A detailed explanation of the issue
Cyberbullying refers to the use of the Internet and mobile technology to threaten, pester, or harm another person. It includes the transfer of signals, signs, images, data, sounds, or intelligence. It also involves the creation of web content with the creator assuming another person's identity to pass abusive information to the victim. Sharing or distributing medium that contains similar content is also classified as bullying (Marshak, 2017).
Although bullying was only common in schools, it is now common over the social media. The local lawmakers and States have decided to shield children by preventing cyber bullying. Notably, the states deal with the subject differently; some use laws while others use model policies. The lawmakers have the understanding that although no physical contact exists between the offenders and victims, cyberbullying is more traumatizing than the traditional modes, as it causes shame, embarrassment, and low self-esteem among the victims (Steinberg, 2017). Cyberbullying happens especially when the unflattering pictures of someone are taken and circulated on the Internet with rude comments. It affects the young people, who are in schools, as the older people hardly have a social media presence. Albeit no laws on the subject of cyberbullying existed, legislators have noticed the high number of cyberbullying cases that resulted in shootings or even suicide. In addition, cyberbullying is often a civil matter, but in some circumstances, criminal harassment laws were used, especially where the event resulted in suicide. Consequently, all states have implemented criminal laws that apply to bullying behaviors depending on the severity of the offense as earlier mentioned. There are also school sanctions in given states, whereby the bullying statute specifies the provisions that allow schools to discipline the students in cyberbullying appropriately (Steinberg, 2017) .
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Cyberbullying is common in schools as well as other wider social circles. Based on that, the federal and state laws discuss cyberbullying more specifically in terms of schools. This is because the students are minors who need protection. Even then, the laws also address the general citizens, as they are also targets of the above ill. The educational standards on cyber bullying emerged mostly through letters from the U.S. Department of Education to school administration (Steinberg, 2017) . Moreover, in 2010, the Department Of Civil Rights also sent similar letters to provide schools with guidelines on how they ought to deal with the issue. Under federal law, the letters clearly stipulated that some forms of cyberbullying constitute discriminatory harassment. Consequently, the letters stipulated that bullying, based on disability, color, sex or national origin can be regarded as a civil rights violation in cases where it is severe, persistent, or pervasive (Steinberg, 2017) . The above insinuation is especially so if the cyberbullying or any other form of bullying directly affects how a student benefits from the opportunities, services, and facilities in the school. In the case where the student is undergoing federal rights violation, the school has a mandate to stop the bullying. The authorities are as well requested to stop the irregularities from occurring in the schools. Moreover, counselors and staff are asked to learn about the civil rights obligations and impellent clear procedures to help victims and families recognize bullying as an ill and seek help for it. Cyber bullying for students with disabilities or any other form of bullying was also highlighted in the letters to the school authorities. The violation of the student's civil rights would result in severe punishment of the perpetrators. Most of the laws of the state on bullying were enacted between 1990 and 2010 where many bills were passed on school bullying. By 2015, all states had passed a law concerning the methods of dealing with bullying. By 2016, cyber bullying was also made a major concern since most students had immigrated from normal bullying practices to cyber bullying. Consequently, the most common practices to reduce cyberbullying include training staff on how to stop bullying, the introduction of prevention strategies, and adopting disciplinary measures. Although most state laws leave the procedure to the discretion of school authorities, others like New Jersey have specific laws on how to carry out investigations, documentation, and even review of each of the bullying cases (Steinberg, 2017) . Consequently, many feel that this is an excessive burden on the schools, as the states provide no funding to facilitate the procedures
A discussion of how the issue influences psychology ethics from an objective (scholarly) perspective.
Some of the punishments or disciplinary ethics that are recommended are zero tolerance for bullying. The American Psychologist Association (2016) came up with a Zero Tolerance Policy that mandates serious punishment to be applied no matter the circumstances of the bullying (Gross, 2017). The zero tolerance implies that the authorities will ignore no instance of misbehavior and it includes severe punishment like expulsion regardless of the infraction's seriousness. However, these recommendations have not exactly been implemented in most states as some of the school authorities and the public in general feel like the laws are too punitive and they fail to consider or address the needs of the bully (Gross, 2017). However, the current laws encourage precautionary approaches and counseling to students that are involved in bullying. Moreover, the state laws ask the schools to coach their employees on the prevention methods. However, only a third of the laws ask the schools to include counseling and support for the bullies. Based on the above, the psychology ethics are completely ignored by the state laws and statutes as the APA recommendations of Zero Tolerance Policy are ignored and termed as punitive (Barcaccia et al., 2017). Moreover, the inability of the laws to address the need of counseling is also a notable aspect that refuses to comply with the APA laws.
A discussion of how the issue influences psychology ethics from a subjective (personal) perspective.
From a personal view, the issue of bullying and cyberbullying influence the psychology ethics as most of the statutory definitions blur the distinctions, which occur between the terms harassment and bullying (American Psychological Association, 2017). The U.S. Department of Education discovered that most of the language that is utilized in the constructing of laws against bullying directly borrows from harassment statutes. Consequently, this leads to the conflation of the two terms despite the fact that they have important legal definitions (Cyber Bullying Research Center, 2017) . Research further reveals that more than 22 states use the terms bullying, intimidation, and harassment in an interchangeable manner, 14 only restrict the definition to bullying, two restrict theirs to harassment, and eight include both terms and define them in different ways (American Psychological Association, 2017). This affects the APA standards that have different standards and definitions for the conducts.
References
American Psychological Association (2017). Do U.S. laws go far enough to prevent bullying at school. Retrieved from: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/02/ce-corner.aspx.\
Barcaccia, B., Schneider, B. H., Pallini, S., &Baiocco, R. (2017). Bullying and the detrimental role of un-forgiveness in adolescents' wellbeing. Psicothema. 29(2), 217-222. doi:10.7334/psicothema2016.251
Cyber Bullying Research Center (2017). Bullying Laws across America . Retrieved from: http://cyberbullying.org/bullying-laws
Gross, M. (2017). Chapter 419: Cyber Sexual Bullying, “Sexting” in Schools, and the Growing Need to Educate the Youth. University of the Pacific Law Review , 48 (3), 555-574.
Marshak, E. (2017). Online Harassment: A Legislative Solution. Harvard Journal on Legislation , 54 (2), 501-531.
Steinberg, S. B. (2017). Sharpening: Children's Privacy in the Age of Social Media. Emory Law Journal , 66 (4), 839-884.
