Is Cyberbullying a Crime in Florida? What the Law Actually Says

Somewhere on X right now, an anonymous account is posting about someone who has no idea it exists. In March 2026, Michigan State’s student newspaper published an investigation into one of these networks, a self-described “burnerverse” of pseudonymous accounts run largely by college men. What the reporting documented is not edgy humor. It is a burner mocking a named sexual assault survivor by name. A doctored image of a player paired with a September 11 reference. A player’s father describing arguments with anonymous accounts that turned ugly and stayed that way. Antisemitic posts aimed at a rival school.

The part worth sitting with is what one of the operators said about his own account. His home address at school had already been posted in his replies. People knew where he lived.

Most people call this cyberbullying. Florida law calls it something else, and that difference decides what you can actually do about it.

This post covers the criminal side: what Florida actually charges, what it takes to get there, and the protective order you can file without paying a filing fee. The civil side, meaning how you identify an anonymous account and sue for damages, is covered in the companion post linked at the end.

If you are being harassed online in Florida, here is the short version:

1. Florida has no crime called cyberbullying, but it does have cyberstalking
2. Repeated online harassment can be charged as a first degree misdemeanor
3. It becomes a felony when a credible threat, a protective order, or a child under 16 is involved
4. Since 2021 the statute reaches communications directed at or pertaining to you, so public posts can count
5. The First Amendment still limits what a court can order someone to stop saying
6. A single threatening post can be a second degree felony, but only if it qualifies as a true threat
7. You can petition for a stalking injunction with no filing fee
8. Florida schools must have a cyberbullying policy and must notify law enforcement where charges may be pursued

Being targeted right now? Preserve the posts before they disappear, then start a free case review or call (561) 455-4455. Ludwin Law Group handles internet defamation and online harassment matters throughout Florida.

Is cyberbullying a crime in Florida?

Not under that name. Florida’s criminal code contains no offense called cyberbullying. The word is defined in Florida’s education code, at section 1006.147, which governs what public school districts have to do about it. That statute carries no criminal penalty. There is also no federal crime called cyberbullying.

This matters more than it sounds. People call the police, say they are being cyberbullied, and are told there is nothing to charge. Often there is. It just has a different name.

What Florida does criminalize is cyberstalking, and the definition is broader than most people expect.

Under section 784.048, to “cyberstalk” means to engage in a course of conduct using electronic communication that causes substantial emotional distress and serves no legitimate purpose. It also covers accessing someone’s online accounts or home electronic systems without permission when that causes substantial emotional distress.

Two phrases carry the weight. A “course of conduct” is a pattern of acts over a period of time, “however short,” showing a continuity of purpose. One post is generally not enough. A campaign of them can be. And “no legitimate purpose” is the line that separates harsh criticism, which is protected, from harassment, which is not.

Cyberstalking is not a separate charge in Florida. It is one of the ways the offense of stalking can be committed. Willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly cyberstalking another person is stalking, a first degree misdemeanor.

Posting about you can count. The First Amendment still sets hard limits.

This is where most articles on this subject are out of date, including plenty written by law firms.

For years the statute reached only communications “directed at a specific person,” and Florida courts held that posts merely about someone, or messages sent to a third party, did not qualify. Bell v. Battaglia, 332 So. 3d 1094 (Fla. 2d DCA 2022) is a good example. A message had been sent to a third party rather than to the person complaining about it, and the Second District reversed the injunction, reasoning that being the subject of a communication is not the same as being its recipient. That decision applied the earlier version of the statute.

The Legislature changed the text in 2021. Section 784.048(1)(d) now defines cyberstalk as a course of conduct to communicate, or cause to be communicated, “directly or indirectly”, words, images, or language through electronic communication, “directed at or pertaining to a specific person,” causing substantial emotional distress and serving no legitimate purpose.

“Pertaining to” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. Under the current text, a public post that references you can fall inside the definition even though nobody sent it to you.

What has not changed is the constitutional ceiling. Two limits matter.

First, “course of conduct” is defined to exclude constitutionally protected activity. Speech does not become stalking because it is harsh or unwelcome.

Second, and more practically, Florida courts keep striking down injunctions that order someone to stop talking about a person. In Krapacs v. Bacchus, 301 So. 3d 976 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), the Fourth District held that an injunction banning posts about a person rather than directed at a person was an unconstitutional prior restraint. In Budlove v. Johnson, 377 So. 3d 206 (Fla. 2d DCA 2023), the Second District affirmed stalking injunctions but reversed them in part because they restrained public statements, treating an order against communications about a person as a prior restraint.

Put together: an anonymous account posting about you may well fall within the statutory definition, but a court is unlikely to enter an order telling that account to stop discussing you generally. That gap is a large part of why civil claims often matter more than criminal ones in these cases.

Not sure which side of that line your situation falls on? That question turns on the specific posts, who they reached, and how often. Start a free case review and we will look at what you have.

