As the digital space continues to be an even more important presence in our lives, we must ask the question of how, in the digital age, are we engaging with one another. For a lot of people, being able to communicate instantly with people thousands of miles away is a blessing that creates communities that span oceans and relationships that could turn into life long friendships. But more often than not, the stories that grace headlines in relation to the world wide web are not as inspiring. Instead, we more often hear cases of cyberbullying that end tragically or expose the deep dark, ugly underbelly of the internet. This research paper however, will take a closer look at the relationship that exists between online digital hate and enclosed spaces, focusing on the applications that are used to facilitate this hate and how they vary between college and high school campuses. As well as looking at specific cases of suicide in high schools as a result of cyberbullying facilitated through these apps, I will also be looking at the argument about free speech on both of the campus spaces and how that changes both the conversation, and the definition, in regards to speech online. As I have found throughout my research, because of both it’s tighter more subjective regulation of free speech and our growing reliance on the digital sphere, cases of cyber harassment in high schools prove to be a much more of a targeted experience for individuals, as aided through the use of anonymous mobile and computer apps. On the other hand, the issues that arise on college campuses are largely arguments that attack the policies, principles, beliefs, and ideas of groups shared by specific individuals. Participants of harassment are less concerned with anonymity and the sharing of their ideas, which is why Facebook is our preferred weapon of choice. I am also going to be paying special attention to the issue of free speech on campus spaces, the current atmosphere on the Tufts campus, and considering how colleges and high schools approach the discussion of hate speech vs. free speech.
As previously mentioned, the first part of this paper will take a stance at looking at the cyberbullying that is experienced in high schools as facilitated through online applications or apps. I will pay specific attention to experiences of those who were harassed on kik, ask.fm, Facebook, and After School, looking at the negative affects of forum based apps, where anonymity is the key tool for a cyberbully. But before I bring in my case studies and research in regards to these various apps and how they are used for cyberbullying, I first wanted to determine where the liability falls on the schools in cases of cyberbullying. Before starting my research, I didn’t even consider that issues of Free Speech would come up on a high school level. I made the ignorant mistake of assuming that the discussion that has been happing on college campuses across the country, about the infringement on student’s first amendment rights and their right to free speech, wouldn’t even be on the table considering that many high schools have more power to directly punish cyberbullies and protect their students through the use of zero-tolerance policies. A zero-tolerance policy that schools can enact, if they feel necessary, that would widely limit what students can and can’t say within school grounds. Because of recent increase in school shootings and the ongoing war on drugs, many schools have already implemented zero-tolerance policies that threatens expulsion if a student brings a weapon, or drugs to school. The issue in today’s modern era however, is how do we police what children can and can’t say on a forum that can be accessed from anywhere, where they can theoretically say anything? Some schools have taken the approach of putting in place zero-tolerance policies that will actually limit what they can and can’t say on the internet, stating that “true threats”, threats that suggest imminent bodily harm to a student or teacher, will be punished with the threat of suspension. But many of these laws are only applicable if the threat is stated on school grounds, which makes the policing of cyber harassment, that can be accessed from anywhere, hard to trace and hard to punish.
So we have determined that schools, while they are not omnipotent in their power to limit a child’s free speech, do have some power. However, many zero-tolerance policies have been challenged by students and parents arguing that the school’s policy to limit their voices is a direct violation of their constitutional rights. And even if it became apparent that someone did violate a zero-tolerance policy and threaten someone, it is often hard to prove intent and thus enact punishment. A child can argue that threats made to teachers and other students are all in good fun, and in fact, that does hold up in court, because the speakers are protected by their anonymity. These policies can become like a double edged sword, because it also does protect students who do want to, on totally founded grounds, simply express their right to free speech. Take the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, in which junior and senior high school students exercised their right to peacefully protest on school grounds. They were suspended for violating a school policy that prohibited their wearing of armbands to signify their cause and their protest of the Vietnam war. The court ruled in the students favor, however, stating that “the symbolic act of wearing black armbands to school was protected as a form of ‘pure speech,’ which is ‘entitled to comprehensive protection under the First Amendment’”. The case would continue to be a hugely important moment for students rights of free speech at public schools, leading the court to also rule that no student display or expression of free speech could be punished unless it proved to be a “substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” In that case, students simply wanted to express their right to free speech and their opinions. The problem however, is that the same law that the protects their right to free speech also protects the rights of a student who created a website to hire hit men for teachers, or those who write hateful spiteful things to fellow students. Another argument on the side that advocates for limited zero-tolerance policies is that is is a bandaid for a temporary solution. The choice to silence the voices of angry bullies does not give the opportunity to actually take a sociological perspective at looking at the problem facing American schools in the digital age. On the other hand of course is an even more compelling argument, is the opinion that zero-tolerance policies could theoretically limit the loss of human life. Recent studies state that teens who experience cyber harassment are twice as likely to commit suicide, and zero tolerance policy advocates argue that if more restrictions were put in place it could at least be a step in stopping teen suicide. The cases of Phoebe Prince, Rhetta Parsons, and Rebecca Sedwick, who at just twelve years old took her own life in, prove this point further, investigations pointing to the root cause of their depression and ultimate decision to cyberbullying facilitated by anonymous apps.
