Cyber harassment - my view - Page 2

Agar:  You are correct about all of your statement.  You would not have mcuh of a chance that any enforcement agency would do anything for you, the exception being if you are underage.

You recommendations concerning the ignoring aspect of dealing with "it", brings up a question or two.

Would not responding to a blatant lie, be the proper way to deal with it?  For instance if someone stated that the dog you bred has HD but that you had tricked the vet by presenting a "replacement" dog for the x-rays sent to OFA, or you are sleeping with another member of this board?

Would YOU not respond if someone, say me, came on here and stated that I was at a dog event and heard that you had culled 2 pups from your last litter because they had excessive white in them, or if I stated that you went me a PM asking me to meet with you in Vegas for a wekend of "personal fun"?

Of course this is all made up stuff, but I am curious if you think that the proper way to handle it would be to just simply ignore it.  Anyone out there that would ignore and not respond to any of those type of things posted on this site about THEM?

I'm just asking.

Agar, I agree with much of what you say. If you cannot "take it" then simply do not "dish it out." I also see the ongoing diatribe between "Brittany" and "Saint-Funkman" and while I see it all as childish behaviour (on both parts) I tend to ignore it and pass it by. There is certainly no reason for me to be involved with either of these entities. As far as I am concerned they are harrassing each other.

I for one was "cyber-harrassed" once from a poster on this site who accidentally included too much information inside a personal e-mail that he sent to me. Once I had that and spoke with Oli, the criminal investigation was underway. I filed a police report with the local sherrif (I am in the county) and this was forwarded to the State AG's office in Wisconsin. I soon  learned there were pending criminal indictments for this person and  mine was minor in comparison but it was still filed as a complaint with the Wisconsin AG's office. I saw no reason tospend the resources to prosecute as this person was facing severe penalties in his home state. But, suffice it to say that a criminal complaint exists and it is best this person never enters my county of residence and causes a problem that will involve law enforcement.

So, investigation and prosecution can be done and certain law enforcement types take it very seriously. With the software I use I am able to dig very deep into websites and parse the data, so there was a thick file of printed documentation that went with this file. Much supporting documentation

Now I am using the personal pronoun "you" in a collective sense to mean "anyone." So to anyone out there, if you wish to threaten me, then do it to my face and take serious chances of prosecution and/or physical retaliatory injury. Do it online to the end that you threaten my life and I will get you through our legal system. If nothing else I will mar your "perfect" record as a "model" citizen and make you a "go-to" person in the event of other threatening and/or stalking behaviour that might occur near your area.

Don't be a victim-don't be an antagonizer,

Bob-O

I had a cyber stalker a few years back. Not from this board, but one of the audio boards. He never actually threatened me, but would send me very bizarre poems about death and dying on almost a daily basis. Really freaked me out. I tried to ignore him at first, hoping he would just go away, but he didn't. I finally responded telling this nut case if I ever got another e-mail from him the police would be knocking at his door and I wasn't kidding. Never heard from him again. Makes Funk Man seem almost normal in comparison.

DoRight,  if I learned anything at all from the posts I've read on this board it is to try to ignore the taunting and just move on even if it is personal or untrue or vulgar in nature.  I feel that those know who me and who I am know the truth, so have no need to take it any farther by encouraging the bullies who frequent this board. Their opinion of me is of no importance whatsoever and if they feel that my silence is a victory, then so be it. I can't fix stupid.

Bob- I agree the harassment goes both ways and I bypass it as well.  If it doesn't pertain to me then there's no need to get involved in the juvenile antics.  It sounds like in your situation you handled the situation appropriately and the authorities responded  probably better to your situation than they would have in my area. 

Proud Poppsa - Lol - especially the bosses - heh but don't forget family too :)

Bob-O  I suspect you live in either a very wealthy community or a very small one. Most of us could not hope to get that kindof interest and support from our local police department on ANY crime. My local office despite being informed w/in 2 hours after the crime where the perpertrator lived ( a 4 apt building) and despite having his personal possessions - piece of torn shirt and his 'Bling" which got torn off of him by a good samaritan trying to stop his crime - said " we need to know the exact apartment and then the dectectives will go out next week."  Yah right and do ya think he might be in the next state by then? Then they wonder why people don't support them.

But Blitzen - my hats off to you. So eloquently put - "we can't fix stupid."  Love it - got to stash that one away for future use.

"with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person..."

