Ms Cindy Hisona complains in the Philippine Daily Inquirer about Internet bullying by bloggers, online commenters et al. She mentions the provisions of the Electronic Commerce Law. Seven years ago, while on a furlough from Oz, I attended a DTI sponsored seminar on this law,especially about the legalities of electronic signatures. But that was BEFORE the neologism ”blog” was coined.
Ms Hisona complains about harassment, defamation and reputations destroyed. But aren’t there legal remedies for these already? Perhaps the legal eagles who read FV blog post can discuss this further. They can enlighten the non-lawyers on precedents here and overseas. What are the limits of freedom of speech in a blog? Is it the same as in a printed blurb?
Ms Hisona wants to have a system like what she says is in force in South Korea. Bloggers have to disclose their identities so that if there are legal challenges, we know whom the lawyers will call. But it seems Ms Hisona is more concerned with minors being bullied online. I suppose that Ms Hisona is parent of a harassed teenage kid. She therefore has the right to pull out the plug off the wireless router in order to protect her kids. Your thoughts are welcome.
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I’ve been interviewed by BusinessWorld regarding a related issue, but this time vis-a-vis companies.
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/122144/Firms-now-more-aware-of-blogger-backlash
I guess it IS clear that Ms. Hisona is talking about implications of negative blogs with regards to children and the youth. Of course we cannot assume her circumstances regarding the issue.
On Ars Technica however, there is an article that contends that cyberbullying is actually regular bullying which has just found a new medium:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081003-cyberbullying-takes-the-playground-online.html
I guess we have to find a way to talk to her to find out the real score behind her sentiments.
I wonder how our schools are dealing with this. I have heard some of my students joke about “facebook” suicide! I don’t know about who self-slashed their throats, the avatar or something else!
I’ve always been for non-anonymous commenting. But considering our political climate not being able to comment anonymously is tantamount to censorship.
The woman is overreacting. The case in the US where a 13 year old killed herself was not bullied by a person of her age. It was the mother.
A bill was proposed by a US senator but it is for stiffer penalties for cyberbulling.
In Australia, bullying whether it is internet or personal is punishable by law.
Besides, bullying for young people do not happen in blogs…they are mostly in cell phones so that the people who keep track of bullying in different countries call it CYBERBULLYING.
I do not know in the PHilippines but here, the authorities also use hackers to trace the IP of some people of interest.
She should complain about the bullying in AM radio. It’s libel and slander galore in there.
If you are a kid – i mean a minor – playing around in the internet, then your guardians should really be concerned of internet bullying….
But if you’re already in the right state of mind that you even managed to start blogging, emailing, chatting, etc., then I would prefer saying that you should be at all times prepared for the worst. Internet can be accessed all over the world and by typically anyone, so revealing your true identity in the web and being harassed for/in it can be even worse than using a pseudonym/another made-up identity and experiencing harassment, right?
I believe I sound logical enough. But if this comment does not appeal to your readers, then they have the right to contest.
:)