Throughout the course of this class, looking at the cyber hate that amasses within the online sphere and examining trolls and their habits, I found myself searching for the reason behind all this vicious hate, specifically at the high school level. In my research, it was hard to find the same type and volume of hate in any other enclosed space, including the hate found on a college campus. There had to be something special about the high school space itself that warranted the amount of hate that was happening within it. As I mentioned prior, I attribute the viciousness of cyberbullying on the high school level to their mode of harassment which are primarily anonymous online apps that can either be accessed by the computer or downloaded on ones phone. Teens bully the way they do because the technology allows them to. They are the market that apps remnant of Yik Yak are attempting to appeal to, and they are taking in these apps and using them to attack other students. The anonymity of it feeds into the viciousness of it, completely in alignment to what we have previously discussed in class with regards to trolls. Anonymity is key. If it weren’t, the type of freedom on these apps that encourage students to write freely, wouldn’t exist. Unfortunately, the type of speech that these cites are becoming host to are not what their creators had in mind. “Why aren’t you dead?” “You should die.” “Wait a minute, why are you still alive?” “Go kill yourself”. These are just some of the messages that teens send back and forth to one another through apps like ask.fm, kik, and After School, all anonymous apps whose creators all claim that their apps are meant to be “a safe space for high schoolers to discuss sensitive issues without having to reveal their names.” But this encouragement to write freely with no repercussions can have disastrous consequences. Take the case of Rebecca Sedwick who took her own life primarily because of posts on her [find out app] and questions from, primarily other girls at her school, who taunted her and teased her, eventually encouraging her to just end it all. Having cited the primary mode of transportation for this hate, let’s look at the hate itself. The hate that teen victims experience comes in all shapes and sizes, but statistically speaking, 72% of victims reported being cyber bullied about their looks as compared to the 26% harassed about their race, and the 22% harassed about their gender. Girls are also more likely to experience cyber harassment as compared to boys. Cyber harassment also benefits from the spreading rumors and mean comments. All these statistics point to the fact that on the whole, the hate that high schoolers experience is very much of the individual level. Individuals are targeted for reasons still hard to determine; it could be as simple as them being the new kid in school, or the fact that their attached to a unsavory roomer, or that they are just dubbed “weird”. Whatever there reason, like trolling, teens experience cyber harassment as a pile on effect, where bystanders can easily become instigators and contribute to a wave of harassment that can start from something seemly insignificant.
While the cyber bullying that occurs on the high school level proves to be very subjective and the one of the only connection between victims is mainly that they were all harassed through an online anonymous platform, when it comes to college campus based digital harassment, the activity has proved to draw on classic hate rhetoric. The argument I pose here, is that members within college communities experience hate speech or digital hate because of their belief or ideas, or the group that they belong to, either socially subscribed, such as Greek life members, or something that they have no control over, like the color of their skin, their perceived gender, or their sexuality. The argument I pose here is not that hate speech is no longer individually based, but rather the reasoning behind it is more well founded by its trolls. That they are targeting individuals for “reasons” instead of the randomness that is found in the high school environment. Of course though, even before addressing the cases of harassment we need to look at the environment of the college campuses themselves. Throughout history, colleges and its students have been viewed as the pioneers of change and diverse ideas. College is seen as the ultimate platform for personal expression. For many freshman entering college, it is the first time they’ve ever lived away from home, been able to choose and shape their own curriculums, are able to pick from a wide range of outside of school activities, and are unsupervised. Of course this is a slight exaggeration, but for many undergraduate students it’s not far from the truth. Young adults entering college see it as an opportunity to press against their new found boundaries attempting to find their limits, if any. While of course high schools are in discussion, trying to determine where the dividing line is between hate online and expressions of free speech, on college campuses the line proves to be even blurrier. Because of it’s reputation as a place of higher education and learning, often times when people’s opinions come to ahead, the argument of freedom of speech is thrown around more. The added effect of being encouraged by our teachers and peers, can often make cases of digital hate harder to detect, because as I’ve found, the conversation more often becomes about broader personal opinions and ideas, where in high school, cyber attacks are more coordinated and aimed at a single individual.
