This week’s Boyd readings raised some questions for me about the legal diagnosis of bullying and cyberbullying. Boyd defines bullying as “a practice in which someone of differential physical or social power subjects another person to repeated psychological, physical or social aggression”. However, she points out that “simply describing one’s experience as “bullying” obscures the significant criminal harassment” that appeared to be at the crux of her interviewee’s pain. This then makes it harder for us to differentiate between “teasing” and “horrific acts of aggression”, making it difficult for the public “to fully understand the significance of any particular bullying claim”.

Given that there is a wide spectrum for acts that might be qualified as bullying, I am curious to know what the law has done to account for these differences in degree and severity of bullying instances, and how a court of law might reasonably interpret instances of bullying when their meaning is so opaque to parents and the general public. Further, given that it no longer seems appropriate to simply diagnose an act as “bullying”, I am curious to know if other torts, such as harassment, undue influence and duress might be better used to describe acts of bullying, and if so, how it would be different from traditional instances of such tortious crimes. Returning to the issue of scope, it might also seem problematic to classify bullying as a crime in all instances.

When cyberbullying is introduced, Boyd aptly notes that the “persistence and visibility of bullying in networked publics” enables “larger audiences to witness acts of bullying”, which “create novel opportunities for people to intervene”. Though the audience is wider, it also seems to lessen the degree to which people are held accountable as witnesses because of its anonymity. What is worse is perhaps the realization that cyberbullying demands not only an accurate interpretation of the act and context of bullying, but the need to sift through layers of filtered reality, impression management, social media etiquette and even self-construction- all of which add complexity to what a court might traditionally count as evidence to allege bullying.

Although the language of bullying seems legally set up for clarity (“assumes there is a perpetrator and a victim”), Boyd’s assertion that the emphasis on punishment “provides little incentive for understanding how punitive measures enable the cycle of violence to continue” suggest this binary does not work. This implicitly suggests that the legal system of judgment might be problematic in the instance of cyberbullying. She discourages the use of zero tolerance approaches that are unjust, ineffective and “create additional harm that increases unhealthy interpersonal interactions”, thus creating more bullies. However, the law generally structures itself for deterrence and a respect for the law, and does not really fit with ideas of positive reinforcement- how else would anyone adhere to the rules?

While positive reinforcement might work for parenting, the law must necessarily be different- yet the issues it needs to gain clarity on and regulate are the same. There are many instances of rules that are knowingly broken e.g. the no drinking under 21 rule, but a policy for something as serious, yet easily ignored as cyberbullying ought to keep a stronger system of checks and balances in place. While zero tolerance might not be the answer, positive reinforcement, along with other soft initiatives like education and raising awareness (two of my pet peeve solutions to any problematic issue in society), do not present themselves as strong enough solutions to the legal puzzle at hand.