| Cyberbullying is one of the major risks faced by contemporary minors in cyberspace With the frequent occurrence of cyberbullying in recent years,families,schools and society are paying more and more attention to the safety of adolescents in online environment.Against this backdrop,the Law of the People’s Republic of China on the Protection of Minors,revised in 2020,added a new chapter on "cyber protection" to define and regulate cyberbullying.This shows that the prevention and control of cyberbullying will become an important part of the protection of minors in China and an important area in the legislation thereof.Currently,China’s legal provisions on cyberbullying are scattered in many laws,regulations and rules.These provisions and regulations lack a clear definition of the concept of cyberbullying,and they tend to focus on the role and responsibility of parents and schools in fighting cyberbullying,while cyberbullies and Internet service providers is less discussed In addition,the ex-post liability for each of the above-mentioned subjects also need to be further refined by legislators.Examining foreign legislation and their legislative experience in this area can serve as useful reference for the future legislative work in China.The United States is one of the early countries to legislate against school bullying and cyberbullying.Since 2005,the fifty U.S.states and the federal government have been exploring the establishment of an anti-bullying legal system.By now,each state has passed anti-bullying legislation to establish a mechanism for bullying prevention,reporting,treatment,and collaborative governance.U.S.statutory and case law has provided clear definitions of cyberbullying,and there has been much discussion of the liability of various subjects in the legislative and judicial practice.In view of the urgent need to improve domestic anti-bullying law,this paper will introduce and analyze the U.S.laws and precedents in the field of cyberbullying,clarify the legal definition of cyberbullying,and discuss how China’s laws can further regulate the responsibilities of each subject in preventing and controlling cyberbullying.Through comparative analysis,literature analysis and case study methods,this paper draws five conclusions:(1)cyberbullying can be defined by summarizing the four major elements of cyberbullying,and enumerating the devices used by cyberbullies;(2)anti-cyberbullying laws need to lay out the liability of cyberbullies,and clarify the disciplinary measures on perpetrators;(3)the guardians of cyberbullies who have the ability to stop cyberbullying but fail to do so in a timely manner can be held accountable for their supervisory negligence;(4)the school’s supervisory authority over students’ cyberbullying behavior need to be clarified,and schools need to be held accountable for failure to exert reasonable supervision;(5)the specific procedures for "notice-and-takedown" need to be clarified,so that the obligation of Internet service providers to review Internet information is limited to a reasonable extent.This paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter introduces the background and purpose of this paper,as well as the research problems that this paper aims to solve.In the literature review section,this paper identifies the research gap by reviewing the research of domestic scholars on cyberbullying,and then summarizes the theoretical and practical significance of this paper.Chapter 2 outlines the objectives of this paper in two parts.The first part introduces the concept and characteristics of cyberbullying as summarized by scholars in psychological and legal studies;the second part explains the jurisprudence of imposing liability on wrongdoers,their guardians,schools and Internet service providers by examining the existing laws of China on bullying and related behaviors such as torts and crimes.Chapters 3 and 4 introduce the existing anti-bullying legislation in the United States and China respectively,with the focus on the definition of cyberbullying and the liability of different subjects laid down in U.S.statutory and case law and Chinese laws and regulations.Chapter 5 discusses the possible improvements of future cyberbullying legislation in China based on the comparison of relevant legislation in the United States and China. |
