Addressing the Menace of Cyber Harassment: Legislative Responses and Countermeasures

The emergence of the modern and advanced World Wide Web (the Internet) has been accompanied by a diversity of people, and with it, advanced social networking sites and electronic aviation have increased significantly, and because of that, the acquaintance of other people on those sites is characterized, as well as the speed in completing transactions. One of the prominent crimes that appeared with the emergence of social networking sites is “sexual harassment through the Internet,” as it is called “electronic harassment,” or also known as “digital harassment.” This crime spread with the beginnings of the emergence of email, through “Spam” messages. However, with the emergence of many other modern methods of social communication, this crime has turned from mere messages to tools through which electronic harassment is committed, which has made it an offensive and suspicious crime. Despite the increasing spread of “electronic harassment,” Arab legislation has not addressed it directly and adequately. The reason for this is due to the recent emergence of the information and communications revolution in Arab countries, in addition to the fact that reliance on computer applications (the use of social networking sites) has not been for long periods of time. Time, but it was also recent, unlike foreign countries that have relied on social networking sites and the Internet for more than two decades.