CYBERBULLYING

Bullying
Bullying implies an intention to harm, intimidate or coerce an act when there is an
imbalance of power and the act is a cause for distress and provocation. Bullying
may be verbal, physical or mental in nature and a whole spectrum of acts can
constitute bullying. It can become a source of trauma for children and young
adults and remain with them their whole lives, often leading to mental distress
and depression, and in extreme situations, even suicide.
What is central to bullying is an imbalance of power dynamics. Bullies are
usually physically stronger than the people they bully. It can be described as a
show of strength to undermine or denigrate someone’s dignity to gain sadistic
pleasure out of it. 
What most people don’t know, however, is that many people who show violent
behaviour and engage in bullying, themselves have low self esteem and are
insecure and anxious.
Bullying is a common phenomenon in schools and universities throughout the
country and there has been a concerted effort to put an end to bullying and
ragging in our educational institutions.
WHAT IS CYBER BULLYING?

Cyberbullying is used as an umbrella term to describe many different kinds of online

abuse including but not limited to harassment, doxing, reputation attacks  and 
revenge porn.
To constitute cyberbullying – the perpetrator uses technology such as computers,
consoles, cell phones and/or any other device with access to the internet or 
social media to harass, stalk or abuse another person by instigating or participating in
online hate campaigns. Although most media coverage indicates that cyberbullying is
a problem exclusive to social media – it is also very problematic within the 
online gaming community.
Victims of cyberbullying often don’t know who are behind the accounts that are
abusing them. Sometimes the victim can suspect who the bullies are, but are unable to
prove it because trolling and bullying accounts often make use of everybody’s
important right to anonymity – other times, complete strangers become aware of
cyberbullying taking place and fall into a ‘mob mentality’ by contributing and
amplifying the bullying rather than helping the victim.
Cyberbullying is not exclusive to any specific demographic – everybody is now at risk
of being a cyberbullying victim in some way.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF CYBERBULLYING

There are many ways that someone can fall victim to or experience cyberbullying
when using technology and the internet. Some common methods of cyberbullying
are:

Harassment – When someone is being harassed online, they are being subjected
to a string of abusive messages or efforts to contact them by one person or a group
of people. People can be harassed through social media as well as through their
mobile phone (texting and calling) and email. Most of the contact the victim will
receive will be of a malicious or threatening nature.
Doxing – Doxing is when an individual or group of people distribute another
person’s personal information such as their home address, cell phone number or
place of work onto social media or public forums without that person’s permission
to do so. Doxing can cause the victim to feel extremely anxious and it can affect
their mental health.
Cyberstalking – Similar to harassment, cyberstalking involves the perpetrator
making persistent efforts to gain contact with the victim, however this differs
from harassment – more commonly than not, people will cyberstalk another
person due to deep feelings towards that person, whether they are positive or
negative. Someone who is cyberstalking is more likely to escalate their stalking
into the offline world.
Revenge porn – Revenge porn, is when sexually explicit or compromising
images of a person have been distributed onto social media or shared on
revenge porn specific websites without their permission to do so. Normally,
images of this nature are posted by an ex-partner, who does it with the purpose
of causing humiliation and damage to their reputation.
Swatting – Swatting is when someone calls emergency responders with claims
of dangerous events taking place at an address. People swat others with the
intention of causing panic and fear when armed response units arrive at their
home or place of work. Swatting is more prevalent within the 
online gaming community .
Corporate attacks – In the corporate world, attacks can be used to send
masses of information to a website in order to take the website down and make
it non-functional. Corporate attacks can affect public confidence, 
damaging businesses reputations  and in some instances, force them to collapse.
Account hacking – Cyberbullies can hack into a victim’s social
media accounts and post abusive or damaging messages. This can be
particularly damaging for brands and public figures.
False profiles – Fake social media accounts can be setup with the
intention of damaging a person or brand’s reputation. This can easily
be done by obtaining publicly available images of the victim and
making the account appear as authentic as possible.
Slut shaming – Slut shaming is when someone is called out and
labelled as a “slut” for something that they have done previously or
even just how they dress. This kind of cyberbullying often occurs
when someone has been sexting another person and their images or
conversations become public. It is seen more commonly within young
people and teenagers but anyone can fall victim to being slut shamed.
Cyberbullying in India
 Cyberbullying is one of the major issues, which has shown up in reason years in India due to increasing of
availability of data services and presence in social media. The main victim to these bullying cases is the
student community. One of the sensational incidents which had occurred in recent years was the suicide of
an MBBS Student in Kerala as she was provoked by the inappropriate comments in her Facebook post by
one of her collegemates. Also, another incident which is to be mentioned here is the cyberbullying which
occurred to the political campaign in online platform started by a student of Lady Shri Ram College.

