
=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all (explaining how a middle school girl sent a nude photo of herself to another middle school student, a soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, who then forwarded it to another young girl, who then forwarded the photo to all contacts in her cell phone). The article explains: "In less than 24 hours, the effect was as if Margarite, 14, had sauntered naked down the hallways of the four middle schools [in her town] . . . . Hundreds, possibly thousands, of students had received her photo and forwarded it." Id.

[204]. See, e.g., id. The county prosecutor decided against charging Margarite, the middle-school girl who had sexted a nude photo of herself to a classmate. Id. But the prosecutor did "charge three students with dissemination of child pornography, a Class C felony, because they had set off the viral outbreak" by forwarding the nude photo to others. Id. See also A.H. v. State, 949 So. 2d 234, 235 (Fla. Ct. App. 2007). In A.H., a sixteen-year-old girl was criminally prosecuted for sending nude pictures of herself to her seventeen-year-old boyfriend. Id. The boy was also criminally charged with producing, directing, and promoting child pornography. Id. See also Riva Richmond, Sexting May Place Teens at Legal Risk, N.Y. Times (Mar. 26, 2009, 12:00 PM), http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/sexting‑may‑place‑teens‑at‑legal-risk/.

[205]. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C.A. § 2252A (West 2010) (prohibiting under federal criminal law the distribution of child pornography with no exception for school officials investigating sexting or cyberbullying).

[206]. Sexting, supra note 154, at 3.

[207]. Joe Elias & Daniel Victor, Sequenita High School Officials Being Investigated for Handling of Images in 'Sexting' Case, The Patriot News (Apr. 15, 2010), http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2010/04/susquenita_high
_school_officia.html.

[208]. Am. Civ. Liberties Union of Pa., ACLU of PA Sues School District for Illegally Searching Student's Cell Phone: School Turned Over Girl's Private Nude Photos to Law Enforcement (May 20, 2010), http://www.aclupa.org
/pressroom/acluofpasuesschooldistrict.htm.

[213]. See, e.g., Beard v. Whitmore Lake Sch. Dist., 402 F. 3d 598, 603 (6th Cir. 2005) (holding students' constitutional rights were violated after school officials strip searched students to search for stolen money). The court explained: "Students . . . have a significant privacy interest in their unclothed bodies." Id. at 604.

[214]. Sexting, supra note 154, at 3 ("[I]t should be made very clear that administrators and educators should never forward, copy, transmit, download . . . or show any non-law enforcement personnel any evidence collected from [a] personal digital device . . . after the initial discovery . . . at any other time during the investigation.").

[215]. See infra Appendix B.

[217]. See supra Parts II.A-C.

[218]. See supra Part II.B.

[219]. See, e.g., N.J. Stat. Ann. § 18A:37-15(b)(5) (West 2011) (requiring schools to have a bullying policy with "a procedure for reporting an act of harassment, intimidation or bullying").

[221]. Dianne L. Hoff & Sidney N. Mitchell, Cyberbullying: Causes, Effects, and Remedies, 47 J. Educ. Admin. 652, 663 (2009).

[222]. Madigan, supra note 220, at 9.

[223]. See, e.g., N.J. Stat. Ann. § 18A:37-15(b)(5) (West 2011) (allowing "a person to report an act of harassment, intimidation or bullying anonymously").

[224]. See id. (prohibiting "formal disciplinary action solely on the basis of an anonymous report").

[225]. As set forth in Part II.C, a school official must have "reasonable grounds" based on a specific fact inquiry before conducting a search of a student's personal property. New Jersey v. T.L.O, 469 U.S. 325, 342 (1985). It is doubtful that anonymous reports alone would satisfy this requirement since school officials would be unable to determine the credibility of the reports.

[227]. See, e.g., Megan Meir Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2009) (proposing that "whoever . . . use[s] electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both); S.B. 2094, S. 25th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Haw. 2010) ("If any child of school age engages in bullying or cyberbullying, the child, and the father, mother, or legal guardian, shall be fined not more than $100 for each separate offense."); Jared's Law, H.B. 750, 58th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Idaho 2006) ("A student who personally violates any provision of this section shall be guilty of an infraction.").