When online harassment becomes a felony in Florida

Aggravated stalking is a third degree felony. It applies when the stalking involves a credible threat, when it violates a court order of protection, when the target is a child under 16, or in certain cases involving prior sexual offense convictions.

Written threats are their own offense. Section 836.10 makes it unlawful to send, post, or transmit a writing or other record, in any manner in which it may be viewed by another person, threatening to kill or do bodily harm to another person, or to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism. That is a second degree felony, and unlike stalking it does not require a pattern. One post can do it.

It does, however, require more than scary words. Because only “true threats” fall outside the First Amendment, the state has to prove something about the speaker’s state of mind. In Counterman v. Colorado, 600 U.S. 66 (2023), the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment requires at least recklessness, meaning the state must show the defendant “consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence.” A speaker who was merely careless, or who genuinely did not grasp that a post would read as a threat, is not covered.

In practice that is the fight in most of these cases. Not whether the words were alarming, but whether the person posting them understood how they would land.

Sexual cyberharassment is covered by section 784.049. It applies to willfully and maliciously publishing or disseminating a sexually explicit image of a person without that person’s consent and contrary to a reasonable expectation of privacy, where the image or the information published with it identifies the person depicted. A first offense is a first degree misdemeanor. A second or subsequent offense is a third degree felony, as is committing the offense for financial gain.

That statute also carries a civil claim with a statutory damages floor, which the companion post covers in detail.

The stalking injunction, and why the filing fee matters

Section 784.0485 lets a victim of stalking petition a Florida court for an injunction for protection. The statute says plainly that the offense of stalking includes the offense of cyberstalking, so online conduct is squarely within it. A parent or legal guardian of a minor child living at home can file on the child’s behalf.

The clerk of court may not assess a filing fee for this petition. That is written into the statute, and it matters, because it removes the most common reason people do nothing while the harassment continues.

The court can restrain the respondent from further acts of stalking, order participation in treatment or counseling, refer the petitioner to services, and grant other relief it finds necessary to protect the victim.

An injunction is not the same thing as a damages claim, and it is usually faster. For many people it is the first move rather than the last. Keep the prior restraint problem in mind, though. An order telling someone to stop contacting you stands on much firmer ground than an order telling them to stop mentioning you.

Thinking about filing for an injunction? What you bring to the hearing decides it. Talk to Ludwin Law Group about what your documentation actually shows before you file.

What Florida schools are required to do

Florida’s school bullying statute is the Jeffrey Johnston Stand Up for All Students Act, section 1006.147. It defines cyberbullying as bullying carried out through technology or electronic communication, and it expressly includes online impersonation and distributing harmful material to multiple people.

Its reach is wider than the campus itself. The prohibited conduct includes behavior on non-school technology when that behavior substantially interferes with the victim’s ability to participate in school services or substantially disrupts the education process. A post made from a bedroom at midnight can fall inside the statute.

Districts have to adopt and review an anti-bullying policy every three years. The policy must provide for anonymous reporting, prompt investigation, and, under subsection (4)(i), immediate notification to the parents of both the victim and the perpetrator, plus “notification to all local agencies where criminal charges may be pursued against the perpetrator.”

Parents often do not know that last part exists. If a school is treating an incident as a private discipline matter, the statute contemplates a referral path that goes further.

One thing the statute does not do is create a criminal offense. It also contains an immunity provision protecting people who report bullying in good faith through the district’s procedures.

What to do right now

Preserve the evidence first. Screenshot every post, comment, message, and account profile, with the URL, the handle, the date, and the timestamp visible. Accounts get deleted. Posts disappear. A deleted post you cannot produce is a post that did not happen.

Do not engage. Replying feeds the pattern, and it gives the other side material to argue that the exchange was mutual rather than one directional.

Report it to the platform. Keep the confirmation. It is a parallel track, not a substitute, and it creates a record.

Consider a police report if the conduct involves threats, repeated contact after you asked it to stop, or explicit images shared without consent. Bring your documentation with you, organized by date. An officer who can see a pattern in two minutes is far more likely to treat it as a course of conduct.

Consider a stalking injunction under section 784.0485. There is no filing fee, and a parent can file for a minor child living at home.

Frequently Asked Questions

The other half of this: suing over it

Criminal charges and injunctions address the conduct. They do not compensate you for what the conduct cost you, and they do not tell you who was behind the account.

Our companion post covers the civil side: how anonymous accounts actually get identified, when harassment is also defamation, the two year deadline that ends most claims before they start, the statutory damages floor for shared explicit images, and the new 48 hour federal takedown right for intimate images and AI generated fakes.

Talk to a Florida attorney about online harassment

Online harassment moves quickly, and the evidence that proves it is the evidence most likely to disappear. Ludwin Law Group handles internet defamation and online harassment matters throughout Florida.

Start a free case review or call (561) 455-4455.