Cyberbullying in West Virginia Now Punishable with Jail Time

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A new law has been passed in West Virginia that delegates say will help protect children from cyberbullying. "Grace's Law" will go into effect June 8th, as an amendment to the West Virginia Computer Crime and Abuse Act. Anyone found guilty of cyberbullying will face a year in jail, and/or a $500 fine. The full text of the new law can be found here, and appears to only be related to minors. Thanks to cageymaru for the story.

Officials say the bill is modeled after bills in other states and named after Grace McComas, a 15-year old Maryland teen who took her life after a case of cyberbullying.
 
No one likes their kid to get bullied in any form. Especially when it makes them have depression and such.

However 30yrs ago you didn't get bullied online.... You got bullied in person. You had that crap told to your face.

You either dealt with it or hid from it. Depending on what type of person you are.

Yeah... Bullying is bad. But put on your damned pants and deal with it. It'll make you a better person in the end and a stronger person mentally as well.

Hey.... That kid just bullied me for the 5th time. I think he needs to be put in jail. Wtf is this world coming too?
Holy Fuck...!
 
More vague laws that will be abused. The definition of "Cyberbullying" isn't nearly clear enough for me to even consider a law like this for a second anything but a gross overreach of power. Hell on this forum alone there have been many instances of stories that caught national attention that many were crying for the persons head, but never should have been considered cyberbullying in the first place.
 
Oh look they reworked criminal harassment law so it could be applied to the online space.

They could have just updated criminal harassment law instead. Calling it a "cyberbullying" law just sounds so lame.

Dekoth-E- said:
More vague laws that will be abused. The definition of "Cyberbullying" isn't nearly clear enough for me to even consider a law like this for a second anything but a gross overreach of power. Hell on this forum alone there have been many instances of stories that caught national attention that many were crying for the persons head, but never should have been considered cyberbullying in the first place.
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The proposal isn't vague, don't fall for the sycophant wire headline. The proposal defines "Cyberbullying" and attaches the same penalties as other forms of harassment.
 
I'm ok with this. Especially as cyberbullying would be super easy to prove. As Twisted Kidney said, this just attaches to the same harassment laws that already exist. I hope that in addition to fines and orders of protection, etc - they also add mandatory therapy for the offenders.
 
Hey all you, bully me, I'm not just gonna sue you for a bizllion bucks, I'm gonna make you go to jail too!
But fun aside, children don't always have the ability to deal with this and with the number of bad parents out there who don't know enough to cut their kids off social media it it's upsetting said kids, well maybe a little threat of time in the pokey and fine might get some of the worst offenders to go away.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Oh look they reworked criminal harassment law so it could be applied to the online space.

They could have just updated criminal harassment law instead. Calling it a "cyberbullying" law just sounds so lame.



The proposal isn't vague, don't fall for the sycophant wire headline. The proposal defines "Cyberbullying" and attaches the same penalties as other forms of harassment.
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I don't care about the headline, I care about the fact that cyberbullying itself is very poorly defined. The proposal in what it defines as cyberbullying is unbelievably vague. It is a bullshit law that over reaches for power all in the name of "protect the children".
 
They should pass something like this in Washington and it should include adults.
 
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but mean texts will land you in jail.

Hmm, that really doesn't rhyme, plus it sounds lame.
 
Crosshairs said:
In 2016 West Virginia had the highest rate of opioid-related overdose deaths in the United States―perhaps they should worry about that a little more....
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The issue here is that the cost for opiate treatment is almost 100% absorbed by the state and insurance. The price for a single rehab session can go anywhere from $2,000-$20,000 a week. Now that the patient has been normalized, we need to have regular doctor visits, lets say weekly for the first few months, including urine testing to ensure the patient is A. not using more opiates, and B. actually taking the medicine (suboxone) that is preventing them from relapsing immediately. Now we need to buy the suboxone, which costs $25-50 a day depending on the dose, which has to be covered under state insurance. Along with the medical attention, our patient also needs weekly counceling from a mental health specialist, which can run anywhere from $40-$400 an hour, again to be covered by state insurance. Just to be easy lets say 50,000 per patient for the first year of opiate related treatment, and thats only for a program with a better success rate than others, since some people will relapse and have to restart from scratch with rehab again.

The cost of an overdose death is nothing, so at the moment most lawmakers seem fine with that compromise.

While I agree with you 100% that they are batshit crazy passing laws about cyber bullying when thousands of families are being decimated, if not destroyed for ever by something that could be substantially curbed through treatment, no one wants to cut other areas to find the money, and put their own seat at the popular table at risk.

