E-Stalkers On the Prowl

by Rizanuzzaman Laskar

While conventional stalking has received much attention lately, harassment through mobile phones and the internet has grown to be a silent epidemic in the last few years.

The Daily Star has recently interviewed 30 women at random about the issue, and found every one of them has been harassed electronically by ex-boyfriends or strangers.

"It is sexual harassment of the new millennium," said Sultana Kamal, rights activist and former adviser to the caretaker government. “And almost all the victims are women."

Kamal said the anonymity of the electronic communication devices makes it more likely for a person to indulge in stalking. “Some people are turning to these tools to do and say things they otherwise would not do.

The women interviewed were middle and upper class professionals, students and a housewife.

One was a schoolgirl who spent sleepless nights because of crank calls; another was an industrialist's daughter who stumbled across obscene pictures and her personal details on a Facebook profile someone else had opened in her name.

Naima Hossain, a college student, was taunted and teased over the phone for a week by a person she had never met. The stalker, who asked her out several times, threatened to throw acid on her face for refusal.

"That they [stalkers] do not have a face makes it even more traumatic for the victims," said Shamim F Karim, a psychology professor at Dhaka University.

Getting stalked by someone the victim knows can be no less unnerving.

Shamrin Afia Adiba, a BBA student, knew her stalker. For three years, she got taunting phone calls almost every hour.

About the nightmare she had gone through, she said it felt like her life was being slowly poisoned.

The stalker, a jilted male friend working at a telecom operator, used her cellphone number to track her location in real time. He let her know he was watching her, and threatened several times to kidnap her.

Switching to a different operator did not help, as he managed to trace Shamrin's new number through a friend working there.

While no statistics are available to confirm the number of electronic stalking victims, social experts point out that almost every woman using a mobile phone or the internet has suffered abuse at one time or another.

From January to July this year, 44 women reported harassment to the cyber crime prevention cell of the police's detective branch. In response, the police have blocked 46 SIM cards.

The law enforcers however admit that blocking SIM is not enough, as most people own multiple numbers, and a new subscription is only some cash away.

They said the existing laws appear toothless when it comes to fighting e-stalking, as some of them are more than a hundred years old.

Mustafizur Rahman, officer-in-charge of the New Market Police Station, said, "The laws require us to know the stalker's identity to take action against him. This is a major problem since in many cases the perpetrator remains unidentified."

Supreme Court lawyer Nina Goswami, director (mediation) at Ain O Salish Kendra, the rights group which has received two cyber-stalking cases this year, stresses the need for a law against cyber crimes.

"It is difficult to take action against the stalkers as there is no specific law,'' said the lawyer, herself a victim of mobile phone harassment.

A proposed act to curb cellphone-related crimes and harassment promises some respite. The draft law defines stalking, both physical and digital, as sexual harassment, and prescribes punishment.

Experts, however, fear the new law may prove ineffective, as most of the stalking incidents tend to go unreported.

Arifa Hossain says she perhaps knows why victims are reluctant to complain to the police. She went to the local police station to report abusive phone calls but thought better of it.

"You won't expect much from the cops once you see how they fumble with the mouse and eye the computer as if it's an alien thing."

A police representative admitted there is a lack of tech-savvy officers needed to hunt down high-tech criminals. He said this is a reason why the detective branch's cyber crime cell, set up in 2008, exists in name only.

Exceptional cases, however, receive special attention from the police. When a youth posted offensive materials on Facebook to taunt politicians in May, he was arrested within days and the whole social networking website was banned for a week.

"Banning an entire website is out of the question. But there should be some sort of a law or policy to safeguard our young women," said Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, a professor at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.

Experts believe fear of social stigma is another reason why victims are loath to file complaints with the police.

"Forget police, women do not tell anyone about being harassed for fear of being stigmatised," said Shamim F Karim, psychology teacher at DU. "Women, especially those in the city, have become somewhat accustomed to harassment in everyday life."

She suggested that anyone experiencing harassment over the phone or the internet should inform her family members immediately. "The family members can go to the police if necessary."

She noted that some young women, who are actually unaware that they are being subjected to a form of sexual harassment, try to laugh off the matter.

Some do not.

Trisa Gloria Rodriguez, for one, has been receiving irritating phone calls for some time. The stalker calls from different numbers and makes loud smooching noises.

She tried to reason with him, but it did not work. Yelling did not bring result either.

"Disgusting. I feel like kicking him,” says an irate Trisa

original article here

The Online Disinhibition Effect

In light of the Megan Meier Suicide Case, the Nikki Catsouras Crash Photos harassment and much of the rage & bullying that exposed cyberpaths do to their victims and anyone else who might speak the truth about them - this article might give some insight into what drives these predators.

The Lori Drews, the Doug Becksteads, the Charles Ed Hicks', the Jeff Dunetzs, the Dan Jacobys, the Beatrice Acevedos and all those we have exposed, will be exposed - or are out there right now feeling anonymous or omnipotent behind a keyboard.


It's well known that people say and do things in cyberspace that they wouldn't ordinarily say or do in the face-to-face world. They loosen up, feel more uninhibited, express themselves more openly. Researchers call this the "disinhibition effect." It's a double-edged sword. Sometimes people share very personal things about themselves. They reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes. Or they show unusual acts of kindness and generosity.