[228]. Cyberbullying: Policy Considerations for Boards, supra note 155, at 5 ("Existing school rules pertaining to student discipline may be used in the event that a student is found to have engaged in cyberbullying, or the district may decide that other actions are needed on a case-by-case basis.").

[229]. See, e.g., Ga. Code Ann. § 20-2-751.5(d) (2011) ("[I]t is preferable to reassign disruptive students to alternative educational settings rather than to suspend or expel such students from school.").

[230]. See, e.g., Kan. Stat. Ann. 72-8205(e)(1) (2011) ("The board may transact all school district business and adopt policies that the board deems appropriate to perform its constitutional duty to maintain, develop and operate local public schools.").

[232]. See, e.g., O.Z. ex rel. v. Bd. of Trs. of the Long Beach Unified Sch. Dist., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110409, at *17 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 9, 2008) (holding that a school has an interest in being able to transfer a student who has shown violent tendencies toward a teacher).

[233]. Wisniewski, 494 F.3d at 40 (alteration in original) (quoting Strickland, 420 U.S. at 326).

[234]. RI Task Force Takes on Cyberbullying, Sexting, Boston Globe (Mar. 15, 2011), http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2011/03/15/ri
_task_force_readies_new_policy_for_cyberbullying/ ("One proposal from the task force would create a statewide education policy on cyberbullying for schools . . . A single, statewide policy would help teachers know what to do when they hear a student is being bullied . . . .").

[235]. Lorraine Adams & Dale Russakoff, Dissecting Columbine's Cult of the Athlete, Washington Post, June 12, 1999, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp
-srv/national/daily/june99/columbine12.htm (explaining schools should not give the appearance that popular student athletes receive special treatment because of their abilities or social status).

[236]. See, e.g., Doninger, 527 F.3d at 54; J.S. ex rel. H.S. v. Bethlehem Area Sch. Dist., 807 A.2d 847, 868 (Pa. 2002); O.Z., 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110409, at *13; Cyberbullying: Policy Considerations for Boards, supra note 155, at 5 (authorizing the suspension or expulsion of a student who engages in harassment or bullying by electronic means).

[237]. See Todd D. Erb, Comment, A Case for Strengthening School District Jurisdiction to Punish Off-Campus Incidents of Cyberbullying, 40 Ariz. St. L.J. 257, 275 (2008).

[240]. Limber & Snyder, supra note 220, at 27.

[242]. See, e.g., Santa Barbara School Districts Board Policy, 4, http://www.sbsdk12.org/board/policies/5000/BP5131.pdf (last updated Dec. 14, 2010) ("If the [cyberbully] is using a social networking site or service that has terms of use that prohibit posting of harmful material, the Superintendent or designee also may file a complaint with the Internet site or service to have the material removed.").

[243]. Model Policy Against Bullying and Harassment, supra note 140, at 8.

[244]. Fla. Stat. § 1006.147(4)(l) (2010) (requiring "a procedure for providing instruction to students, parents, teachers, school administrators, counseling staff, and school volunteers on identifying, preventing, and responding to bullying or harassment").

[245]. The Model Cyberbullying Policy in Appendix B of this Article gives an example of an educational program. Like Florida, Illinois also requires schools to implement antibullying training. 105 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/27-13.3 (2010). Although Illinois does not provide a model cyberbullying policy, the Illinois Attorney General's Office has prepared a webinar and training modules to give some guidance to schools. The educational material includes statistics, anecdotes, and discussion of cyberbullying and sexting. The training modules are modified to be grade-appropriate for elementary school, middle school, and high school. See Office of the Ill. Att'y Gen., Attorney General's Internet Safety Training Modules (2010), www.isbe.state.il.us/curriculum/ppt/internet_safety
_webinar.ppt (last visited Sept. 20, 2011).

[246]. Hoff & Mitchell, supra note 221, at 663 (setting forth a study that students reported incidents of cyberbullying occurring when they were as young as ten years old and up through their high-school years).

[249]. Willard, supra note 196, at 6.

[251]. Md. Code Ann., Educ. § 7-424.1(g)(1) (West 2010) (requiring schools to develop an antibullying educational program for "staff, volunteers, and parents").