So when it comes to freedom of speech what are the discussions happening on campuses? What are its students and faculty thinking and how do those opinions change when given the added digital sphere. During the 80s, colleges saw some of its worst expressions of racist hate speech from their student body as many schools attempted to integrate their schools. As an attempt to restore the feeling of safety on their campuses for the students who were facing the most harassment, schools began to put in place “new regulations banning expressions of racist sentiment”. These regulations varied, targeting racist speech, limiting the protection of free speech and the use of “fighting words”, and others went so far as to step on the toes of constitutionally protected speech. As with high school speech regulation, these changes were met with challenges by its student body and were brought to court. Two of the most featured cases during this time is the case of Doe v. University Michigan, and UWM Post v. Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin. While the specifics of the cases varied, the result of the court was widely the same across the board. In the Doe case, the court dismissed the University’s regulations towards racist speech and sexual harassment on the grounds that they were vague and overbearing. Ultimately “the court noted that the University was free to sanction certain categories of speech, but refused to extend the scope and legitimate restraint to encompass any prohibition of ideas,” even offensive ones. They argued that restricting the speech of students would be detrimental to the learning experience as a whole, especially the expression of ideas. The regulations of the universities were viewed as unconstitutional, and that much of the speech that they believed to be demeaning to a group based on race, or that contributed to the creation of a hostile environment, were either too broadly defined, or could not be covered under “fighting words”, which are not protected under the First Amendment.
The mentality surrounding free speech on campuses today is of the similar strain. Colleges seem to be a kind of wild west, the ideas presented on the college campus sphere only limited by the self-restraint of its own students. Especially considering the political strain that the United States is currently under, many students feel as if this is their chance to speak up and share their ideas, even if they are viewed as unfavorable by what has become dubbed a left-wing ruled education system. There seems to be two different sentiments when it comes to free speech on campuses today, those who choose to speak as they will despite who they offend, and those who find sanctuary within “safe spaces”, where they can feel as though they won’t be the target by someone else’s expression of “free speech”. Conservatives however, feel as though their own freedom of speeches have become stifled by “trigger warnings”, attempts to alert students of unsavory language that they can avoid if they choose to, and other restrictions on their speech. While it is clear that anonymity is one of the most resourceful tool used by trolls of today, research show that Facebook is the most popular social media outlet used among college students and where they witnessed the most cyberbullying happening. This is very different than ones witnessed at the high school level, where its participants mainly use anonymous apps to randomly target and harass other students. I believe that the use of forum websites by college students where anonymity is less of an option is directly linked to the fact that the college sphere in fact encourages the sharing of ideas, even if the ideas are unsavory. Online attacks that happen on college campuses are also of a much different nature than the ones witnessed at the high school level. There is a different platform being used, Facebook as opposed to anonymous apps, which is why the comments are so much more about defending ones opinion and point of view and not simply acts that can be perceived as lashing out. The online attacks on college campuses are more of a focused nature towards people’s opinions, which are directly linked to their identity and group alignment, and not just about their physicality. At the root of it all, one party simply just does not perceive their speech as hate, but rather view it as their simple expression of ideas, even if their ideas hurt someone else’s feelings.
The fear that they feel, whether well founded or not, has real repercussions and can be seen in examples of online attacks experienced by students on college campuses. Considering that conservative students feel as though their right to speak freely has been severely disadvantaged by the environments on their campuses, it is no surprise that, according to a CNN article titled “War on campus: The escalating battle over college free speech”, the opinion of many that “bigots hide behind free speech”. Couldn’t this also be expanded to assume that these so called bigots can hide behind the internet?