On the other hand, the disinhibition effect may not be so benign. Out spills rude language and harsh criticisms, anger, hatred, even threats. They can start their own website where what they think or feel reigns supreme. Or people explore the dark underworld of the internet, places of pornography and violence, places they would never visit in the real world. On the positive side, the disinhibition indicates an attempt to understand and explore oneself, to work through problems and find new ways of being. And sometimes it is simply a blind catharsis, an acting out of unsavory needs and wishes without any personal growth at all.
What causes this online disinhibition? What is it about cyberspace that loosens the psychological barriers that block the release of these inner feelings and needs? Several factors are at play. For some people, one or two of them produces the lion's share of the disinhibition effect. In most cases, though, these factors interact with each other, supplement each other, resulting in a more complex, amplified effect.

You Don't Know Me (anonymity)
As you move around the internet, most of the people you encounter can't easily tell who you are. System operators and some technologically savvy, motivated users may be able to detect your e-mail or internet address, but for the most part people only know what you tell them about yourself. If you wish, you can keep your identity hidden. As the word "anonymous" indicates, you can have no name - at least not your real name. That anonymity works wonders for the disinhibition effect. When people have the opportunity to separate their actions from their real world and identity, they feel less vulnerable about opening up. Whatever they say or do can't be directly linked to the rest of their lives. They don't have to own their behavior by acknowledging it within the full context of who they "really" are. When acting out hostile feelings, the person doesn't have to take responsibility for those actions. In fact, people might even convince themselves that those behaviors "aren't me at all." In psychology this is called "dissociation."

You Can't See Me (invisibility)
In many online environments other people cannot see you. As you browse through web sites, message boards, and even some chat rooms, people may not even know you are there at all - with the possible exception of web masters and other users who have access to software tools that can detect traffic through the site, assuming they have the inclination to keep an eye on you, one of maybe hundreds or thousands of users. Invisibility gives people the courage to go places and do things that they otherwise wouldn't.

This power to be concealed overlaps with anonymity, because anonymity is the concealment of identity. But there are some important differences. In text communication such as e-mail, chat, and instant messaging, others may know a great deal about who you are. However, they still can't see or hear you - and you can't see or hear them. Even with everyone's identity visible, the opportunity to be PHYSICALLY invisible amplifies the disinhibition effect. You don't have to worry about how you look or sound when you say (type) something. You don't have to worry about how others look or sound when you say something. Seeing a frown, a shaking head, a sigh, a bored expression, and many other subtle and not so subtle signs of disapproval or indifference can slam the breaks on what people are willing to express. In psychoanalysis, the analyst sits behind the patient in order remain a physically ambiguous figure, without revealing any body language or facial expression, so that the patient has free range to discuss whatever he or she wants, without feeling inhibited by how the analyst is physically reacting. In everyday relationships, people sometimes avert their eyes when discussing something personal and emotional. It's easier not to look into the other's face. Text communication offers a built-in opportunity to keep one's eyes averted.

See You Later (asynchronicity)
In e-mail and message boards, communication is asynchronous. People don't interact with each other in real time. Others may take minutes, hours, days, or even months to reply to something you say. Not having to deal with someone's immediate reaction can be disinhibiting. In real life, it would be like saying something to someone, magically suspending time before that person can reply, and then returning to the conversation when you're willing and able to hear the response. Immediate, real-time feedback from others tends to have a very powerful effect on the ongoing flow of how much people reveal about themselves. In e-mail and message boards, where there are delays in that feedback, people's train of thought may progress more steadily and quickly towards deeper expressions of what they are thinking and feeling. Some people may even experience asynchronicous communication as "running away" after posting a message that is personal, emotional, or hostile. It feels safe putting it “out there” where it can be left behind. In some cases, as Kali Munro, an online psychotherapist, aptly describes it, the person may be participating in an "emotional hit and run."
It's All in My Head (solipsistic introjection)
Absent face2face cues combined with text communication can have an interesting effect on people. Sometimes they feel that their mind has merged with the mind of the online companion. Reading another person's message might be experienced as a voice within one's head, as if that person magically has been inserted or "introjected" into one's psyche. Of course, we may not know what the other person's voice actually sounds like, so in our head we assign a voice to that companion. In fact, consciously or unconsciously, we may even assign a visual image to what we think that person looks like and how that person behaves. The online companion now becomes a character within our intrapsychic world, a character that is shaped partly by how the person actually presents him or herself via text communication, but also by our expectations, wishes, and needs. Because the person may even remind us of other people we know, we fill in the image of that character with memories of those other acquaintances.

As the character now becomes more elaborate and "real" within our minds, we may start to think, perhaps without being fully aware of it, that the typed-text conversation is all taking place within our heads, as if it's a dialogue between us and this character in our imagination - even as if we are authors typing out a play or a novel. Actually, even when it doesn't involve online relationships, many people carry on these kinds of conversations in their imagination throughout the day. People fantasize about flirting, arguing with a boss, or very honestly confronting a friend about what they feel. In their imagination, where it's safe, people feel free to say and do all sorts of things that they wouldn't in reality. At that moment, reality IS one's imagination. Online text communication can become the psychological tapestry in which a person's mind weaves these fantasy role plays, usually unconsciously and with considerable disinhibition. All of cyberspace is a stage and we are merely players.