[253]. Madigan, supra note 220, at 8.

[254]. See id.; Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 15.

[256]. Willard, supra note 196, at 10.

[257]. Also referred to as the Student Harassment Prevention Act.

[258]. Ala. Code § 16-28B-6 (2011).

[259]. Id. § 16-28B-3 (defining harassment as not limited to, written electronic, verbal or physical acts).

[260]. Alaska Stat. § 14.33.200(a) (2011).

[261]. Sample Issues and Areas to Consider When Developing Local Policies for Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying, Alaska Dep't. of Educ. and Early Dev., http://eed.state.ak.us/tls/SchoolSafety/Docs/Sample_Issues_and_Areas.pdf (last visited Sept. 20, 2011).

[262]. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 15-341(37) (2011).

[263]. Ark. Code Ann. § 6-18-514 (a)(2) (2010).

[264]. Id. § 6-18-514 (a)(3)(B) (defining "Electronic Act").

[265]. Cal. Educ. Code § 32282(a)(1)(E) (West 2011).

[266]. Id. § 32261(d) (bullying includes acts committed personally or by means of an electronic act).

[267]. Sample Policy for Bullying Prevention, Cal. Dep't of Educ., (2010), available at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/ss/se/samplepolicy.asp.

[268]. Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann § 22-32-109.1(2)(a) (West 2010).

[269]. Colorado Association of School Boards Sample Policy on Bullying Prevention and Education, Ctr. for the Study and Prevention of Violence, (2001), http://www.colorado.edu/cspv/safeschools/bullying_casbpolicy.html.

[270]. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 10-222d (2010).

[271]. Id. § 10-222d(7) (2010) (requiring each school to notify parents or guardians of both the students who commit any verified acts of bullying and the students against whom such acts were directed).

[272]. The District of Columbia is considering a proposed bill that would require schools to implement antibullying policies, including bullying using "electronic communications." The bill also proposes that a model policy be developed. Council of D.C., Bullying Prevention Act of 2010, B18-0770 (D.C. 2010) available at http://www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/images/00001
/20100506090826.pdf.

[275]. Del. Code Ann. tit. 14, § 4112D(b)(1) (2011).

[276]. Id. 14 § 4112D(a) (bullying includes electronic acts).

[277]. Delaware's Model Bully Prevention Policy, Del. Dep't of Educ., http://www.doe.k12.de.us/infosuites/students_family/climate/files/Bully%20Prevention%20Policy%20Template.pdf (last visited Sept. 19, 2011).

[278]. Del. Code Ann. tit. 14, § 4112D(b)(2)(j) (2011) (requiring notification of a parent, guardian, relative caregivers, or legal guardian of any target of bullying or person who bullies another).

[279]. Fla. Stat. § 1006.147(2) (2010).

[280]. Id. § 1006.147(3)(b) (defining harassment to include use of data or computer software).

[281]. Model Policy Against Bullying and Harassment, supra note 140.

[282]. Fla. Stat. § 1006.147(4)(i) (2010) (requiring a procedure for immediate notification to the parents of a victim and the parents of the perpetrator of an act).

[283]. Ga. Code Ann. § 20-2-751.4(b)(1) (2011).

[284]. Id. § 20-2-751.4(a) (stating that bullying includes use of data or software that is accessed through a computer, computer system, computer network or other electronic technology of local school system).

[285]. Id. § 20-2-751.4(b)(3) (requiring that a method be developed "to notify the parent, guardian, or other person who has control or charge of a student upon a finding . . . that such student has committed an offense of bullying or is a victim of bullying").

[286]. But see Haw. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 302A-1002 (2009) (requiring schools to report crime-related incidents, but no mention of bullying or cyberbullying).

[287]. S.B. 2094, 25th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Haw. 2010).

[288]. Idaho Code Ann. § 33-512(6) (2011).

[289]. Id. § 18-917A(2)(b) ("[H]arassment . . . may also be committed through use of a land line, care phone, or wireless telephone, or through the use of data or computer software that is accessed through a computer, computer system or computer network.").

[290]. 105 Ill. Comp. Stat. 5/27-23.7(d) (2010).

[291]. Id. at 5/27-23.7(b).

