Status of Women committee  Exactly. I've had so many people tell me that they won't come forward because they saw what happened to me.

Status of Women committee  It's a good question. The reality is that the way the law is written does encompass any form of communication. The criminal harassment law is completely written in such a way that does encompass online communication, so I don't think the law itself is the problem. The prosecutor in my case performed to the expectations of her profession.

Status of Women committee  I think for me the bright line is human rights. If there were a more nuanced and deeper understanding of human rights among the people who moderate, say, Facebook pages or Twitter, then there would be a greater understanding of why somebody tweeting at you about your stinky vagina or whatever is in fact a violation of your human rights.

Status of Women committee  I think Ann covered it well.

Status of Women committee  You're absolutely right that restorative practice can't be facilitated effectively with someone who's not willing to admit to wrongdoing. That said, a lot of the incentive to not admit to wrongdoing comes from feeling fear of incarceration, fear of social isolation, and fear of other consequences that someone may feel may come from admitting that they caused harm.

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. Really, if I had the power to, I would mandate that everyone working in the legal system and everyone working in education, especially anyone who is ever going to be in a circumstance where they're working with youth, is literate on these platforms. That's not just generally literate in social media; no one should be working on a cyberviolence case that occurred on Twitter if they don't understand how Twitter works, if they're not a Twitter user themselves.

Status of Women committee  That's such a challenging question because, quite honestly, I think a lot of this comes down to a need for a change in social norms, a change in hearts and minds. A lot of that can really only happen through individual consciousness-raising. I do think that a lot of the social platforms that are most dominant in our online sphere of conversation are primarily run by homogeneous groups, mostly younger white men.

Status of Women committee  Sure. There are a number of examples and lots of different ways to do restorative practice. One model involves a prosecution referral. What would happen is someone from the office of the crown contacts the survivor and offers them the option of a criminal proceeding, a civil proceeding, or a restorative proceeding.

Status of Women committee  There's no need to apologize. I'm not sure what the last part you heard was. The next thing I would say is that legal workers often also lack forms of digital literacy that are crucial to cyberviolence cases. Regardless of which side they took on the verdict in my case, many observers commented on how the judge's decision revealed what was, on his part, a very limited grasp of how the Internet works, and Twitter in particular, which is where the harassment occurred.

Status of Women committee  Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me to testify today. My last experience giving testimony was during a criminal harassment proceeding against a man who tirelessly followed my movements online and sent a plethora of unwanted communication in my direction. Based on my experiences, I strongly believe that the criminal legal system is not a constructive way to address cyberviolence against women and girls.