When reading another's message, it's also possible that you "hear" that person's words using your own voice. We may be subvocalizing as we read, thereby projecting the sound of our voice into the other person's message. Perhaps unconsciously, it feels as if I am talking to/with myself. When we talk to ourselves, we are willing to say all sorts of things that we wouldn't say to others!

It's Just a Game (dissociation)
If we combine solipsistic introjection with the escapability of cyberspace, we get a slightly different force that magnifies disinhibition. People may feel that the imaginary characters they "created" exist in a different space, that one's online persona along with the online others live in an make-believe dimension, separate and apart from the demands and...

responsibilities of the real world. They split or "dissociate" online fiction from offline fact.

Emily Finch, an author and criminal lawyer studying identity theft in cyberspace, has suggested that some people see their online life as a kind of game with rules and norms that don't apply to everyday living (pers. comm., 2002). Once they turn off the computer and return to their daily routine, they believe they can leave that game and their game-identity behind. Why should they be held responsible for what happens in that make-believe play world that has nothing to do with reality? After all, it isn't that different than blasting away at your pals in a shoot-em up video game... or so some people might think, perhaps unconsciously.

We're Equals (neutralizing of status)
While online a person's status in the in-person world may not be known to others and it may not have as much impact as it does in the in-person world. If people can't see you or your surroundings, they don't know if you are the president of a major corporation sitting in your expensive office, or some "ordinary" person lounging around at home in front of the computer. Even if people do know something about your offline status and power, that elevated position may have little bearing on your online presence and influence. In most cases, everyone on the internet has an equal opportunity to voice him or herself. Everyone - regardless of status, wealth, race, gender, etc. - starts off on a level playing field. Although one's status in the outside world ultimately may have some impact on one's powers in cyberspace, what mostly determines your influence on others is your skill in communicating (including writing skills), your persistence, the quality of your ideas, and your technical know-how.

People are reluctant to say what they really think as they stand before an authority figure. A fear of disapproval and punishment from on high dampens the spirit. But online, in what feels like a peer relationship - with the appearances of "authority" minimized - people are much more willing to speak out or misbehave. There are those online that turn every disagreement into an "attack" and they can pick & choose what they want to hear and see and tune out anything that doesn't agree with their philosophy or way of thinking.

Interaction Effects
Of course, the online disinhibition effect is not the only factor that determines how much people open up or act out in cyberspace. The strength of underlying feelings, needs, and drive level has a big influence on how people behave. Personalities also vary greatly in the strength of defense mechanisms and tendencies towards inhibition or expression. People with histrionic styles tend to be very open and emotional. Compulsive people are more restrained. The online disinhibition effect will interact with these personality variables, in some cases resulting in a small deviation from the person's baseline (offline) behavior, while in other cases causing dramatic changes.

About the Author:John Suler, Ph.D. is Professor of Psychology at Rider University. This article comes from his online hypertext book The Psychology of Cyberspace which describes his ongoing research on how individuals and groups behave in cyberspace. His work has been reported by national and international media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, and CNN.

You've Got H@TE MAIL!

Remember the time when new netizens were discovering the joys of e-mail and chat? When we watched Meg Ryan in You've Got Mail log on and send messages to Tom Hanks. That was cool, way back in 1998, when that film was released. It explored the concept of what happens when the virtual world and the real world intersect at some point.

All that is old hat now. We send emails, we chat, we message, we scrap, we follow each other on Twitter, we scribble on Facebook's wall. We have SecondLife. The possibilities are endless. Your gmail inbox could be an excellent pointer. "Where are you now? I'd like to add you to my travel network”, says one mail. “XXX added you as a friend on Facebook” says another. There are join-us requests from at least three other social networking sites. And then, some blog comments that you have to moderate. So, cleaning the inbox could well take up an hour or two of your working day. All thanks to social networking. We live in an over-connected world, you see. Everyone's connected to everyone else and their cousin, thrice removed.

So, what's wrong with being connected? Nothing, except that we tend to lose perspective on who's a friend, who's not, and how much of our emotional investment needs to go into all this. Benign, harmless scraps, blog comments and messages are still tolerable. All you need to do is hit the delete button. But then, what about hate? What about those comments that hurt? What happens if there’s a sensitive person on the other end, who takes the hate personally?

Out of sheer curiosity, I log on to my Orkut account, and check out the hate communities. There are harmless "I hate to wake up early" to "I hate rain"communities. Soon, it turns ugly. And scary, if one may add. Take "Kill me, I'm fed up of my life" It had a whopping 3,000 members when one last checked. There's “Guns n Guts”, there's “I hurt myself; so you can't” with 7,000 members.

A web of distrust
One of the communities even suggests various methods to commit suicide. This community has a whopping 2,000 members at last count. Isn't this hate reflective of society itself? Surely, something's gone wrong somewhere.