[292]. Ind. Code § 20-33-8-12(1) (2011).

[293]. Iowa Code § 280.28 (3) (2011).

[294]. Id. § 280.28 (2)(a) (2011).

[295]. Anti-Bullying/Anti-Harassment Policies, supra note 137.

[296]. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 72-8256(b) (2009).

[297]. Kan. Stat. Ann. § 72-8256(a)(1)(B) (2009).

[298]. Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 158.148(1) (West 2011).

[299]. La. Rev. Stat. Ann § 17:416.13(B)(1) (2011).

[300]. Id. § 17:416.13(C)(2) (defining "cyberbullying").

[301]. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 20, § 1001(15)(H) (2010).

[302]. Maine School Management Association Sample Policy, supra note 139.

[303]. Md. Code Ann., Educ. § 7-424.1(c)(1) (West 2010).

[304]. Id. § 7-424.1(a)(2) (stating that bullying, harassment or intimidation includes an intentional electronic communication).

[305]. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 71 § 37O(c) (2011).

[307]. Id. § 37O(d)(viii) (setting forth procedures for notifying parents or guardians of a victim and perpetrator).

[308]. Matt's Safe School Law, supra note 66.

[310]. Minn. Stat. § 121A.0695 (2010).

[312]. Miss. Code. Ann. § 37-11-67(2) (2010).

[313]. Id. § 37-11-67(1).

[314]. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 160.775(1) (2011).

[316]. Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 79-2, 137(3) (2010).

[317]. Id. § 79-2, 137(2).

[318]. Considerations for Policy Development, Neb. Dep't of Educ., http://www.education.ne.gov/safety/Bullying_Prevention/Bullying_Prevention_Policy_Dev.html (last visited Sept. 20, 2011).

[319]. Nev. Rev. Stat. § 388.133 (2010).

[320]. Id. at § 388.123.

[321]. N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 193-F:4(II) (2011).

[322]. Id. §§ 193-F:3(II), (III).

[323]. Id. § 193-F:4(II)(h) (describing a procedure for notification within forty-eight hours of the reported incident to both the parents or guardian of victim and the parents or guardian of the perpetrator of bullying or cyberbullying).

[324]. N.J. Stat. Ann. § 18A:37-15(a) (West 2011).

[325]. Id. § 18A:37-14 (defining electronic communication).

[326]. Model Policy and Guidance for Prohibiting Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying on School Property, at School-Sponsored Functions and on School Buses, State of N.J. Dep't of Educ., http://www.state.nj.us/education/parents
/bully.pdf (last updated Apr. 2011).

[327]. N.M. Code R. § 6.12.7.8(B) (LexisNexis 2010).

[328]. Id. § 6.12.7.7(A).

[329]. N.Y. Educ. Law § 2801-a(1) (McKinney 2000) (requiring school safety plan).

[330]. Id. § 2801-a(2)(e) (requiring policies for contacting parents, guardians and persons in parental relation to students in the event of a violent incident).

[331]. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 115C-407.16 (2010).

[332]. Id. § 115C-407.15(a) (defining bullying to include electronic communication).

[333]. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3313.666(B) (West 2011).

[334]. Anti-Harassment, Anti-Intimidation or Anti-Bullying Model Policy, Ohio Dep't of Educ. Adm'r, http://education.ohio.gov/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE
/ODEDetail.aspx?Page=3&TopicRelationID=435&Content=106473 (last modified June 3, 2011).

[335]. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 3313.666(B)(5) (West 2011) (requiring parents or guardians of any student involved in incident be notified and have access to any written reports pertaining to the incident).

[336]. Okla. Stat. tit.70, § 24-100.4(A) (2011).

[337]. Id. (prohibiting bullying by electronic communication specifically).

[338]. Safe Schools Guide, Okla. Dep't of Educ., 75 (2005), http://www.sde.state.ok.us/Schools/SafeHealthy/pdf/SafeSchlGuide.pdf.

[339]. Or. Rev. Stat. § 339.356(1) (2010).

[340]. Id. § 339.351(1) (defining cyberbullying).

[341]. 24 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 13-1303.1-A(a) (2010).

[342]. Id. § 13-1303.1-A(e) (stating that bullying includes intentional electronic acts).

