Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Hate Speech

Abstract

The Internet's design and raison d'être are complete freedom, but complete freedom might lead to anarchy and to harmful and anti-social activities. In this paper I address the concepts of moral and social responsibility, applying them to the Internet realm in considering the most troubling phenomenon of cyberbullying that results in loss of life. Specifically, I probe the moral and social responsibilities of Internet users (agents), of parents and of the education system in fighting cyberbullying. Balance needs to be struck between two most important principles: freedom of expression and social responsibility. Illustrative examples in which this disturbing and harmful phenomenon of cyberbullying had cost young life are mentioned. It is argued that all relevant stakeholders need to think of the consequences of their conduct, that Internet abusers should be accountable for their wrongdoing and be penalized, and that people who have the ability to stop or at least reduce the risk of cyberbullying should take proactive steps, exhibiting zero tolerance to cyberbullying.

Governing by slogans

“…As a hallmark of neoliberal governmentality and its dystopian vision of society, zero tolerance has become a flagship public policy when dealing with undesirable conduct that has been labelled as morally problematic or even unacceptable (Wacquant, 2009). Calls for zero tolerance when it comes to female genital mutilation (Boddy, 2020; Earp, 2020), hate speech and cyberbullying (Cohen-Almagor, 2022), weapons, illegal drugs (Bell, 2015), violence (Kodelja, 2019, corruption (Gong and Wang, 2012), etc., are just some of the most recent pleas to install this policy as a default approach when dealing with some of the most pressing contemporary issues. Interestingly enough, zero tolerance has been an integral part of the standard repertoire by a variety of different slogans, initiatives and manifestos aiming to increase our sensitivity towards practices and actions that are recognized as morally deviant (Goode and Ben-Yehuda, 2009).…”