According to psychologist Sonali Nag of the Promise Foundation, "Hate is a fundamental human emotion. As most other emotions, it is neither negative nor positive. It could be generated in response to something strongly repugnant to oneself and one's values. It could also be born from a sense of inadequacy. Both forms are seen on the Internet. It provides a screen to one's identity and offers a medium to express emotions with lower levels of restraint. ‘Snarking’ is an example of using the anonymity that the Internet provides to be snide and unrestrained in one's responses to someone else's postings. I would suspect that if one examined the personality of a 'snarker', one would find a sad, unfulfilled and frustrated person hiding behind his or her snarks."

There are hate communities directed at individuals and some very respected personalities at that. And then, countries. There was legal trouble when a ‘We hate India’ community was set up on a social networking site.

Omar Abdullah’s ‘alvida’
Social networking was also held responsible for the death of 16-year-old Adnan Patrawala from Mumbai, who was kidnapped and murdered by his Orkut friends. While social networking sites and blogs are excellent platforms for celebrities like an Aamir Khan or an Amitabh Bachchan to put across their points of view, they also make them vulnerable to hate comments.

You only have to check out Ram Gopal Varma's blog to see the kind of comments his posts elicit. But RGV blogs on, undeterred, responding to his readers sharply. But, then, it could get very serious.

Take the case of politician Omar Abdullah, who used the blog http://jknc.org/blog/ to air his views on Kashmir. He started his blog in mid-April, but by August, the comments and the hate got to him. His last post, titled 'Alvida' says it all. Sample this:

"Last night as I finished my last post I realised that I was filled with dread at the heap of personal abuse I was expecting when I logged on this morning and I was not wrong. We truly are a bunch of intolerant people. We want to be heard but do not have the strength to hear, we want to have an opinion but do not believe anyone else is entitled to one. So after almost 42 posts from me and more than 900 comments from all of you I am signing off and I will not be coming back."

Faceless dread
A clear case of cyber harassment. The nature of the Internet, as it is evident now, is that it is an open, free world, where everyone has the right to vent their views, or form communities without much social responsibility. The very fact that the bully is a faceless, unknown person, adds to the helplessness of the victim. Terror too, has spread its scary shadows on the Internet. Terror mails are sent from random IP addresses. As recently as September 2008, newspapers reported that a community called 'Indian Mujahideen' was banned from a social networking site, following the blasts in Delhi.

A presentation on 'Tracking terrorists in cyber space' made by J Prasanna, an Information Security Consultant, at a seminar organised by Digital Society Foundation of India, in Bangalore, acknowledges that most terrorists and spies indeed use the Internet. They use the Internet to leave a message on a website like orkut, Linkedin or a matrimonial website that looks normal. Only they understand where to look and what to read and it's difficult for others to find out. This is called a covert channel. Also, terrorists use anonymous proxy (with encryption) to transmit messages.

So, do we regulate the internet?
According to Na Vijayshankar, cyber law campaigner, the police are supposed to monitor any anti-social activities in society and can take action on their own. Vijayshankar, who is also the Chairman of the Digital Society Foundation of India, says the organisation proposes to act as a vigilante unit. He points out that his organisation even filed a PIL in connection with denigration of Gandhi on You Tube. "I personally try to keep the police informed. I strongly feel the police should maintain contact with voluntary organisations to act as cyber informers."

But does this not infringe upon freedom of expression and privacy? Agrees Na Vijayshankar, "It is a fact that sometimes privacy interests conflict with law enforcement."

However, Naavi cites a India Supreme Court judgment, which says “that the person’s ‘right to be let alone’ is not an absolute right and may be lawfully restricted for the prevention of crime, disorder or protection of health or morals or protection of rights and freedom of others.”

During the seminar on Privacy Rights and Data Protection in Cyber Space, he expressed the need for balancing the Privacy and Data Protection legislation with law enforcement and suggested that the forum would collect the opinion of experts and forward it to the government for necessary action when the Personal Data Protection Bill 2006 and ITA Amendment Act Bill would be taken up for discussion in the Parliamentary session.

“What the ITA 2000 fails to protect are cases such as 'cyber stalking' where privacy intrusion through e-mails or SMS messages creates problems for individuals. If such messages can be brought under "Obscenity" then it may be covered under Section 67 of ITA 2000. If it is indecent or threatening, it may be brought under IPC. This is essentially the protection that is available,” he points out in his presentation.

However, there is the issue of what constitutes privacy rights. When the police on a crime trail end up on a social networking site , there are commercial interests that try to block the police from accessing information which may be vital to solving the crime. Often the defense put up by the sites is that the information is protected by the ‘Privacy rights’ of someone else or that they are to be treated as ‘Intermediaries’ and should not be harassed, explains Naavi.

Which brings us back to that old question of freedom and responsibility. Particularly so, with reference to democracies, where one’s rights cannot be divorced from one’s responsibilities. Where there’s freedom, there’s responsibility. Now, if only those hate mongers understood.

Impact on children
As with all other aspects of helping children learn to live life completely, shielding them from cyber bullying is not an effective answer. An emotionally secure home environment that allows exploration and experimentation constantly backed up by support and introspection, would help them develop strong identities. A strong, self-accepting identity, would neither bully or be bullied, the psychologist explains.