[343]. R.I. Gen. Laws § 16-21-26(b) (2011).

[344]. Id. § 16-21-26(a)(3) (defining electronic communications).

[345]. Guidance on Developing Required Policies Against Bullying, http://www.ride.ri.gov/psi/docs/child_family/substance/bullying%20guidance%20and%20modelpolicy%2011-21-03.pdf (last visited Sept. 16, 2011).

[346]. S.C. Code Ann. § 59-63-140(A) (2010).

[347]. Id. § 59-63-120(1) (stating that harassment, intimidation, and bullying includes electronic communication).

[348]. South Carolina-Self Control Addressing Bullying in Our Schools: A Bullying Prevention Model, S.C Dep't of Educ. 31-36, http://www.itv.scetv.org
/guides/sc2v2.pdf (last visited Sept. 24, 2011).

[349]. Tenn. Code Ann. § 49-6-1016(a) (2011).

[350]. Tex. Educ. Code Ann. § 37.001(a) (West 2009).

[351]. Id. § 37.001(a)(6).

[352]. Utah Code Ann. § 53A-11a-301(1) (West 2011).

[353]. Id. § 53A-11a-301(3)(j).

[354]. Vt. Stat. Ann. tit. 16, § 565 (2011).

[355]. Model Bullying Prevention Plan, supra note 139.

[356]. Va. Code Ann. § 22.1-279.6(A) (2011).

[357]. Id. (explaining that model policies should address the use of electronic means for purposes of bullying, harassment, and intimidation).

[358]. Wash. Rev. Code § 28A.300.285(1) (2010).

[359]. Id. at § 28A.300.285(2).

[360]. Prohibition of Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying, State of Wash. Office of Superintendent of Pub. Instruction (Apr. 2008), http://www.k12.wa.us/SafetyCenter/Guidance/pubdocs/Anti‑BullyingPolicyFinal.pdf.

[361]. W. Va. Code Ann. § 18-2C-3(a) (West 2011).

[362]. Student Code of Conduct, W. Va. Dep't of Educ. (July 1, 2003), http://wvde.state.wv.us/policies/p4373.html.

[363]. W. Va. Code Ann. § 18-2C-3 (b)(5) (West 2011).

[364]. Wis. Stat. § 118.46(1)(a) (2010).

[365]. Bullying Prevention Policy Guidelines, Dep't of Pub. Instruction (Mar. 2007), http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/sspw/pdf/bullyingguide.pdf.

[366]. Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 21-4-314(a) (2011).

[367]. Id. § 21-4-312.

[368]. Safe School Improvement Act of 2010, S. 3739, 111th Cong. (2010) (allowing for federal funding for schools that have bullying prevention programs). See also Megan Meir Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2010).

[369]. Megan Meir Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H.R. 1966, 111th Cong. (2010).

[371]. See supra Part II.A(2) of this Article.

[372]. See supra Parts II.A(2)-B(1) of this Article.

[373]. See supra Parts II.A(2)-B(1) of this Article.

[374]. See supra Parts II.A(2)-B(1) of this Article.

[375]. See supra Part II.B(1) of this Article.

[376]. See supra Part II.B(1) of this Article.

[377]. See supra Part II.A(1) of this Article.

[378]. See supra Part II.A of this Article.

[379]. See supra Part II.B(2) of this Article.

[380]. The Anti-Defamation League drafted a model acceptable use policy, adapted from a U.S. Department of Justice model policy. Anti-Defamation League, supra note 10, at 21.

[381]. See supra Part II.B(2) of this Article.

[382]. See supra Part II.C(1) of this Article.

[383]. See supra Part II.C(1) of this Article.

[384]. See supra Part II.C(1) of this Article.

[385]. See supra Part II.C(1) of this Article.

[386]. See supra Part II.C(2) of this Article.

[387]. See supra Part III(A) of this Article.

[388]. See supra Part III(B) of this Article.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Public Schools Can Constitutionally Halt Cyberbullying: A Model Cyberbullying Policy that Considers First Amendment, Due Process, and Fourth Amendment Challenges - Wake Forest Law Review

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By: Naomi Harlin Goodno* Introduction Schoolyard bullying has been around for generations, but recently it has taken on a new, menacing face¾cyberbullying. Now adolescents use technology to deliberately and repeatedly bully, harass, hassle, and threaten peers. No longer does the bullying end once the school day ends.

