What is online or cyber bullying?
What is online or cyber bullying?
Online or cyber bullying is using technology such as social media, emails, phone calls, text messages, etc to intimidate, threaten, harass, menace or be offensive.
Some examples of online bullying include:
- sending abusive texts and emails or social media messages
- imitating others online
- posting unkind messages or images
- threatening others
Online bullying can be a criminal offence:
The offence of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence, is a Commonwealth offence and is contained in section 474.17 the Criminal Code Act 1995 (CTH) which states:
a person is guilty of an offence if:
- the person uses a carriage service; and
- the person does so in a way (whether by the method of use or the content of a communication, or both) that reasonable persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive.
Examples of a carriage device include: a phone, laptop or ipad etc.