The bullies and their victims

• In March 2007, high-profile technology blogger Kathy Sierra of the United States became a victim of cyber bullying. She received anonymous death threats on her blog and violent comments were made against her. Kathy was so scared that she stopped blogging. The incident triggered a movement in cyberspace, and hundreds of bloggers reported to have been victims of cyber bullying at some point in their online lives. An Anti- Cyber bullying Day was observed on March 30 that year, in protest.
• Another American citizen, Megan Meier, a 13-year-old girl committed suicide in October 2006, when personal comments on her looks and appearance got to her on a social networking site.
• Not many Indian bloggers would have forgotten the vicious personal comments and washing of dirty linen on the blogosphere, when a noted youth blog (youthcurry.blogspot.com) had a post about a management institute.
• Ironically, the Internet is also an excellent resource for parents who are worried about their children becoming targets of vicious attacks. There are websites dedicated to cyber bullying. Some of them include: http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/ stopcyberbullying.org.

Stand up to a bully!
According to psychologist Sonali Nag, “It is an extension of the bullying that seems to be integral to the human predicament, be it on the school playground or between countries. The only difference between the school bully and the Internet bully, perhaps is that anonymity allows the cyber bully an easier chance of getting away. The bully is usually a coward who melts away when confronted.

Here again low self-esteem and deep feelings of inadequacy seem to characterize the bully. Interestingly though, the bullied sometimes, want the relationship with the bully to continue. For the price of being bullied, they gain the reward of being the bully's protege and of being protected by the bully. However, for those who want to be released from this form of abuse, the bullied can be empowered to stand up to a bully.

original article found here

Hate & the Internet

Does the internet encourage insidious and bullying behaviour?

I remember the first time I logged into a chatroom. It was 1996, and I was using my mum's AOL account to mooch around the world wide web, which was still very much in its infancy. I was in that glorious, unrestricted period of life between college and reality, and the web seemed to offer splendid, unrestricted access to the outside world in a way that no generation had known before.

So it was with cocky confidence that I joined the "general" room as "Dan" (of undisclosed gender) and instantly discovered the thrill of anonymity. Behind my digital mask, I began a brief but satisfying tirade of mockery, contrariness and antisocial behaviour. Of course, compared with the stream of epithets that Xbox Live users encounter playing online, my efforts were pretty tame – I didn't question anyone's sexuality, make any racial slurs or say anything particularly negative about anyone's mother. But the sense of release I experienced in 10 minutes of childishness has remained at the back of my mind ever since I started studying the web; it helps define our behaviour online.

For some, this new technology not only facilitates, but actively encourages insidious and novel social ills. Blogs and forums are no-go zones for people who hope for rational conversation; cyberbullying has been blamed for several recent suicides; and white power, homophobic and jihadist organisations have colonised the web, preferring its potential to old-fashioned pamphleteering. It looks as if the web makes it possible for us to hate one another more easily, more efficiently and more effectively.

My mantra is that the web is an agnostic communication platform: it can do nothing to us except reflect who we are. However, as my own little descent into cyber-trollism attests, there are aspects of it that do encourage antisocial behaviour.

The biggie is anonymity, according to Dr Karen Douglas from the University of Kent, who studies the psychology of hatred online. We can log into a forum under a pseudonym, lob a hate bomb and then fade away into the digital ether. It's like playing a trick on Halloween; it's childish, it seems insignificant, and it's kinda fun. Unfortunately, such actions can have real-life consequences depending on who the hatred is directed at, how often it happens and whether there's support in place if the victim needs it.
But is anonymity alone the issue? Philip Zimbardo, professor emeritus at Stanford University, has been studying why people do evil since the 60s, and he says that environmental social cues are equally as important. In his famous Stanford prison experiment in 1971, a random selection of psychologically stable subjects were transformed into brutal prison guards after being given mirrored sunglasses and uniforms and told to play the role.

To reindividuate anonymous members of online crowds, forums, blogs and news sites – including the Observer's – are increasingly asking commentators to register their real names before posting any material (even if they then do so using a pseudonym). It's believed that the forging of this simple link between the virtual and offline persona is why relatively few counter-normative attitudes are expressed on sites such as Facebook, where exposing yourself as racist can turn you into a social pariah. Unless, of course, your friends are racists too. And that's a more difficult problem to solve.

Data traffic indicates that, online, we are increasingly talking to people just like ourselves, relying on our friends' directions to navigate the web. It's ironic that, rather than opening us up to an ever-greater number of opinions and attitudes, social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter may actually be narrowing our worldview, confirming what we already believe and reinforcing attitudes we hold already.

So what happens when we only communicate with people like ourselves, and the messages we share only reinforce our mutual hatred? It's a technique radical religious and racist organisations have always used to make sure their members conform, but now they're employing technological tools to create global communities of like-minded ideologues.

Groups such as Stormfront.org and GodHatesFags.com use the web for networking, self-promotion and recruitment. They give support and intellectual ammunition to existing members, rarely explicitly inciting violence. Thankfully, it appears that efforts to convince non-believers to convert to their cause are rarely successful – although we have yet to see the impact of their children's zones (with links to games, and alternative information for schoolwork, that reinforce their ideologies).

It's not all bad news, however. Just as the web is a powerful tool to get the message out, it's also a good vehicle to expose its flaws. The rampant opinions that dominate online life challenge users to be critical of the content they consume, and considerate in how they construct effective counter-arguments.

