Cyberbullying law needs to be supported by education – 01/29/2024 – Education

The sanction of law no. 14,811 in the first fortnight of the year caused great repercussion for including the practices of bullying and cyberbullying in the Penal Code, specifically in the article that deals with illegal embarrassment, in addition to amending the Heinous Crimes Law and the Child and of Adolescents (ECA).

Bullying now carries a penalty of a fine, being defined as “systematic intimidation”, through intentional and repetitive physical or psychological violence, through acts of intimidation, humiliation or discrimination or verbal, sexual, psychological, physical actions , material or virtual. Cyberbullying is classified as “virtual systematic intimidation”, if the conduct is carried out via the internet, social networks, applications, online games or any other means or digital environment, or transmitted in real time. The punishment is even more rigorous, with imprisonment for two to four years and a fine, when the conduct does not constitute a more serious crime.

The understanding that this type of violence against minors can go beyond school walls and time, even though it began within an educational institution, is an important point of the new legislation. Although law 13,185 of 2015, known as the “anti-bullying law”, already considers the virtual environment in its text, now, in addition to the criminalization of this behavior being more serious, there is greater detail of the violations. This demonstrates an attempt to deal with the complexity of social life that digitalization has brought to us.

Recent cases of young people who took their own lives after being offended and harassed online are a sad example of this. The deaths of Jéssica Canedo, 22, in December, and that of Lucas Santos, 16, in 2021, generated a great discussion about accountability on networks.

Who is to blame in these situations? What is the relationship between mental health and social media? Can likes and comments lead someone to attempt their own life? Do the authors of rumors and posts have more responsibility than those who spread them? To what extent? With Law No. 14,811, inducing and assisting suicide via the internet are now considered heinous crimes.

But, in addition to enforcing the new legislation, the debate needs to be more comprehensive than dealing with forms of punishment. In reality, he must focus on preventing these crimes — that is, on educating children and young people to understand, from an early age, the effects that their actions and interpersonal relationships, inside and outside digital platforms, can have on the lives of their colleagues. .

There will be little point in doubling the homicide penalty for leaders of virtual communities, as mandated by the recently sanctioned text, if we do not form a media and socio-emotionally educated generation, so that they understand the implications of being part of these groups, analyze the type of content that is created and shared there and understand who the potential victims of this conduct are.

Furthermore, even though the penalties are harsher for those who commit bullying and cyberbullying, it is common for the perpetrators of these offenses against minors to be their own peers in the same age group. Therefore, it is necessary to encourage them to develop empathy, critical sense, ethics and responsibility, learning to be citizens in an increasingly connected world.

Virtual behaviors have real consequences, and some of them can be tragic. Not only because of the punishments that Law No. 14,811 imposes, but schools and families cannot exempt themselves from discussing, in the classroom and at home, the impact that certain actions can have on those on the other side of the screen reading hateful comments , gratuitous attacks or seeing yourself in degrading montages.