Henry M. Gunn High

HISTORY US GOVERNM

With online technology becoming more and more accessible to people, students and their schools are starting to fight over free speech rights online. Over the past few years, students have gained access to a wide variety of online sites such as instant messaging, social media websites, and forums with very few restraints or restrictions. As a result, cases of a new type of bullying emerged: cyberbullying. With the online community growing, more and more people are learning of cyberbullying, whether they took part in it, experienced it as a bystander, or fell victim to it. It is also starting to become especially common in schools. This leads to another dilemma - should students be restricted to what they do online to protect others from cyberbullying? Not limiting students’ free speech can cause cyberbullying to spread, can inflict serious damage to victims, and can also affect other people negatively.