Online hatred is real, and it can have a very real effect. But we are in command of the technology; it's not in charge of us. And as for anonymity, back in 1996, even though I hid behind a false name, I didn't throw a hate bomb into that chatroom and run away; no, I was booted out. And frankly, my moment of humiliation was exactly what I deserved.

original article found here

Cyberharassers: You Can Hide, But You Can Not Run

If you think using a false identity will allow you to slander or harass people online, think again. Anonymity will not save you.

By Dan Tynan

You gotta love the InterWebs. You can get away with saying practically anything about anybody-- and if you hide behind a fake identity, nobody will ever be able to tell it’s you. Right?

Well, no. You can’t just say slander or harass someone without repercussions. If what you say or do would break a law in physical space, it will also break laws in cyber space. And I don’t care how anonymous you think you are, your identity is only a subpoena away.

(REMINDER: Every victim who's predator/ harasser has been exposed on EOPC has to sign a legally binding document that holds EOPC harmless. The post(s) is the FULL responsibility of the victim who sends the information to be posted.)

William Lawrence Cassidy found this out the hard way after he posted some 8,000 nasty, threatening, and disturbing tweets directed at one woman: Alyce Zeoli, a Buddhist leader in Maryland.

Cassidy, who also went by a variety of aliases including Tulku Urgyan Tenpa Rinpoche and Marshal Jim Duncan, probably thought he was being clever by posting the tweets via fake names. He wasn’t. He's now cooling his heels in a Maryland jail cell, awaiting trial for cyber harassment.

Per the New York Times:

… in response to a subpoena, [Twitter] revealed the Internet protocol address of the computer used to post the messages. The authorities found Mr. Cassidy at home in a small Southern California town called Lucerne Valley. Similar rants were posted on blogs that law enforcement authorities say they traced to him.

I had a tiny taste of something similar myself recently, after I made a joke about the Tea Party in a blog post. I said that before I friended anyone on Facebook I always make sure they’re not ax murderers or Tea Party members. After this lone comment prompted a handful of “news” stories on right-wing sites, I tweeted out a formal apology – to ax murderers.

You’d think I’d bitch slapped Sarah Palin while strangling a puppy. I cannot repeat here most of the nasty NSFW things these people said about me in blog comments and on Twitter.

But the worst one was the pseudonymous a**clown who made a “joke” by tweeting about my alleged fondness for kiddie porn. I informed him that he was flirting with a defamation suit, but he didn’t care – he seemed to think he was immune.

I’m not sure what these people thought they’d achieve by this campaign, but I think they proved my point about why I wouldn’t want to friend them.

Some free speech advocates argue that Twitter is a public forum where all voices should be heard. In Cassidy’s case, his alleged harassment of Zeoli seems to go well beyond free speech and into threats against her physical safety.

In my case, well, I’m a big fan of the First Amendment – I use it every day -- but I don’t think it gives you a license to slander or knowingly spread falsehoods. And I’m not alone.

“There is a whole litany of things that are not protected by the First Amendment, including illegal activity and copyright violations,” notes Bennet Kelly, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in cyber law who’s also an award-winning blogger for the Huffington Post.

Kelley often represents people who’ve been harassed or stalked online, typically by people posting anonymously or via a fake identity.

“These people think they’re immune, that they can hide their identity and get away with anything,” says Kelley. “But the victims usually have a pretty good idea of who these people are, and if not, we can investigate and find out.”

The simplest route: Take the account information and/or IP addresses used by the harasser, and demand their real identity and contact info from their service providers.

Once Kelley approaches the harassers, they usually take the offending material down to avoid further legal consequences.

Unfortunately, cyber harassment doesn’t get the attention it deserves, says Kelley. “People get all upset about cookies invading the privacy,” he says. “When’s the last time someone committed suicide over a cookie?”

TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan hasn’t sued anybody yet, but there’s still time. Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter: @tynan_on_tech.


original article here

WHY PEOPLE SEEM ANGRIER ON THE INTERNET

By Makini Brice

When the internet saw its rise in prominence, many worried that people would retreat to their own corners, surrounded by people who believed exactly the way that they did. To a large extent, that has happened, as evidenced by Fox Nation and Daily Kos. But the internet also gave rise to the "troll," so-called for internet users who spout views contrary to the site's readers. And with that has come cyber-bullying.

This week, a 17-year-old teenager was delivered harassment warnings due to his harassment of Olympic diver Tom Daley. Tom Daley stated that he wanted to win the gold medal to honor his father, who died of brain cancer last year. When Daley failed to medal, the 17-year-old tweeted, "You let your dad down I hope you know that."

There has been a lot of analysis of the victims of the cyber-bullying that can run rampant on various internet websites. It has been well-documented that victims suffer from decreased self-esteem. But very little seems to be concluded about the perpetrators themselves. Who are trolls? And why do they do it?

Alan Manevitz, a clinical psychiatrist at New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital, theorizes that people feel a freedom of speech that they cannot feel elsewhere, where there are few, if any, consequences. Indeed, the vast majority of people who shout venomous words in all caps on the internet do not face any repercussions. When schools, for example, try to dole out punishment for perpetrators of cyberbullying, some are met with cries of foul play.

