Time to unpack the juggernaut?:
The “cyberbullying” debates in Canada
Jane Bailey
jbailey@uottawa.ca
Technology, Law and the Public Interest
Ottawa-HKU Conference
Hong Kong
10 April 2014
34 girls and young women
policy process review
“cyberbullying”
Bullying Awareness Week
Peter MacKay
Bill C-13
The Protecting Canadians
from Online Crime Act
“what wouldn’t you do to
protect an innocent child?”
“horrible crime of cyberbullying”
that “help is available and that hope
is everywhere”
Stephen Harper
“justice for their daughters”
government-orchestrated
Rehteah Parsons
“cyberbullying”
Amanda Todd
daughters
non-consensual distribution of
intimate images
hate speech based on sex, age,
national origin and mental or
physical ability
false, indecent and harassing
communications using a
telecommunications system
vast majority
state surveillance powers
HELP
logical
tragic
one
richer and more complex
is
should
punitive
community
revenge porn
women & girls
LGBTQ
punitive
individuated
multi-faceted strategy
sexist
homophobic
racist
classist
ableist
colonialist
sexualized attacks
girls and women
LGBTQ
shaming & despair
chosen
characterization
response
mélange
breadth & depth
Senate Standing Committee
on Human Rights
young people
law & order
nature & underlying causes
barriers to responding
recommended responses
debatable
consensus
Cyberbullying is a serious problem.
“one of the worst problems
facing young people today”
Christian Whalen
Acting Child and Youth Advocate, Office of
the Ombudsman of New Brunswick
“part of the problem is that
focusing on the term
cyber-bullies is distracting us
from the facts”
Helen Kennedy
Executive Director, EGALE
Cyberbullying is worse than
traditional forms of bullying.
“[The] immediacy and broad
reach of new technologies has
made bullying easier, faster,
anonymous, more prevalent,
permanent and more cruel
than ever before.”
Kerry-Lynn D Findlay
Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Justice
examples
highly mediatized suicide cases
“… when we notice bullying, when the media
has noticed it is when there are extreme cases
… and that can cause a very reactive kind of
situation. … What we need to do for education,
and I think that is important in terms of the
media, but not noteworthy because it is not a
great headline, is address the fact that these
everyday minor common things start young.”
Dean Faye Mishna
University of Toronto
Amanda Todd
Rehteah Parsons
“when backed by the oppressive cult
of unrealistic body images for young
women and the powerful pressures
on adolescent women to seek
personal validation in sexual activity
they may not be ready for”
Randall Garrison
MP
“the police were trying to track … the
person who criminally harassed, they
didn't have all the powers to do it.
That's why the police boards are
supporting my bill. They feel they
don't have the correct tools.”
Hedy Fry
MP
competing viewpoints
Is cyberbullying clearly defined?
elasticity
“no universally accepted definition”
Wendy Craig
Co-Director, PREVnet
power imbalance
intention to harm
scope
6-65%
underlying factors
individual
systemic
“Biased-based cyberbullying, as well as
traditional bullying, is linked to larger social
and public policy issues. While
homophobia, racism, sexism and other
forms of marginalization are apparent in
cyberbullying, we must confront these
biases in society.”
Dean Faye Mishna
University of Toronto
“The issues of sexual orientation, whether you
are perceived to be gay, lesbian or bisexual,
issues of gender expression, whether you are
seen to be as masculine as other boys or as
feminine as other girls, those are highly
involved reasons that students are targeted.”
Elizabeth Meyer
Concordia University
“receiving sexual pictures, being
asked to do something sexual or
being coerced through pressure
to send out a picture”
Dean Faye Mishna
University of Toronto
Does cyberbullying produce
extreme results (like suicide)?
contributing factor
systemic discrimination
LGBTQ
Aboriginal
nature
underlying factors
barriers to responding
recommended courses of action
gaps in
criminal law
and law enforcement tools
new criminal offences
expanded surveillance tools
“I understand that a lot of police feel that the
existing Criminal Code provisions are not
adequate. Personally, as a legal analyst, I am not
sure I agree with that. There are a number of
things in terms of defamatory libel,
intimidation, criminal harassment, assault — all
kinds of things that can be applied ….”
Wayne MacKay
Schulich School of Law
don’t address underlying issues
youth unaware of law
youth believe they won’t get caught
proactive multi-pronged strategy
individual behavioural/developmental
“safety”
behaviour modification
social and empathy skills
human rights
media literacy
stereotype busting
respect for diversity
“I do not know where the surprise is coming
from with us as a community. We need to be
less surprised and more proactive. We need
to challenge the messages that youth are
facing and give them the tools … [of] critical
analysis, respectful disagreement and
human respect.”
Jeremy Dias
Jer’s Vision
the technology or the users?
inevitability
neutrality
“the one reality we know is
that technology will remain
omnipresent. We do not have
the choice to remove it.”
David Birnbaum,
Executive Director,
Quebec English School Boards Association
“the root of the cyberbullying
problem is not social media
sites and/or the Internet but
rather the manner in which
Internet users interact while
using social networking sites”
Inspector Michael Lesage
Acting Director General
National Aboriginal Policing
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
training the humans to suit the tech
“There are external applications that students
download and put on their Facebook; there are
things like Compare People, How Ugly Are Your
Friends, Rate My Friends, and Bathroom Wall.
These are all applications hosted by third-party
companies. They are getting money to run these
applications on Facebook, so these are
businesses promoting bullying, in a sense.”
Alisha Virmani
Youth Leader
Canadian Red Cross
“set up an environment in
which everyone can have
access to all kinds of
information about [young
people], but by default”
Stan Davis
Co-researcher
Youth Voice Project, Stop Bullying
Bill C-13
“cyberbullying”
sexual harassment
a problem
intellectual and political juggernaut
tragic highly mediatized cases
protecting children
nothing
obscured
“cyberbullying”
immediate recognition & concern
bloated
meaningful
long-lasting
unpack
diverse
candidly
respond meaningfully
in the public interest
jbailey@uottawa.ca
www.egirlsproject.ca