Social Networking Cyber-bullies

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Some would argue that, in order to more rigorously protect children, social networking sites should be more aggressive in their use of age verification. After all, age verification procedures effectively limit access to adult sites; but then, adults have various forms of government or business-issued identifications, such as driver’s licenses and credit cards. The problem in this case, is that there are no similar forms of identification for minors!

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Bullies, Griefers and Plain Old-Fashioned Harassment, Part 3

This article is the last of a three-part discussion on the nature of, and relationship between, cyber-bullies, griefers and the legal concept of harassment.

Because the terms “cyber-bully” and “griefer” are often tossed around interchangeably, I began the first part of our discussion by clarifying the term “griefer,” the second part by clarifying “cyber-bully,” and by explaining (in both cases) when and under which circumstances the two terms were meaningfully distinguished.

I will begin this section by introducing the legal term harassment.
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Bullies, Griefers and Plain Old-Fashioned Harassment, Part 2

This article is the second of a three-part discussion on the nature of, and relationship between, cyber-bullies, griefers and the legal concept of harassment.

Because the terms “cyber-bully” and “griefer” are often tossed around interchangeably, I began the first part of our discussion by clarifying the term “griefer,” and explaining when and under which circumstances the two terms are meaningfully distinguished.
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Bullies, Griefers and Plain Old-Fashioned Harassment, Part 1

This article is the first of a three-part discussion on the nature of, and relationship between, cyber-bullies, griefers and the legal concept of harassment.

Because the terms “cyber-bully” and “griefer” are often tossed around interchangeably, I’d like to clarify when and under which circumstances they are meaningfully distinguished (at least for our purposes), and when they are not. General definitions, set in their proper context, will probably suffice for this purpose. Where such definitions fail to adequately reach, or address, problems involving physical or psychological damages, we will look to the law to determine (a) whether it has come to recognize meaningful distinctions between griefers and cyber-bullies. More importantly, we will look to the law to (b) get a better understanding of the types of remedies it provides where damages are incurred (Note: though it would seem to “round-out” our discussion to lie it alongside an actual case study, our blog format is not suited for such elaborations . . . so anyway . . . ).

Let me begin with a general clarification of the term “griefer.”
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