There is a call for change and for tougher laws when it comes to cyberbullying.
Daniel “DJ” Phillips, 19, of Washington Township wanted a normal high school experience. But someone decided to use his photos and videos and create social media accounts pretending to be him.
The person created fake social media accounts posing as him. They used the accounts to spread false information, talk to girls, and more. The deception garnered thousands of views on TikTok and led to real-life confrontations.
“The Attorney General is aware of this case, and shares her sympathies with the victim, his family, and victims everywhere of social media cyberbullying. She is grateful law enforcement took seriously the complaint in this matter, thoroughly investigated the case, and that local prosecutors sought justice in the courts.”
Spokesperson for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel
Michigan Sen. Stephanie Chang said she wants to see change.
“These companies should need to be more responsible for creating the environment where these things are happening,” Chang said. “I hope that we can really find some ways to change the laws to make social media platforms safer for kids.”
Local 4 asked if punishment should be different if a minor is actually doing the cyberbullying.
“That’s something that we’d have to think about, right? And so I am someone who thinks that we need to make sure that when we enact criminal justice policies that we recognize that young people make mistakes, right. When they cause harm to other people, that’s definitely a problem and there needs to be some type of way of dealing with that,” Chang said. “But also we need to recognize that They are also young people and their brains are not yet fully developed.”
Aaron Minc is an attorney who has built his practice on helping those impersonated and bullied online.
“The biggest obstacle is that there is just a patchwork in terms of the laws that are available to help victims. Federally, there is nothing really on point that people can use in terms a civil remedy. There’s very few options available from a criminal perspective,” Minc said. “I think that we need to go back and we need to revise and tweak Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This is a law that’s been around and was passed back in the 1990s, which gives social media companies complete, almost complete absolute immunity from the content that’s published on their platforms by others.”
There is no federal law that specifically applies to bullying in the U.S., but each of the 50 states has an anti-bullying law or policy.
“I know that other states have already, New York, Nebraska, they’ve passed legislation like the Kids Code Act. We know that our countries like the UK, Australia and France have actually passed laws regarding strong age protections online. So we know that companies can comply with these laws because they are already doing so in other places. So I’m really hopeful that we can put in place some of the laws that we already know are working,” Chang said.
The Randomly Targeted series continues Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, morning at 6:30 a.m. where we sit down with local high school students to hear directly from them.