Invasion Of Privacy

Although cyberbullying is one of the biggest factors for teen suicide, it can take place almost anywhere at anytime, and it can happen to anyone. Unfortunately, this happened to Tom Mullaney, an intelligent, joyful fifteen-year-old boy with no history of being bullied. But all it took to shred his life apart was social media, six people, and threatening messages. One night, Tom received twelve threatening Facebook messages from six of his classmates. Later that night, Tom’s father found him in the shed at the back of the garden, hanged. Tom was cyber-lynched to suicide. Tom’s story is just one of the thousand of stories that talks about the impact that cyberbullying has on young teens. Although it could be seen as an invasion of privacy,

schools should monitor students activity on social networking sites to prevent it from being deadly and or fatal for young teens.
There are some people who argue that cyber bullying could be seen as an invasion of privacy.

In the article “Invasion of Privacy”, it says “The important issue here is whether the victim had a legitimate expectation of privacy when he was photographed. While this would seem to make criminal invasion of privacy statutes ineffective against actions such as photos taken in high school locker rooms or hallways, there may be other instances in which it could be used to prosecute cyberbullies”. It talks about if the people had the expectations of keeping their conversation private, and where or not they will let people know about it. This means if they let people know about it with their consent, then it is technically not an invasion of privacy. Another factor that proves that it isn’t a invasion of privacy is that it depends what people decided to do with the information they receive. However, in the article “Bully increases the Risk of Teen Suicide”, it states that “In the wake of deaths attributed to bullying, school districts similarly say the bullying occurred without the knowledge of school officials.” If school officials say that the bullying happened without their awareness, then some people may say that the bully

never invaded their privacy, but when in reality they did by not giving consent to tell school officials. Not only is the bully restricting what the victim can and can’t say, but also they are limiting the power of the school officials. In addition, in the article “Federal Law Requires Schools to Protect Children from Cyberbullying”, Wendy J. Murphy, an adjunct professor at the New England School of Law in Boston claims, “Although cyberbullying frequently occurs off-campus, the harmful impact is often experienced in school where it interferes with the victim's education. While school speech is protected, harassing speech is not.” Some people will say that is an invasion of privacy, but if harassing someone verbally it’s not protected, which means it would no longer be an invasion of privacy, which would allow schools to be able to monitor without invading anyone’s privacy. It talks about how most bullying would take place off of school grounds, but interferes with the student’s education. The same laws would still apply, allowing schools to monitor the situation. There are always two sides to any argument, but School monitoring social media can drastically lower the percentage of teen suicide.
One reason why schools should monitor social networking is to make it have a drastic decrease on the rates of teen suicide, and to help students know that they can feel safe or comforted.

In the article, “Cyberbullying Creates Dangerous Stress and Anxiety”, they talk to a victim of cyberbullying. The victim told them, “First, many targets report feeling depressed, sad, angry, and frustrated. As one teenager stated: ‘It makes me hurt both physically and mentally. It scares me and takes away all my confidence. It makes me feel sick and worthless.’” If the victim talked about how he felt depressed and worthless, but if the schools monitored the problemed, then they could have comforted them or helped them with their problems. The school monitored this incident, then they would be able to handle this situation without the person being hurt. While some may argue that schools monitoring the bullying is an invasion of privacy, Tracy Brown wrote about some of the laws about cyberbullying. It says, “In Arkansas, a law was recently passed that allows school officials to take action against cyber bullies even if the bully did not take place on school grounds” (63) (“Cyberbullying: Online Safety”).With this law passed, then it would actually allow schools to monitor without invading any privacy. This would not only pass the invasion of privacy, but it would also tremendously help students with both bullying, and cyberbullying. If laws similar to this were passed nationwide, then it

could help numerous teens with their problems/ emotions. In the article, “Bullying Increases the Risk of Teen Suicide”, it states that, “The National Center for Educational Statistics, in 2009, said nearly 1 in 3 students between the ages of 12 and 18 reported being bullied in school. Eight years earlier, only 14 percent of that population said they had experienced bullying.” One in three students doesn’t seem that big, but if you put that number in a school environment or class, then almost half of the people will experience some type of bullying. Schools monitoring social media would then cause the rates of bullying would decrease excessively decline. With the help of schools monitoring social networks, then students would also improved their grades and education.
To prevent cyberbullying from being deadly and fatal for young teens, then schools should start monitoring social networking without it being an invasion of privacy. If schools did start monitoring social networking, then many things would change. The rates of teen suicide would start to decrease, students wouldn’t feel alone and worthless, and students would soon be starting to improve their grades along with their education in school. This wouldn’t only be beneficial for the students, but it would also help the schools and their education system. Monitors wouldn’t only make students have better grades, or more confidence, but it would also make the school environment a whole lot safer. Having monitors and supervisors on social media to help people with bullying or abuse wouldn’t only help Tom with the abuse he received that one night, but it would have also prevented him, and millions of other people with committing suicide.