What is....Cyberharassment?

Whereas content may be offensive in a non-specific way, harassment directs obscenities and derogatory comments at specific individuals focusing for example on gender, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation. This often occurs in chat rooms, through newsgroups, and by sending hate e-mail to interested parties (see cyberbullying, cyberstalking, hate crime, online predator, stalking, and trolling). Any comment that may be found derogatory or offensive is considered harassment. Harassment targeting women and children in the internet also includes revenge pornography. Dr.Debarati Halder and Dr.K.Jaishankar (2013) defined online revenge pornography as "an act whereby the perpetrator satisfies his anger and frustration for a broken relationship through publicizing false, sexually provocative portrayal of his/her victim, by misusing the information that he may have known naturally, and that he may have stored in his personal computer, or may have been conveyed to his electronic device by the victim herself, or may have been stored in the device with the consent of the victim herself; and which may essentially have been done to publicly defame the victim."

There are instances where committing a crime, which involves the use of a computer, can lead to an enhanced sentence. For example, in the case of United States v. Neil Scott Kramer, Kramer was served an enhanced sentence according to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual §2G1.3(b)(3)^[16] for his use of a cell phone to “persuade, induce, entice, coerce, or facilitate the travel of, the minor to engage in prohibited sexual conduct.” Kramer argued that this claim was insufficient because his charge included persuading through a computer device and his cellular phone technically is not a computer. Although Kramer tried to argue this point, U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual states that the term computer "means an electronic, magnetic, optical, electrochemical, or other high speed data processing device performing logical, arithmetic, or storage functions, and includes any data storage facility or communications facility directly related to or operating in conjunction with such device."^[17]

Connecticut was the first state to pass a statute making it a criminal offense to harass someone by computer. Michigan, Arizona, and Virginia and South Carolina^[18] have also passed laws banning harassment by electronic means.^[19][20]

Harassment as defined in the U.S. computer statutes is typically distinct from cyberbullying, in that the former usually relates to a person's "use a computer or computer network to communicate obscene, vulgar, profane, lewd, lascivious, or indecent language, or make any suggestion or proposal of an obscene nature, or threaten any illegal or immoral act," while the latter need not involve anything of a sexual nature.

Source: Wikipedia - Computer crime

Note: Texas also has passed or enhance harassment laws to include those specifically via computer, as has the federal government.

Applicable Texas Laws:

Tx Penal Code § 42.07 - HARASSMENT

Applicable Federal Laws: 

18 U.S.C. 2261A - STALKING