The State Duma is developing a bill to protect you and me from cyberbullying. I am glad that after the introduction of amendments to the Constitution and after the increase in constitutional powers, the deputies are not engaged in geopolitics, as many feared, but in our internal affairs.
A very unusual story. It has always seemed that the Internet is the same space as offline, say. That is, for me, as for all normal, well-mannered people (at least, I want to believe in it), you cannot do the same on the Internet as in life. But anonymity and some kind of absolutely imaginary permissiveness, impunity have led in the end to the fact that any troll, reptile and abuser can hide behind an avatar and afford anything. Just because he will get nothing for it. At least until now.
On the street, such a person will be ashamed and even afraid to say something rude and even more so to persecute someone, but behind closed doors at home - please, and even when separating "space and time" by a screen - so in general. Who will get it? Who will say what? I am the master. I am omnipotent.
At the moment, cyberbullying is dangerous precisely because of this lack of written legislation. On the one hand, they are imprisoned for reposting, and on the other, why are they not punishing those who organize real harassment on the Internet? As a result, as an Internet user, you walk on thin ice in a completely unknown space, wondering where you might come from. And the most interesting thing is that the one to whom it should have arrived, nothing arrives.
We see how the same opposition attacks government officials, security officials, government officials, people of other values and views and continues to do so. A horde of trolls, nits and weaklings. I wanted to write that “it’s good that nobody has yet been brought to a nervous breakdown,” and then I realized that I know several people who have suffered greatly from such attacks. So this thesis is questionable, but blessing everyone is alive.
It's just that the bullers choose strong enough people as their target. Or these people become strong after such and such attacks. But the organizers of the persecution should not remain unpunished.
It is good that an understandable norm will be spelled out, so that it is not commonplace, that there are not even demonstrative cases, but real ones - there will be such good, there is no need to be unfounded, there are thousands of cases of persecution. And, of course, they concern not only political opponents and not only the opposition, but also ordinary, including non-public, people, but for some reason it is in such a bundle where the opposition is engaged in bullying, it seems to me that the law on cyberbullying will be most relevant.
You know, this is like with dirt - you need to declare about it, you need to clean it up, clean it up, throw it away. Bullying is the same dirt. And if we continue to remain silent and do not regulate the space in the network in any way, then, in fact, we will verify this behavior, give a signal that this behavior is normal, which means that we will become partly accomplices. Dirt must be called mud.
As a person who has faced bullying more than once and who has dealt with the online code of conduct, dealt with various ethical aspects of this issue, it is clear that the bill should not be about morality, but about very clear, calculated positions. This is not a question of education and teaching, this is a specific legal, legal, practical story, where for a person who does not understand that bullying in any form is bad, that his behavior is self-affirmation at the expense of oppressing the weak (in order to rise) or, conversely, the strong (in order to rise even more) is compensation for one's own fears and complexes that were not worked out in puberty.
It is also a story about how the experiences of the persecuted person will no longer be depreciated and he will finally be able to receive proper support and protection, including an injunction against contact from the provocateur of the persecution.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.