Since Cyber bullying won't cost anything, and shuts up the loudest voices, it's an easy way to make it look like they are doing their jobs while the status quo marches on.

As someone who's been affected by the opiate crisis, it's really insulting that this is what our elected officials find critical to change in their society.
 
I just don't trust it. When schools started anti-bullying policies and zero tolerance polices, the people hurt most were the victims of bullies. Children aren't stupid, despite what adults might think. They'll find ways around this.
 
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Odd considering my teens have know for years not only how they should conduct themselves online while also knowing how to block and or report people who are of a more toxic nature. They know such actions will force their friends to tighten ranks and either the aggressor fades away or their issue is brought to the forefront in public where it can be dealt with. If a child is to young or fragile to be able to handle toxic people online then they should not be allowed online to begin with- it's called parenting!
 
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Nytegard said:
I just don't trust it. When schools started anti-bullying policies and zero tolerance polices, the people hurt most were the victims of bullies. Children aren't stupid, despite what adults might think. They'll find ways around this.
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Proof?
 
(a) It is unlawful for a person to use a computer or computer network to:


(1) Cause a minor or another person to reasonably fear for the safety of the minor by:

(C) Repeatedly following the minor online or into an electronic chat room;


(3) Disseminate unauthorized data pertaining to the minor with the malicious intent to psychologically torment or harass the minor; or


(4) Make any statement, whether true or false, intending to immediately provoke, or that is likely to provoke, any third party to stalk or harass a minor.
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This isn't ill defined at all and leaves no room for overly broad subjective interpretations.
 
I live here and worked as a Medic for a while. My county battles with another county in North Carolina for the HEP-C capitol of the world and the Fattest county in America. We are happy to be #1 at something. Fact is that there are more that twice the amount of opioids shipped to the 3 southern counties than prescribed across the rest of the USA. It's hard to find good weed, well not that hard but opioids are basically in the candy machines. Oxycotin is the cure all med of choice at every medical center and we watch people die here every day from drug overdose. Something must be done and my thought is why does the GOV let big pharma ship that much here and why is BIG pharma not paying for our recovery. I guess they are just stupid hillbillies who need to die off is the national sentiment.

Now we need to make the bullying is school stop, it is horrible. We are so concerned about taking peoples guns and not fixing the real issue. These wankers march on washington to protest guns then go back to class and pick on the weaker students, they are the problem.
 
Meeho said:
This isn't ill defined at all and leaves no room for overly broad subjective interpretations.
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You clearly haven't been in a court of law and listened to actual lawyers arguing of you think that isn't ill defined. I'll bet $1000 right now that in the next 10 years at least one person goes to jail for this law for acts that make them an asshole but far from a bully.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
I don't care about the headline, I care about the fact that cyberbullying itself is very poorly defined. The proposal in what it defines as cyberbullying is unbelievably vague. It is a bullshit law that over reaches for power all in the name of "protect the children".
Click to expand...

You must think that every "not vague" law is 30,000 pages long. That proposal specifically spells out the actions required to constitute legal "Cyberbullying". It's far more specific and direct than a great many of the laws we live under right now. Don't confuse the need to billions of pages per law for the refinement of legal precedent, laws on the books all go through a long process of push and pull in courts to establish legal precedent. Legal precedent is what really affects the court system. You'll never get a law the spells out which letters need to be capitalised in an online insult for it to count as bullying, that detail is utterly unnecessary. More importantly laws that are thousands of pages long are the easiest laws to break, like the tax code, make them complicated enough and there will be loopholes aplenty. The legal system doesn't work on pedantry, there are no summary convictions for any law, there's a legal process that has an incredibly high standard of evidence in criminal cases that is meant to leave each and every case up to the court system as individual cases. It's the reason so many "criminals" that were already convicted in the court of public opinion go free. Shit, there are whole television shows about legal conspiracy theories where people the public didn't like "got away with it".

The complex system we use is so much better than just kneeling folks on the side of the road and shooting them. Which is what so many seem people think happens whenever a new law in enacted.

In fact, this law is so specific and so limited in scope it's pointlessly easy to evade.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
You clearly haven't been in a court of law and listened to actual lawyers arguing of you think that isn't ill defined. I'll bet $1000 right now that in the next 10 years at least one person goes to jail for this law for acts that make them an asshole but far from a bully.
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cee2e2017554de6da437cb4c37dfb65be82a6da7949a56fc24e9ad41e00b84b7.jpg
 
Screw all you people complaining about this. You're probably an asshole. It's a damn shame we have to make the punishment for being an asshole so severe. I guess that's the only way some people will ever get taught a life lesson. Being an asshole is 100 times more expensive than being nice.
 
