' Bullish on Anti-Bullying Apps | MTTLR

Bullish on Anti-Bullying Apps

A 2013 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey found that 15% of American high school students reported being electronically bullied. The increasing prevalence of this behavior—and the potentially tragic outcomes—have made “cyberbullying” a buzzword in recent years, and has sparked legislation and policy changes in many states. The difficulty in enforcement stems from the inability of school administrators to reach beyond the school ground and monitor what is happening in students’ homes on their personal computers. This has led to increased liability for school systems, and several large lawsuits by students against school districts.

Some cyberbullying laws, while well-intentioned, have been ruled unconstitutional because they infringe on student speech. The laws have also faced issues because they frequently only apply to students in the purview of public school boards—exempting private school students and parents like Lori Drew, who created a fictitious MySpace account for a 16-year-old boy and sent her 13-year-old neighbor Megan Meier increasingly negative messages on the online forum. About a month and a half after friending “Josh” on MySpace, Megan hanged herself.

Instead of waiting for clear and effective legislation, some school districts are turning to the free market for a solution. Stop!t is a mobile app that allows students to screen shot or photograph interactions with cyberbullies and send the pictures anonymously to administrators.

The same anonymity that lets some cyberbullies thrive could be the key to increased reporting and cyberbullying prevention. One principal at a school that implemented Stop!t said that within the first year of adopting the app, the school has received 75 percent fewer bullying reports.

However, there is still room for the law to step in, and there are likely to be continued constitutional challenges to criminal statutes against cyberbullying. So while Stop!t users may help raise administrators’ awareness of cyberbullying, the schools may still need statutory support for to enforce any punishments.

An app like Stop!t could also lead to students falsifying reports of bullying, or “hacking” their peers’ accounts to make it look like another student was bullying them, just to get them in trouble. The same defamation charges that give victims of cyberbullying tort remedy could be brought against students who claim that other students are cyberbullies. Criminal wire fraud charges could even be brought against students who falsely report cyberbullying.

There is also potential going forward that similar programs could be implemented in the workplace. Anonymous, electronic submissions like these could add support to Title VII cases and sexual harassment cases, and having a reporting program like this in place could also factor into court decisions where school administrators claim they were unaware of such acts happening in their school.

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Margaret Twomey is an editor on the Michigan Telecommunications and Technology Law Review, and a member of the University  Michigan Law School class of 2016.

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