I doubt that any government agency or police force is the slightest bit concerned with someone being 'annoyed' by information or gossip posted on the internet.  Governments are short staffed as are police forces and tend to focus on the more serious issues such as national security, terrorism, threat of physical harm, etc...

For the rest there are the civil courts where suits may be brought but with great expense and questionable chance of success.  The information so posted must be shown to be causing harm to the plaintiff and to actually be false.  If what is posted is true and can be shown to be true, I doubt anyone would contest it as they would spend a lot of money that is not recoverable and their poor practices would be dragged through a court case most likely to be deemed by the judge as 'frivolous' and then become available to the public.  Anyone who is interested, for a fee and an access request can get transcripts from the court records of a case once it is finished, unless it has been sealed. 

TIG, I will set the record straight.  I have usually sat by and posted nothing when multiple spoofers make posts to ridicule, harass, vilify or annoy others.  I have posted in reponse to such when I couldn't stand the extent and intensity of it, and when this stuff was becoming predominant on this site.  For example, I believe that many GSD breed experts were driven away such as DP of Videx Kennels and others who used to posts hard to get valuable GSD info.  The abuse directed at him was really extreme.  If you folks like this stuff and thinks its funny, fine, support it and reinforce it, but realize some think it harms the value of this site. When my posts were rebuffed and I was given veiled death threat, then I started taking this stuff more seriously.  One bully insists on repeatedly crossing the line and is setting himself up for legal problems eventually. I say if one wants to do so fine, but don't object when you are called to the carpet for it.  When it became evident that Oli was not going to enforce his rules (Terms of Service), old or new ones, then I just stopped posting most of the time because the personal attacks were quick to come against different opinions expressed.  The element of respect towards each other was quickly eroded and the site became more or less a social club for those who like to joke around and gain status in their own subculture.  I have never posted to bring balance to the site unless I felt it would help expose the hypocrisy of multiple spoofers.  I personally believe that this multiple spoofing is not a joke, has needlessly upset others, and certainly seriously harms this site.  At one time 30-40% of the discussions were being generated and controlled by one particular spoofer who really comes off as a bully.  There is a substantial amount of research being done on adult and child bullying if you want to do a google search. You will find that these are long term patterns from folks with serious personality issues and that they are usually only willing to stop when forced to by others. Bullying is not harmless and besides lowering the quality of the information provided on this site, can hurt others. Thus the reason many sites bar these types of folks from posting. But, if most folks and Oli want this type of stuff here, that is your choice and you are free to do so.  However, don't be surprised when almost nothing valuable is ever posted about hard to get information on the GSD, its breeding, showing or training. And if a bully dishes it out, he ought to be able to take a few criticizing posts in response that expose his game.  I always figured that most folks didn't know about this spoofing and the mind games involved, and that if they were informed, they would rise up and demand a stop to it.  Unfortunately, the real GSDs have left (can't tolerate this stuff and have no time to argue), leaving those that not only  tolerate it, but even seem to like it.  Nuff said, it's the group's site, so do what you want.

Amen, Preston. Some do seem to like it and even support those who do it touting freedom of speech. I find it ironic that some can rattle off a stream of 4 letter words, suggest that some ladies here perform oral sex on them and in the same breath praise the lord.  I just don't understand why more are not offended by  such crude and classless behavior, but so be it. And that's all I have to say about that.

Stranger, you stated:  "I doubt that any government agency or police force is the slightest bit concerned with someone being 'annoyed' by information or gossip posted on the internet.  Governments are short staffed as are police forces and tend to focus on the more serious issues such as national security, terrorism, threat of physical harm, etc..."

First of all you don't have clue what you are talking about. Certain state agencies and certain fed agencies do care a lot about this, but for different reasons than you might guess. And it's not to prrotect and serve. Actually you may find this hard to believe but they want to strengthen and harden their enforcement and litigation processes under the guise of diversity, and anti-harassment protection. They like to select civilian cases to make an example out of and to strengthen their response to "domestic terrorism", translated which really means their eventual target could be any type of community organizing of dissent which they see as a threat to their power structure.  Certainly the way some of these draconian laws have been passed in near secrecy with unmentioned, unpublicized clauses and "signed findings" attached should give you a clue that they are serious about enforcing them on certain profiled individuals".  There "may" be a long term plan to provide controls on the internet through this type of ajudication and through making certain there "will be" insufficient capacity, thus causing brownouts and further reasons to "ration" internet use along "certain guidelines" which I won't go into here.