Internet
Harassment Laws Help Fight Online Bullies
As awareness
of the issue grows, Internet harassment is becoming
a greater public concern. It necessitates the need
to fully understand the laws
in any particular state or country. The important fact to remember
here is that just because the harassment or stalking originates
from a computer, it does not make it any less
damaging than bullying or stalking in the real world.
The
Internet has no single governing body to police it.
It doesn't call any particular place 'Home'. Any laws that
may apply to it would need to be enforced by the countries
involved. Unfortunately, internet
harassment laws may not necessarily be uniform on an international
level.
Some countries, Canada and Australia for example, have more
comprehensive laws set in place than most others.
These
new cyber laws are designed to respect that individuals
have rights in both the real world
and the online world.
Verbal assaults and the invasion of someone’s personal
life, whether by use of the internet or otherwise, is entirely
wrong behavior and should be dealt with appropriately. The
victims in this kind of situation; man, woman, or child, should
have some legal recourse available
to them, or at least a way to stop the bullying from
reoccurring endlessly. Don't
just accept Internet harassment as a consequence of using
the Internet.
Investigate the Internet harassment laws in your own area
and see what can be done.
A common
starting point for victims of internet
harassment would be to contact your own Internet
Service Provider (ISP). The first common misconception that
people have is that online bullies are completely anonymous,
but that is actually untrue. Just as institutions
talk about paper trails that can retrace the activities of
their organizations, there are
cyber trails that can be followed as well.
Everyone that uses the internet has gone through an ISP and
that provider has an identification address
that's used for tracking all sorts of things. Every user will
have that address which is called an ISP number.
Once a harassing email has been sent out, forwarding that
email to your own provider will give them the opportunity
to find the ISP of the sender. Once
located, a
complaint will be sent on to the bully's ISP.
The geographical
location of the bully has now been narrowed down. Depending
upon their country’s cyber laws, the provider in question
will issue a warning
to the bully, deny further access to
the web via their service, or they might even contact
the local police to report the crime.
Another
avenue to pursue would be to contact your local police
department directly; they may direct you back to
your provider or work directly in conjunction with them to
seek out the culprits.
Prosecution
will depend upon the country’s own Internet harassment
laws,
and will also be subject to the severity of the type of harassment
in question. For example, sending out unsolicited emails would
be dealt with far less severely than posting death threats
about someone, which of course would have to be acted upon
immediately and backed by the full force of the law.
Internet
harassment laws are part of a very new
legal field. They should be thoroughly investigated
by the victims in order to help protect themselves from further
attacks by online bullies. For more information on how
to report internet bullying, click
here
now.
Joe Medeiros
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