Some trace "trolling" to the anonymity of the internet. Maybe that is true to an extent, but certainly not completely. This week, the Real Housewives of New Jersey Facebook page was littered with comments on how much they hated Milania Guidice, the five-year-old daughter of a Real Housewives cast member. All of the vitriol came from people whose names were attached to their Facebook accounts.

Many psychologists believe that the level of attacks is increased when a person cannot see the face of the person that they are attacking. One recent study found that contestants on a game show were more likely to criticize fellow contestants if they were in a different room rather than in the same one. Robert Milgram's 1950s-era experiments shed light on people who were more likely to give people potentially lethal doses of electric shock when they could not see them. Later replications of Milgram's studies found that his conclusion was less likely to be true if people identified more strongly with the student receiving the shocks.

Simon Rego, the director of psychology training at New York City's Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College, explained to Health magazine that our brains are hard-wired to take into account non-verbal cues, like body language, tone, and facial expressions. On the internet, all of those cues are removed, heightening many people's response and level of discourse.

Rego suggests pausing before sending an angry email, or to envision the person on the other side. After all, many states have cyberbullying laws in place – and no Twitter exchange can be worth ending up in handcuffs.

original article found here

How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away

The Dangers of Online Relationships & Stalking:
How True Love or Tragedy is Only a Click Away
The Story of Kerry Kujawa
Author Raymond Chan was a classmate of Kerry Kujawa's for several years in Sugar Land, Texas. Kerry's tragic story serves as a poignant example of the dangers of online relationships with offline consequences.

An Unexpected Phone Call
Late last April I got a phone call one afternoon from a good high school friend of mine who attended Texas A&M University. Not expecting the call, I good-naturedly asked how things were going.

It was not a social call. There was no good news, and things were not going well.

Earlier that day police had identified the body of Kerry Kujawa, a fellow A&M student and an old classmate that we had gone to school with for years. Kerry's body had been found, badly decomposed and unidentifiable, in a field on a remote ranch in the Texas hill country. The story around Kerry's tragic death would come out over the next day, and its nature shocked all of us who had known him.

Kerry had been having an online relationship with whom he thought to be a young woman under the screen name 'kelly_mc', meeting and communicating through an online chat room. Her real name was "Kelly McCauley", and seemed to be a nice pre-law student who was trapped in a destructive relationship, and Kerry was one of those people who wouldn't let her stay in such an emasculating position. They seemed to grow closer and closer over the months, and eventually Kerry started to ask Kelly to meet face to face, so that he could help her. He apparently grew insistent on helping her, and on April 7th, 2000, Kerry left campus to meet her in San Antonio.

A week or so later Kerry's family and friends received an email from Kerry saying that he was ok and would be staying with Kelly for a little longer. Online, Kelly had been telling others in the close-knit chat room that she and Kerry were engaged and would be getting married soon.

In the end, this fairy tale fantasy would prove to have been a terrible tragedy. A couple weeks later Kerry's friends started to worry about his continued absence from school and field a missing-persons report. Just the day before, police had discovered Kerry's body, but had not yet been able to identify it. The news came as a crushing blow to Kerry's family, friends, and all those who had known him.

Who was 'kelly_mc'?
Kerry's online love interest, 'Kelly', was not who he or anybody else thought she was. By interviewing the operators and frequent participators of the chat room, police obtained the phone numbers and addresses that the person had given out to contact her at. Authorities were also helped by carefully examining the computers Kerry had used to send and receive emails from 'kelly_mc'. 'She' was actually 31 year-old, 6' 2" Kenny Wayne Lockwood, a former McDonald's assistant manager who lived with his parents in an upscale neighborhood in San Antonio. He had no felony convictions and described by one neighbor as being the "last [person one would assume] for being involved [in the murder]." Others neighbors described him as "quiet, a real computer geek."

It would later come out that Lockwood had used the persona of 'Kelly' to talk with other young men in addition to Kerry, luring them with an appealing story and pictures of an attractive young woman to further the ploy. To conceal his identity, Lockwood met Kerry under the pretense of being Kelly's brother, then shot and killed him and disposed of his body. To delay the discovery of the murder, Lockwood sent the email purporting to be Kerry and continued to assume the persona of 'Kelly' in the chat room and furthering the story of the two supposedly in love.

Remembering Kerry
To those of us who had known and grown up with Kerry, the news of his death came as a terrible shock. The story of his murder, however, came as an even greater surprise. Kerry was a smart, highly intelligent, and computer-savvy individual. He was not the stereotypical 'computer geek' who spent his entire social life in front of a monitor and kept indoors or a 'jock' who would have been ignorant and not understanding of computers and the inherent risks. Instead, he was a sociable individual, an avid track athlete, and a notable engineering student.

Having talked with him on an almost daily basis throughout high school, I can say that Kerry was not a soft hearted, idealistic, or romantic individual. Furthermore, he was one of the brightest minds at my high school, ranked high in the class and one who took a challenging schedule of AP courses and extra-curricular activities. I would never have guessed that Kerry would be one to be tricked into such a deep and deceptive ploy by someone else; if anything, I can recall some of the joking pranks that he had played on others. All of us who previously had read or heard stories of failed online relationships in the media and dismissed them now had to rethink our beliefs. We had to re-examine our online lives and our hollow belief that we were somehow invulnerable to the situations that these stories presented.