Liver said:
Proof?
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Ahh...the whole "parents forget what really happened to them as kids the moment they have a kid because that would force to realize they were a-holes and realizing their kid will be one too but refuse to acknowledge it because of how cute their precious bundle of joy is"
 
Trepidati0n said:
Ahh...the whole "parents forget what really happened to them as kids the moment they have a kid because that would force to realize they were a-holes and realizing their kid will be one too but refuse to acknowledge it because of how cute their precious bundle of joy is"
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Is that a study, paper or article you can quote or link?
 
it starts with bullying carries on to cyber bullying day in and day out nonstop. the bullied are typecast by their peers and eventually the person breaks and takes a gun to school with a care for whom is hurt.
 
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Liver said:
Is that a study, paper or article you can quote or link?
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If your only capability of winning an argument is by making other people prove their point of view while you do not....you have lost the argument.
 
How do you punish someone from West Virginia ? Can't send them there, they already live there. Send them to Florida maybe ?
 
Bullying online and offline are totally real. It affects the person all the way to adulthood. Just consider how you would feel if everyone fucked with you day in and day out. Just imagine for a bit...
 
but but words hurt...
kids shouldn't be having unlimited uncontrolled internet access anyways. go out and play dammit!
 
theplaidfad said:
Screw all you people complaining about this. You're probably an asshole. It's a damn shame we have to make the punishment for being an asshole so severe. I guess that's the only way some people will ever get taught a life lesson. Being an asshole is 100 times more expensive than being nice.
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I am an asshole, but that doesn't make me wrong. I'm an asshole because I got bullied far longer and harder in school than any of these little delicate snowflakes will ever experience. I am absolutely in the camp that bullying is a problem that needs to be dealt with. That however doesn't make me supportive of nonsense laws that accomplish nothing and makes people afraid to be normal. Cyberbullying is for the most part, a bullshit problem. I would further argue that most people wouldn't know what real bullying is because they were never on the receiving end of it. I got ridiculed every single day in school, I was so ostracized that out of a graduating class of nearly 300 I would call 3 people friend and the others I haven't had contact with in 25 years and could not possibly care less what happened to them. I was physically abused for years on end, beat up, thrown into trash cans, shoved down halls you name it. This all lasted until early HS where I finally got so fed up with it that I finally fought back and hospitalized the kid. While this stopped the physical violence against me, it did nothing more than alienate me further from the rest of the people. This wasn't just an at school problem either, I had the exact same problems in my neighborhood and at church where I practically lived as my parents were super religious. Getting sent to "Jesus Camp" 3 years in a row was a particular joy because the kids were just as shitty there except it got combined with a bunch of super judgmental adults determined to brain wash you for jesus. All this and the shit icing for me was an abusive father who instead of asking why I was lashing out, chose instead to beat me with a piece of PVC pipe nearly every day since I had grown immune to the belt. So no, I had absolutely no where I could retreat except the woods behind my house where I spent every possible moment I could to try and avoid human contact as all human contact for me was extremely negative. Now that may read to you like the exact type of scenario that would breed a school shooter or someone completely dysfunctional and it is. How did I turn out? Well I'm as asshole sure, but I never entertained the notion of shooting people (Because I'm not a mentally ill psychopath), I've never had trouble socializing with people who treated me with respect and dignity, I got married, I've had two kids and while I do support (spanking) I know the difference between punishment and abuse and have rarely in 12 years raised a hand to my kids. How did this all happen with my background? Simple..I chose to be better. I made the choice that I wasn't going to use my shitty life as an excuse to be a shitty person. So that is why I tend to think very little of people who do. So sure I am an asshole as I don't sugar coat my opinions and I think far too many people are frankly giant pussies who don't have a clue what hardship is. I think that because I know what hardship is and I chose to not use that as an excuse.
 
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Just because it's tagged with the stereotypical/TV trope/charged term "bullying" doesn't change the fact that it's harassment. That often leads to much worse things in some contexts. I grew up in an area where vigilantism was common and school had a very friendly atmosphere as a result. Rare instances of bullying were met with extreme violence. It is probably a good thing to take these issues more seriously, regardless of whether or not you like to imagine the victim or culprit is just a little pussy.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
You clearly haven't been in a court of law and listened to actual lawyers arguing of you think that isn't ill defined. I'll bet $1000 right now that in the next 10 years at least one person goes to jail for this law for acts that make them an asshole but far from a bully.
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Considering how many people have been in jail forever for crimes they were eventually found not having committed, duh.
 
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