This activity is not just a sentiment of individuals on college campuses but it also seems to be the mentality adopted by the groups and individuals who target members because of their group membership. The best example of this is the activity of the internet personality and alt. right conservative, Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos is currently on a college tour of the United States that has caused a lot of colleges to address the possibly hostile environment that the Trump election may have brought to their campuses. Yiannopoulos’ main platforms are to create validity for free speech, that is shouldn’t be restricted just because it might be controversial and offensive. He is widely against the idea of “safe spaces” for students and thinks, like many right conservatives, that currently people are too sensitive and that if they’re going to be on the internet that they should just toughen up, a statement that victims of cyber harassment are all too used to hearing. Although his tour is happening in the physical space and not the online one, his reputation for causing drama on Twitter and other online outlets, has made him a type if figure head for trolling activity. His presence, like the Trump presidency, has seemingly given validity to conservative points of view, and has definitely added to the current hostile environment happening on campuses around the country.
Similar, controversial activity has even been happening on this very campus. It began the day before the election, Monday November 7th, when junior Ben Kesslen released a scathing option editorial in the Tufts Daily that gave us all a sneak peek behind what was actually happening in the fraternities who’s pledges promise are “not like those frats”. In the piece, Kesslen spares no details, in a first hand account of the details of pledging rituals of a fraternity that remains anonymous. He talks about the racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism and heteronormativity that he believes is an institutional part of frat life at any institution of higher education. The piece is a call for Tufts to follow it’s other NESCAC members and abolish fraternities and instead “invest in true community building”. The controversial piece immediately became the center of scandal, as everyone on campus attempted to put together the pieces and figure out which frats they could trust and which ones they needed to avoid. Ultimately, the piece lunched a full investigation into Greek life at Tufts as a whole, prompted President Monaco to call for a halt on all Greek activities, including pledging and parties, and probably the most interesting result, the splitting of students into camps of abolish and reform Greek life. While normally the dominant sphere on college life, Greek life as an institution has come under fire, individual members being singled out because of their affiliation with the organization. The best example of this is the publication of the zine El Tit, which was anonymously published by a group of “ugly girls with no sense of humor”, the cover coated in the repetition of the words: “stop the war on frats”. Within the magazine, they chose to parody a frat brother’s option editorial letter, about how his fraternity helped him come to terms with his sexuality. The zine, while stating well founded arguments against the Greek life institution, chose rather to insult the individual instead of pointing out flaws in the system as a whole. While this is an example of “punching up,” I think it’s important to point out and relevant to the discussion, as a way to show how individuals become held accountable for the actions of an entire organization.
Another example of individuals being signaled out as a result of their group affiliation, can be seen in the recent attention being received by the Tufts University Senate and the TCU as a whole. On the first night of passover, the TCU Senate met to discuss a resolution. The resolution in particular was a call for Tufts to divest from funding companies involved in the Israeli occupation. Though not the intention of the organization, both the resolution itself and the senate’s choice to vote on the resolution on a day when many of its members were away celebrating the holiday, the resolution passed. Since then, individual senate members have been held captive by both current and former members of the Tufts community. The comments section of the TCU Facebook page has become home to hateful rhetoric, accusing members of the TCU community as anti-semitic, “cowards”, remnant of the activity that we have seen in the comments sections of news platforms like NPR, The Atlantic, that instead of becoming home to thoughtful discussion are subject to common place trolling activity. I have also had the opportunity to speak directly with senate members who have received death threats either through emails or other social medias.
This type of activity just goes to prove my point about the mentality that surrounds college campus digital hate. This type of hatred is so different than the type of cyberbullying that happens on a high school campus level, but it is not so far removed from the trolling activities that we have observed in our own classes. This type of hatred attacks individuals because of their group assignment, because of the color of their skin, because of their sexuality, but with the added complexity of a college environment, it does so under the pretense that it is simply the exchanging of ideas. Under this context, Milo Yiannopoulos, does not become a spouter of racist, sexist speech, but instead becomes a pioneer of unrestricted speech. Under this context anything can truly be free speech, or at least everything can be protected underneath First Amendment Rights, regardless of content.
This research paper has made it clear to me that there are truly different forms of digital harassment that happen on enclosed spaces. The research and the cases that I observed, brought me to the conclusion that not only does anonymous apps help to facilitate the hostile environment happening in high schools today, but the complicated relationship between high schools and freedom of speech also do nothing to create a safer space for its students that are most at risk of cyberbullying. In colleges however the conversation is largely different, considering students are encouraged to dispute and disrupt the social norms of their environments. Anything can be an opinion and everything can be a well founded argument, which is why the relationship between free speech in the college sphere is much more of a complicated issue. This is why locating, punishing, and restricting the reach and effect of hate that happens on enclosed campuses and spaces is such a complicated issue on both fronts, there is no overreaching administration to keep students in check, and any laws that attempt to restrict student speech will continue to go head to head with constitutional rights.