The harm matches conduct the law already punishes offline

The argument

Those who want cyberbullying criminalised argue that the law has already accepted the principle at stake. Persistent harassment, threats, intimidation and the circulation of intimate images are offences when they happen in a street, a workplace or a school corridor, and they are offences because of the fear and distress they cause rather than because of where they occurred. Proponents argue that the same conduct conducted through a phone is not a lesser version of it, and that the only reason it is treated differently is that the statutes were written before the conduct took this form. They argue the online setting often makes matters worse rather than better. Abuse delivered to a personal device reaches the target at home, in the evening and in bed, so the refuge that once existed at the end of the school day is gone. An audience can be assembled instantly, material can be copied faster than it can be deleted, and a humiliation that would once have faded becomes a permanent record that follows the victim between schools and into employment. Proponents point to the withdrawal, school refusal and self-harm described by families and teachers as evidence that the injury is of a kind the criminal law exists to address. From there the argument is one of consistency. If a person who followed a child for months shouting abuse would be prosecuted, proponents argue, it is arbitrary that the same person doing the same thing by message is dealt with only by a school policy. They accept that the offence must be drawn to catch sustained and targeted conduct rather than a single unkind remark, and argue that this is ordinary drafting work of the sort the law of harassment already does, not a reason to leave the conduct outside the criminal law altogether.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Opponents reply that the comparison holds only for conduct already criminal, which needs no new offence: a threat sent by message is a threat, and intimate images shared without consent are covered by their own law. What a cyberbullying offence would add is the remainder, which is mockery, exclusion and rumour, and criminalising those would reach speech that is unkind rather than unlawful. They also argue the permanence point cuts both ways, since a criminal record acquired at school age is itself permanent, and most of the conduct described is committed by children. On their account the drafting problem is not routine: an offence narrow enough to avoid catching ordinary argument would catch little that is not already illegal.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Those offences already apply online, so the premise supports prosecuting threats and image-sharing under existing law rather than creating a cyberbullying offence. [Rejecting P2] Permanence cuts both ways, since a criminal record acquired at school age is also permanent and most of the conduct described is committed by children. [Rejecting P3] The drafting is not routine: an offence narrow enough to avoid catching ordinary argument, satire and criticism would catch little that is not already unlawful. [Rejecting C] What the argument establishes is that serious online abuse should be prosecuted under the offences that cover it, not that bullying as such should become a crime.