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There is a news story about a group of students in Syracuse University form a committee to protect their fellow students from a very common issue they face in and outside the university. The issue is student get harassment and bullying. It is not about being bully in physical but in the free space, cyberspace. These student decided call for action and find solutions to ban cyber bullying, at least inside the unisversity, protect student's life in the university. The news did not report on what measurement they will do to ban this incidence, but it is sure that problems of cyber bullying is getting more attention to attract people to take actions. I hope they can success. Because on the way to success, there will be a lot of obstacles between them. One of the obstacles is freedom of speech in cyberspace.

Cyberspace is considered as a public space where everyone who can access to internet can speak up. In the early 1990s, when internet emerges, there is no restictions on how users behave in the cyberspace, there are some controverial issues over the user's behavior. One of that is mentioned in the essay of Dibbell's A Rape in Cyberspace. That is called Bungel Affairs. Where a sexual harassment occured. When we say we ban cyber-bullying, we ban the freedom to speak. As in the cyberspace, the "rules" should be different from the rules in the reality. Many people jump into the cyberspace in order to try to do what they cannot in reality, therefore users considered that if there are certain rules to restrain user's speech in cyberspace, then there will be no different from reality.

However reality and cyberspace has blurring over the decade, causing people to get real emotions from both spaces. Then these harassments and bullying are become an issue. The real life of a user be affected by what he or her receive in cyberspace.

There is another issue also related to cyber-harassment should be discuss. The representative in the news use LBGT and Geek as the usual victims on issue of cyber-harassment. We can see there is some power relation in it. even these people can also easily access to interent, but they are the targets. The cyberspace could not protect them. Or put it in other way, cybersace did not free them from the "real" discrimination and let them speak up for themselves, but to worsen the problems. What will bring in the cyberspace is what we should looking for. Are these issues remain uncertain because the debate of freedom of speech continues? Or the cyberspace will be just like reality will a lot of restains and monitoring.

http://centralny.ynn.com/content/top_stories/539897/su-students-push-for-a-resolution-to-ban-cyber-bullying/

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