The Chat Room Moderator: Creating a Duty for Parents to Control Their Cyberbully

The advent of new technologies allowing people to communicate via the Internet has opened many windows to social interaction. At the same time, it has shifted the focus of child harassment from the playground to the computer. Instead of face‐to‐face bullying, children are now being bullied on the Internet, in a phenomenon known as “cyberbullying.” Cyberbullying is widespread, affecting generally twenty‐five percent of the child population in the U nited S tates. It is also more dangerous, as a child can be bullied at any time in the supposed comfort of his/her own home. To combat this behavior, many states have passed measures to ban or criminalize cyberbullying in school‐related settings. Nevertheless, children and adolescents continue to cyberbully their peers. Furthermore, most of these statutes do not address cyberbullying that occurs outside school or from a child's own home. Thus, this Note proposes that cyberbullying can be better combated by placing responsibility on parents to reasonably control their children in cases of cyberbullying. Based on the recently enacted ‘ C yber‐safety A ct” from the C anadian P rovince of N ova S cotia and R estatement of Torts § 316, this Note proposes (1) placing tort responsibility on parents who know that their child is a cyberbully and do nothing about it and (2) allowing parents to avoid liability when their child truly cannot be controlled. Key Points for the Family Court Community Cyberbullying is a major problem that must be addressed beyond the schoolyard. The law may provide recourse for the parents of a cyberbullying victim and can hold the parents of a cyberbully responsible. The N ova S cotia C yber‐safety A ct is a good model for holding parents liable for their child's acts because it balances the desire to end cyberbullying and the understanding that some minors are uncontrollable.