Currently, the Internet has touched every aspect of human life, easily connect people around the world, and easily provide a variety of information to all levels of society with a click of a button. But the popularity of the Internet has also seen unforeseen cybercrime, Cyberbullying is one of these. Due to the virtual nature of the online world, the high degree of anonymity has led to a day-to-day increase in cyberbullying. Accordingly, this makes it possible for many net citizens to gather in a short period of time every cyberbullying begins, and indiscriminate attacks on the victims of bullying, causing great psychological damage to the victims, and even commit suicide in serious cases. If these activities can have legal control, the cyberbullying phenomenon may be ameliorated. On the other hand, some people think that cyberbullying legislation will limit people's freedom of speech. Based on the objectivity of thinking questions, this article will consider the issues from the perspective of supporters and opponents, thus explaining why cyberbullying should be considered a criminal offence.
Cyberbullying is defined as the use of information technology and communication technologies that exceed limits to compromise a person's reputation, mentality or humiliation of a person (Shivashankar and Rajan, 2018). It is as traumatic as traditional bullying. The only difference is that in traditional bullying, the victim can escape physical damage and seek help from others. But in cyberbullying, ubiquitous attack information is completely It can be said that except for the actual physical damage, the other injuries are equal, anyone who harms to others should be considered a criminal offence. According to the research Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide results (Hinduja et al. 2010) from the Academic journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research, this is an international journal in the field devoted to suicide research. Studies have shown that suicide is associated with bullying, whether it is traditional bullying or cyberbullying. The results of the study showed a significant increase in respondents who had suffered peer attacks and attempted suicide. It can be seen that cyberbullying has caused tremendous harm to the victim's mentality and is serious enough to commit suicide. This behaviour should not be ignored anymore and should be regarded as a criminal offence.
Cyberbullying could lead to unbearable mental stress, and the bullied person is beginning to suffer from depression and even suicides, and such incidents have been continuous. In 2006, the famous bullying incident in the United States – 'Megan' incident; a 13 years old girl, Megan Meier, is often ridiculed and insulted because of her obesity. Later, Megan got to know a boy named Josh on the Internet. At first, Josh said she was very beautiful. Six weeks later, Josh suddenly changed her face and said that she was despicable, her friends thought she was very dirty after that many people have joined the online atrocities and insulted her as “fatso” and “whore”. After experiencing cyberbullying, she chose to commit suicide because she could not stand the malicious insult. However, although the culprit of this incident has been basically determined to be a middle-aged woman, Lori Drew. But the police refused to sue because there was no legal compliance. According to Hinduja et al. review the relationship between bullying, cyberbullying, and suicide (Hinduja et al., 2010). The authors use data gained through a survey of middle school students in the United States, to identify whether the experience of bullying and cyberbullying is related to an increase in the rate of attempted suicide among adolescents. The survey from the journal, results show that cyberbullying victims are 1.5 times more likely to commit suicide than non-cyberbullying victims. 'Megan' incident, the previous example mentioned that in the case of confirming the initiator, it is impossible to sue because there is no legal regulation. Therefore, in order to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, it is necessary to enact legislation to prohibit cyberbullying to facilitate addressing the problem.
Although legislation on cyberbullying is difficult to define, regulatory compliance can limit the growth of cyberbullying. For the time being, few countries adopt clear laws to regulate the harm caused by cyberbullying. However, in 1999 the United States enacted the first anti-bullying law, it has been nearly 20 years since today. After 2009, anti-bullying laws spread throughout the United States. The government provides reporting channels, students and teachers are required to report incidents, and serious bullying incidents directly expel students and criminal penalties (Bullying Laws Across America, 2019). Although anti-cyberbullying laws may not completely
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