 These incidents showed up only in the recent years when internet had become a tool accessible for each and
every person in the country. The Raghavan Committee report recommended that teachers and the principal
shall be held liable if any act of bullying takes place in the school premises. This was stated in the case of
University of Kerala v. Council, Principal’s colleges, Kerala & others. In order to discipline the behaviour
of students and evict the cases of bullying and abuse within the college premises UGC (University Grants
Commission) brought uniform anti-ragging rules to be followed by the universities and colleges across the
country and they could even forfeit their recognition if they fail to abide by the anti-ragging rules which
have been legislated by the UGC.

 The Supreme Court bench has also recommended the Indian government to legislate a law similar to
Children Online Privacy Act which was legislated in the USA to guard against the cyberbullying of minors.
Similarly, India needs such legislation to protect women and children from bullying and abuse. But still,
Cyber platform has been used as a ground for occurrence of various cybercrime which is mainly due to
inefficient protection provided by the service provider and the officials.
Cyber bullying Laws in India
In India, there is no specific provision under any legislation to deal with the issue of cyberbullying. However, there
are various provisions in the existing laws which can somehow be related to the various forms of cyberbullying.
Among other existing laws the role played by the Information Technology Act however partial is very significant.
The IT Act is enacted to primarily deal with matters related to e-commerce which is evident from its preamble.
However, it has been interpreted by the courts to deal in such cyberspace issue relating to cyberbullying,
cyberstalking, etc.

Chapter 11 of the Information Technology Amendment Act consists of offences, where there is no clear definition
of the offence of cyberbullying. Still, the act provides remedies against the same under Section 66 and Section 67.
Some key provisions of the IT Act which deals with cyberbullying
Sec. 66A that deals with sending offensive messages through communication service, etc
S.66A provided an opportunity to genuine victims of cyber harassment to obtain immediate relief against content
that may be insulting or injurious in nature, abrogation of which has now made Police authorities toothless in dealing
with the growing menace of cyberbullying. No doubt S.66A could be used arbitrarily, but by doing away with the
provision on account of its potential misuse, the Court has also discarded a remedial mechanism available to the
common man to counter actual cyber offences.

The Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal and Ors. v. Union of India , struck down Section 66A of the Information &
Technology Act, 2000. The ruling which is being lauded by the common man and legal luminaries alike, found the
Cyberlaw provision to be open-ended, vague and unconstitutional owing to the restriction it caused to the Indian
citizens’ right to free speech.
Sec.66C that deals with Identity Theft
Sec.66D that deals with Cheating by personation by using the computer resource
Sec.66E that deals with Violation of privacy
Sec.67B that deals with Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in any sexually
explicit act, etc. in electronic form
Sec.72 that deals with Breach of confidentiality and privacy

Remedies under IPC provided remedies against a defamatory act or an act outraging the modesty of the women.
The amendment of the Act in 2013 introduced other offences and also made cyberstalking as an offence. The
following provision of IPC in some way or the other deals with cyberbullying,

Sec. 292A – Printing, selling, advertising grossly indecent or scurrilous matter or matter intended for blackmail
Sec. 354 A – Making sexually coloured remarks, guilty of the offence of sexual harassment
Under Section 354C, a cyberbully can be punished for taking pictures and can be held liable under this section
along with other sections if he transmits or publishes the same. Sec. 354D – Stalking and contacting, or
attempting to contact a woman
Sec. 499 – Sending defamatory messages by e-mail
Sec. 500 – email Abuse
Sec. 503 – sending threatening messages through email
Sec. 509 – Word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman

Sec. 507 – Criminal intimidation by an anonymous communication
By considering the present scenario of the society, many offences still need to find a place under the IT Act as
the developmental and innovative reach of the technology is unimaginably fast. Offences like cyberbullying,
chat room abuses, watching pornographic websites etc are outside the purview of IT Act even though some of
these problems are attempted to be tackled with existing provisions and other laws.
Conclusion
Although there are laws to penalise bullying, only a few victims and
their families report instances of cyberbullying. A majority prefer to
stay silent and hope that things will improve on their own.
Cyber-bullying is, arguably, a milder offence when compared to
murder and organized crime. Thus, if convicted, a cyber-bully would
be housed and disciplined with other juveniles in conflict with the law
who may be habitual offenders or may have committed heinous crimes.
This may jeopardize the cyberbully’s safety or influence him to go
deeper into crime and become a habitual offender. Thus, criminalizing
minors for cyber-bullying can be counterproductive. To bring about a
change in the mindset, there are some key issues that policymakers
should consider. For example, the policymakers should adopt child-
friendly policies which explain why cyberbullying is dangerous to
children as well as to society.