Combating Cyber-Victimization

In today’s interconnected society, high profile examples of online victimization abound. Cyber-bullies, stalkers and harassers launch attacks on the less powerful, causing a variety of harms. Recent scholarship has identified some of the more salient damage, including reputational harms, severe emotional distress, loss of employment, and physical assault. Extreme cases of online abuse have resulted in death through suicide or as a result of targeted attacks. This article makes two major contributions to the cyber-victimization literature. It proposes specific reforms to criminal and tort laws to address this conduct more effectively. Further, it situates those reforms within a new multi-modal regulatory framework. This new approach advocates a combination of enhanced public education initiatives, enhanced access to effective reputation management services, the development of more pro-bono reputation management strategies, reporting hotlines, social norms, and industry self-regulation. The goal is to combine law with other regulatory modalities in order to facilitate the development of a more civil and accountable global online society