New Missouri Law Aims to Curb Cyberbullying

On June 30, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed a new anti-cyberbullying provisions into law. The signing was attended by Tina Meier, mother of Megan Meier,the teenager whose suicide has prompted a variety of legal initiatives to counter abusive conduct on sites like MySpace and Facebook. Megan Meier, who had been diagnosed with ADD and depression, killed herself after receiving deceptive and later hostile messages via MySpace.

In addition to mandating that school boards to develop written policies that require school officials to report incidents of harassment or stalking committed on school property, the law's provisions expand the definition of harassment to include the use of any means of communication to knowingly frighten, intimidate or cause emotional harm to another person. The law also modifies the definition of harassment as follows:

565.090. 1. A person commits the crime of harassment if he or she:
(1) Knowingly communicates a threat to commit any felony to another person and in so doing, frightens, intimidates, or causes emotional distress to such other person; or
(2) When communicating with another person, knowingly uses coarse language offensive to one of average sensibility and thereby puts such person in reasonable apprehension of offensive physical contact or harm; or
(3) Knowingly frightens, intimidates, or causes emotional distress to another person by anonymously making a telephone call or any electronic communication; or
(4) Knowingly communicates with another person who is, or who purports to be, seventeen years of age or younger and in so doing and without good cause recklessly frightens, intimidates, or causes emotional distress to such other person; or
(5) Knowingly makes repeated unwanted communication to another person; or
(6) Without good cause engages in any other act with the purpose to frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be frightened, intimidated, or emotionally distressed, and such person's response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the age of such person.

The law makes harassment is a misdemeanor unless it is committed by a person twenty-one years of age or older against a person seventeen years of age or younger or by a person previously convicted of harassment or the equivalent substantive offence in another jurisdiction. Several law professors quoted in a Student Press Law Center (SPLC) report on the law expressed the view that, in the absences of an overreaching enforcement attempt by prosecutors, the law woudl withstand constitutional scrutiny. However, a SPLC attorney, Adam Goldstein voiced reservations about the law's expanded reach under a standard keyed to causing emotional distress to a teenager is too broad of a standard. Goldstein proffered the potential imposition of criminal penalties under the new law if one teen ended a romantic relationship via an online communication, causing emotional distress to the their former girlfreind or boyfriend.

In a related initiative at the federal level, the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act, H. 6123, has been introduced in Congress to create federal penalties for harrassing conduct accomplished through electronic means.          

Additional coverage of the governor's signing of the Missouri legislation, including assessments of the law's implications, appears in the New York Times and on the website of the First Amendment Center.

JFB