The internet can be a scary place. In my early days of using the web, I passed my angry pubescent days innocently trolling chat rooms powered by America Online, mostly to harass fans of shopping mall punk Avril Lavigne.
I spent my free time accosting what I assumed were fellow misguided teenagers, even though my own music library was filled with the questionable sounds of Linkin Park, Kittie, and Papa Roach. Whilst undoubtedly irritating, my joy in prank calling restaurants and angering people online was mostly a benign past time. Had I been a teenager in Arizona today, my antics could have landed me with a criminal record before I even reached high school. Arizona recently passed H.B 2549 countering cyber-bullying and stalking, which would make trolling a misdemeanour in the state. According to the bill:
“It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use a ANY ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL DEVICE and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.”
Well there go my teenage years, Arizona. The broad language used in the legislation has raised a few eyebrows, particularly because offensive behaviour is not limited to one-on-one conversations, but also “irritating” communications via public forums, including “websites, blogs, listserves, and other internet communications”. The new legislation, which now must be signed by Governor Janice K Brewer before officially going into effect, leaves the regulation of what can be considered to be irritating or offensive in the hands of the state.
Trolling can take many different forms, and it becomes difficult to determine when irritating behaviour should merely be ignored, or if it poses a threat in real life. The 2010 suicide of Rutgers freshman Tyler Clementi after his roommate secretly filmed him and tweeted about his sexuality, sparked a heated debate about cyber bullying, and whether or not his roommate’s behaviour led to Clementi’s suicide. Elsewhere in the world, trolling is used as a way to harass activists and silence them. Other trolls hide behind the internet and create forums calling for the killing of public figures, and in some instances, internet harassment has been been linked to teen suicides. However, there is a pretty big divide between the kind of bullying that leads to someone’s death, and the irritating antics of a teenager in a chat room. As it is, Arizona’s new law does not really draw the line between the two.
Sara Yasin is an editorial assistant at Index
