Boundaries To Be Clarified in The Legal Governance of Cyberbullying

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-378-8_37How to use a DOI?

Keywords

cyberbullying; freedom of speech; legal governance; boundaries

Abstract

The Internet has become a crucial platform for public discourse, along with the rapid advancement of information technology. Both formal and informal organizations tend to actively express their views through the Internet. However, the widespread of the internet has also intensified cyberbullying. In response to this growing issue, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Guideline on Dealing with Cases Involving Cyberbullying in September 2023. Based on current practices in addressing cyberbullying, we clarify the boundaries between freedom of speech and cyberbullying in drafting related legal governance documents. This is to avoid inappropriate restrictions on justified freedom of speech and avoid the rising cyberbullying under the guise of freedom of speech. Besides, we should define clear boundaries between civil and criminal penalties to avoid excessive criminal punishment enforcement or lack of it. Additionally, we also aim to precisely divide the responsibilities between creators of cyberbullying content and their followers. Severe penalties will be enforced for creators with effective deterrents for followers. At the lawsuit procedural level, we should set clear boundaries between private and public prosecution. We should provide sufficient legal support for victims and include criminal actions that severely harm social order or national interests as public prosecution cases. By doing this, we can divide the responsibilities of cyberspace administration and network service providers more clearly, strengthen the monitoring responsibility of Internet platforms, and ensure cyberbullying is governed according to related rules and laws. Therefore, a healthier online environment can be built.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Xiangyu Ma
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/03/31
TI  - Boundaries To Be Clarified in The Legal Governance of Cyberbullying
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 4th International Conference on Public Art and Human Development (ICPAHD 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 322
EP  - 334
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-378-8_37
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-378-8_37
ID  - Ma2025
ER  -