Blog Prompt: What do to do about cyberbullying?

As I mentioned in connection with our discussion of dana boyd's It's Complicated, the media is full of stories about cyberbullying and its sometimes tragic effects. One story that grabbed the public's attention was the case of Amanda Todd, a 15-year old Canadian who committed suicide after being harassed and bullied online (and in person). Stories like Todd's have caused schools to adopt "zero tolerance" policies towards online bullying. Yet danah boyd argues that such policies do more harm than good.

Approaching bullying from a punishment-oriented perspective, as many schools do-- and are increasingly legally required to do-- rarely helps with bullying situations. Often...school and parent involvement worsens the situation because the adults involved do not understand the details. If young people believe that adults will overreact or won't understand the complexities of the interpersonal dynamics, they aren't particularly interested in conveying the challenges they're facing. 

Some state legislatures have, recently, doubled down on a punishment-oreinted approach to cyberbullying, passing laws that  criminalize online bullying. See, for instance, the recent law adopted by Michigan.

What do you think should be done to address the issue of online bullying? Is immediate, strict punishment the solution? Should Illinois adopt a law like the one that recently went into effect in Michigan?  Or does such punishment only add to the "drama"? Write a blog post discussing this messy problem and possible solutions to it.