Level: Grades 9 to 12
Duration: Two hours

Overview

In this lesson, students learn about and discuss the legal aspects of cyberbullying. They review a variety of hypothetical scenarios and a case study, and they consider the seriousness of the situations, who is legally responsible, what action (if any) should be taken and by whom. To determine this, students will seek answers to the following questions: How does cyberbullying differ from offline bullying? What aspects of a cyberbullying case make it a cause for legal action? What determines whether it is a civil or a criminal matter? How should rights to freedom of expression, guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, be balanced against rights to security of person? When and how are schools responsible for cyberbullying cases?

Students will also be introduced to two main sources of information on criminal law: the online Criminal Code and the Canada Gazette. The latter publishes laws and regulations that are to be introduced or amended, allowing citizens to participate in the legislative system by commenting on the proposed laws or changes.

Learning Outcomes

Students will be able to:

• analyze scenarios and case studies, and make judgments on them
• consider and discuss factors that affect whether online actions are, in fact, cyberbullying
• demonstrate knowledge of legal terms and definitions related to cyberbullying
• demonstrate knowledge of responsible citizenship and ethical behaviour online
• argue and support an opinion

Preparation and Materials

• Read the following backgrounder for teachers:
  • Cyberbullying: Rights and Responsibilities
    
    
• Photocopy the following handouts:
  • Cyberbullying Scenarios
  • Cyberbullying Case Study
  • Cyberbullying and the Law Fact Sheet

Procedure

Distribute the Cyberbullying Scenarios handout. Ask students to quickly read each hypothetical scenario and rank each one from 1 to 5, where:

1 = Totally acceptable and appropriate

2 = Possibly wrong, but no action needs to be taken

3 = Wrong, and school authorities or Internet service providers should take action

4 = Wrong, and civil action could be taken by the target or the target’s parents

5 = Wrong, and criminal charges should be pressed

Class Discussion

Read through each of the scenarios with students and ask how they ranked each one. Some will likely have obvious and unanimous rankings (i.e. the negative review of the band is a 1), but most will involve some debate. Ask students to explain what makes some scenarios more or less acceptable than others, especially those that are closely related (2, 4, 5 and 13, for instance, or 8 and 10).

For several scenarios, the answer will probably be “it depends.” This is good: push the class to consider what the answer depends on, to bring out further aspects of the issue.

Major issues that should come out of this discussion are:

• Defamation – harm done to a person’s reputation, and slander (spoken) versus libel (written)
• Whether a statement is seen or heard by a third party or parties
• Whether the identity of the target is clear
• Anonymity – does it make the perpetrator more or less responsible?
• Harassment – what does it involve?
• Duty to provide a safe work or study environment – what roles do schools and teachers play?
• Right to freedom of expression – what limits should be placed on it?
• Right to security of person – should people be protected from written or verbal attacks?
• Defences and confounding factors – what makes a possibly libellous statement okay?
• Truth – when the statement is accurate
• Fair comment - a legitimate journalistic intent
• “The reasonable person” - how offensive does something have to be before it becomes libellous?

Distribute the handout Cyberbullying and the Law Fact Sheet, and review it with the class. Where appropriate, return to the Cyberbullying Scenarios that the class discussed as examples (for instance, in cases where the class gave a rank of 3, 4 or 5, ask what action should be taken).

Case Study Exercise

Distribute the handout Cyberbullying Case Study, and review it with the class. Divide the class into six groups and assign each group to a role as follows:

• Perpetrator
• Target
• Parents of target
• Bystanders (people who know the target and saw the Web site)
• Teacher of perpetrator and target
• Police

Ask each group to analyze the case from their assigned point of view, considering the issues that came up in the class discussion and that were covered in the Cyberbullying and the Law Fact Sheet. Give each group an additional question to consider:

• Scott: How can you defend your actions?
• Colin: Was what you did cyberbullying as well? If so, how can you accuse Scott? If not, why not?
• Colin’s parents: What should school and civil authorities do about this case? Why?
• Other members of Scott’s Facebook group: What can you do, and should you have done, in this case? Why?
• Teacher: What can you do, and should you have done, in this case? Why?
• Police: Should criminal charges be laid in this case? If so, which ones and why? If not, prepare an explanation of why not for the target’s parents.

After each group has shared its analysis, ask the class to find a consensus on how the case should be handled.

Final Activity

Have each group research the legislation on cyberbullying and determine whether this type of bullying needs to be addressed specifically in law:

• Instruct each group to research sections of the Criminal Code to find which ones currently apply to cyberbullying. (You may wish to direct them to Section 264, Criminal Harassment; Section 264.1, Uttering Threats; Sections 298-311, -312, -315, Defamatory Libel; and Section 319, Public Incitement of Hatred. Students may use a print copy of the Code or may access it online at www.efc.ca/pages/law/cc/cc.html.)
  
• Explain to students that any new laws or proposed changes to laws must be published in the Canada Gazette, a print and online publication of the federal government that has been published since 1841. To see whether any changes to the Code are currently being considered, direct students to the Canada Gazette search page (http://www.gazette.gc.ca/search-recherche-eng.html) and instruct them to search for the various sections of the Code that they found applied to cyberbullying.

Ask each group to prepare a report (this may be written, presented in class or both) that provides answers to the following questions:

• What criminal legislation currently applies to cyberbullying?
• Do you feel it is adequate? Why or why not?
• Should a charge of cyberbullying or online harassment be added to the Criminal Code? Why or why not?
• Should schools or Internet service providers be required to actively block and remove cyberbullying material? Why or why not?
• Is criminal prosecution the best reaction to cyberbullying? Why or why not?