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Reliance on technology
in modern society

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Reliance on technology
in modern society

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Technology is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction

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Melissa Nilles
Arts & Entertainment Editor

Photo by Andrea Rodriguez

I had a terrible nightmare the other night. Instead of meeting for a quick cup of coffee, my friend and I spent 30 minutes texting back and forth about our day. After that, instead of going in to talk to my professor during his office hours, I emailed him from home with my question. Because of this, he never got to know who I was, even though he would have been a great source for a letter of recommendation if he had. I ignored a cute guy at the bus stop asking me the time because I was busy responding to a text. And I spent far too much time on Facebook trying to catch up with my 1000+ "friends," most of whom I rarely see, and whose meaning sadly seems to dispel even more as the sheer number of "connections" I've made grows.

Oh wait, that wasn't a dream. This technological detachment is becoming today's reality.

Little by little, Internet and mobile technology seems to be subtly destroying the meaningfulness of interactions we have with others, disconnecting us from the world around us, and leading to an imminent sense of isolation in today's society. Instead of spending time in person with friends, we just call, text or instant message them. It may seem simpler, but we ultimately end up seeing our friends face to face a lot less. Ten texts can't even begin to equal an hour spent chatting with a friend over lunch. And a smiley-face emoticon is cute, but it could never replace the ear-splitting grin and smiling eyes of one of your best friends. Face time is important, people. We need to see each other.

This doesn't just apply to our friends; it applies to the world around us. It should come as no surprise that face-to-face interaction is proven by studies to comfort us and provide us with some important sense of well-being, whether it's with friends or friendly cashiers in the checkout line of Albertson's. That's actually the motivation behind Albertson's decision last year to take all of the self-checkout lanes out of its stores: an eerie lack of human contact.

There's something intangibly real and valuable about talking with someone face to face. This is significant for friends, partners, potential employers, and other recurring people that make up your everyday world. That person becomes an important existing human connection, not just someone whose disembodied text voice pops up on your cell phone, iPad or computer screen.

It seems we have more extended connections than ever in this digital world, which can be great for networking, if it's used right. The sad fact of the matter is that most of us don't. It's too hard to keep up with 1000 friends, let alone 200. At that point, do we even remember their names? We need to start prizing the meaning of quality in our connections, not sheer quantity.

One of my best friends from my hometown has 2,241 Facebook friends. Sure, her posts get a ton of feedback, but when I asked her about the quality of those relationships, she said to me that she really has few friends that she can trust and spend time with happily. Using a strange conundrum like this as a constructive example, we should consider pruning our rampant online connections at the very least.

Past evolutionary psychology research by British anthropologist and psychologist Robin Dunbar has revealed that people are actually limited to a certain number of stable, supportive connections with others in their social network: roughly 150. Furthermore, recent follow-up research by Cornell University's Bruno Goncalves used Twitter data to show that despite the current ability to connect with vast amounts of people via the Internet, a person can still only truly maintain a friendship with a maximum of 100 to 200 real friends in their social network.

While technology has allowed us some means of social connection that would have never been possible before, and has allowed us to maintain long-distance friendships that would have otherwise probably fallen by the wayside, the fact remains that it is causing ourselves to spread ourselves too thin, as well as slowly ruining the quality of social interaction that we all need as human beings.

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So what are we doing with 3000 friends on the Internet? Why are we texting all the time? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Let's spend more time together with our friends. Let's make the relationships that count last, and not rely on technology to do the job for us.

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Technology is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction - The Bottom Line UCSB

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Melissa Nilles Arts & Entertainment Editor Photo by Andrea Rodriguez I had a terrible nightmare the other night. Instead of meeting for a quick cup of coffee, my friend and I spent 30 minutes texting back and forth about our day.

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Parents: Take control over your children's use of technology

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The Etiquette of Personal Mobile Device Use in Public

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Government requests for client information from technology
companies 

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Government requests for client information from technology
companies 