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Rep. Linda Sanchez's cyberbullying legislation
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Voltaire wouldn't like this one bit.
Representative Linda Sanchez (D-CA) has proposed the The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act to Congress in the wake of the 2006 suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier who was harassed on MySpace. It makes emails, IM's and other forms of e-communications a felony if “the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”
Indeed. Believe me, there are a few trolls who serve no other purpose but to insult and demean anyone who doesn't fall into lockstep with them, and I'd personally love to see them in person and ask them to repeat themselves. Sadly, 99.9% of them are too cowardly for that sort of thing. Most of them won't even write under their real names.
That said, this bill is nonsense on so many levels. I know the Obama administration has behaved like a bunch of teenagers with Daddy's credit card at times, and taken the family plane out for a joy ride from time to time, but must we also legislate on the basis of a hormonal teenage girl?
Megan Meier offed herself because her online beau broke up with her (let's overlook for just a moment the fact that said "beau" was actually the adult mother of another schoolgirl). That is terribly sad for the Meier family, but brokenhearted, hormone-ravaged teenage girls do this sort of thing all the time. Usually to the tune of some pop schmaltz stuck on "repeat" on the old CD player or iPod. Oh Lord, deliver me from teenage melodrama! I wouldn't consent to relive those years for all the lead in Chinese toy factories.
As long as there has been childhood, there have been bullies. And with the invention of the Internet, childhood extends out a lot longer for some of those bullies. Usually a good knock in the teeth stops a schoolyard bully in his tracks. On the Internet, I find the old-fashioned practice of shunning to be quite effective. But to have the nanny-state intervene on my behalf is as pathetic as running to the teacher because I can't hold my own at recess. Some people are weak and/or unstable and no amount of government intervention will protect them to the degree that they need protecting.
From another perspective, how long before this is applied to political speech? In Europe and Canada, free speech has already gone by the wayside. You mustn't write anything that is (in the example of Canada's Human Rights Code, Section 13.1) "likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt". So my earlier remark about the lead in Chinese toys? Illegal, despite its veracity. Truth is no defense when hurt feelings are involved.
Democrats are the party of drive-thru abortions and WalMart looters. Republicans are gun-toting potential terrorists. Do you feel exposed to hatred and contempt yet? No, me neither. But you just know that some thin-skinned person on the edge will consider this the straw that breaks their back, right before launching themselves off a rooftop patio and leaving their family to file suit against me. Yawn.
Three or four times a week I am greeted by reminders in my inbox of bills and invoices that are past-due (Disproving the myth that all Republicans are rich. Ahem.). These reminders stress me out. They keep me up some nights, worrying about what to do next. Will Ms. Sanchez and her merry band of censors please get these bullies off my back?
The Internet is a place that bullies feel comfortable being bullies because they can remain anonymous. In the same vein, us nice, normal folk have that same advantage. We don't have to spill our guts to perfect strangers in cyberspace. They never have to know that we're fat, or black, or poor, or crippled, or ugly. If they are bullying us for these things, it's because we put ourselves out there for them to pick apart. Unlike the schoolyard, Megan Meier wasn't forced to go to MySpace. She didn't have to spark up a conversation with a fake boy. And when things began to go pear-shaped, she didn't have to kill herself.
Megan Meier opted out of life, instead of opting out of the Internet.
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