Proposed Pa. cyber bullying law
Orie: Make cyber bullying a crime in state:
Pennsylvania state senator Jane Orie (R-Bradford Woods) is attempting to get a cyber bullying law passed in her state…
“This is a new level than what we saw in our generation,” said state Sen. Jane Orie, R-Bradford Woods. “Instead of the rumors spreading by word of mouth, it’s on the Internet, and the things these kids are writing are permanent and they’re extremely hurtful and actually more dangerous than in the days when we grew up with the rumor mill.”
Ms. Orie soon will introduce legislation to make cyber bullying and cyber identity theft a crime in Pennsylvania. The law also will require all school districts to adopt policies to address it.
“There have been reported instances of high school students copying published photos of other students and maliciously using the photos of these students on Internet blogging sites such as MySpace.com, Xanga.com, and others,” reads a letter Ms. Orie recently sent to other senators seeking support for the legislation.
Her proposal includes two parts.
“The concern here is you have not only the bullying taking place, but there’s also the cyber ID theft where these students are taking pictures of each other, scanning it and creating sites for them and doing bullying and slander against these kids,” Ms. Orie said.
“This is all a pretty new phenomenon that is happening here. What we’re trying to do is have legislation match the 21st-century technology so that we can get schools to put in place protocols to deal with this and educate these kids.”
In theory I think the law is a great idea but in reality I think this law will be very hard to enforce. Not only that but it may have the reverse of it’s intended effect as it may be easy to frame someone under this law.
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