Kerry's death forced all of us in the community and schools to rethink our notions of the Internet and the online world. It is too easy to think of the Internet as a collection of web pages and dot.coms, a resource of information and services that exist in a space parallel but separate from the "real world." However, the Internet is as much a community of people as it is a collection of pages and files, and those people very much exist in the same world that we do. The difficulty one finds in trying to categorize and potentially control the content of static pages becomes exponentially more complicated when applied the mildly analogous realm of miscellaneous interpersonal communication online.

As the idiom goes, on the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.

The World of Online Stalkers
Online chat has become increasingly popular in recent years, offering a way for individuals to meet and talk with others in an environment that seems anonymous and open. As Kerry's story illustrates, it's both easy to meet new people online and easy to forget that these people can come from all walks of life. While people are reluctant to chat with a random person on the street, it tends to be considerably easier for people to talk freely and openly online, under the context of being essentially anonymous. However, a certain danger arises when this sense of security lulls online participants into divulging into their real-life worlds.

A common sentiment among the non-tech savvy in the early days of the Internet was that the online world was disproportionately populated with socially deviant individuals; a seamy underground world best to be avoided. As the online presence has grown, people have come to realize that the online population tends, in a general sense, to mirror the general one. However, the real power in the network is its power to connect individuals who previously had no opportunity for meeting in any real life context. The power to connect those with like interests, but also the power for those with socially deviant desires to seek and stalk their prey more easily and to confide in others who would never admit to their tendencies offline. Online stalkers harass and follow those they meet online, sometimes, as in Kerry's case, with tragic real world consequences.

As with all other aspects of the Internet, anonymous people online should be considered with the same suspicion and regard that is accorded to content. Given the ease by which anyone can publish content online, the source of information is often closely analyzed and critiqued before being considered seriously. Likewise, anyone can log on to the Internet and enter a chat room - it is always prudent to know when to trust and distrust another online.

The Scope of the Problem
While it is easy both to under- and over-state the problem, the truth remains - online stalking occurs with enough prevalence to justify caution and preventive measures among the online public. Statistics, given the uncoordinated nature of the Internet, are few, but an August 1999 study on cyberstalking by the US Attorney General for the Vice President paints a disturbing picture on the ease and seriousness of the problem. Given the severity of offline stalking - the report states that one out of every twelve women have been stalked at some point in their lives - the implications of online techniques are troubling. Even lacking direct quantitative measurement, the report cites anecdotal evidence from law enforcement and ISPs to show that "cyberstalking is a serious - and growing - problem." In addition, while it is tempting to dismiss cyberstalking as merely harassing emails and messages that can be easily ignored, it is a serious crime that can often be a prelude to offline offenses. Also, given the growing integration of online services into daily life, stalkers can interfere more and more with everyday activities such as email and online transactions.

Conclusions
Stalking is an issue of considerable concern in the offline world; the Internet serves to broaden their reach and accessibility. People who would normally have to self control to not harass others in public might not think of online interaction in the same vein. Furthermore, this new level of accessibility to questionable and illegal content poses another pressing problem - addiction to online sexual content.

Law Would Ban Anonymous Internet Posts

by Ben Glaser

(U.S.A.) Uh oh, another controversial Internet bill has been proposed in the name of “protecting our children.” The Internet Protection Act in New York would pressure those accused of anonymous cyberbullying (on New York-based sites) to identify themselves, reports CNET. But it doesn’t stop there: the bill also targets those who criticize local business or make “mean-spirited and baseless political attacks.”

“The legislation, which I am sponsoring, seeks to combat cyber-bullying by allowing the victim of an anonymous Website posting to request that the post be removed if the anonymous source is unwilling to attach his or her name to it.” writes Republican Assemblyman Jim Conte. He adds that it will help ensure that reviews of local businesses are written by “actual customers,” and that information available about political candidates is more accurate.

Few are convinced that free speech is a reasonable price to pay for accurate reviews of the local pizza joint.

“Had the internet been around in the late 1700s, perhaps the anonymously written Federalist Papers would have to be taken down unless Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay revealed themselves,” writes David Kravets at Wired, echoing a popular criticism.

Unfortunately, Conte is right about a lot of the garbage floating around the internet. The anonymity of social media has inspired some truly disturbing new forms of bullying, and paying for Yelp reviews has quietly become an industry. But while precedents state that certain things like immediate threats of violence are not protected speech, none of the internet comments addressed here seem to meet these standards, and censoring them would be a huge violation of First Amendment rights.

In any event, this won’t leave victims of cyber-harassment totally vulnerable. Laws already exist to help unmask internet users (with the help of ISPs) if another major crime is suspected.

In addition, I don’t think these strategies would actually work. Many people are more than willing to spew the worst kinds of lies and hatred and still sign their name to it. Lies including death panels, birth certificates, and Bank of America bonuses have been passed around proudly by identified internet users.

Ironically, some anti-bullying activists oppose the measure, not just on First Amendment grounds, but for anti-bullying reasons.

“One of the beauties of the Internet is that you can post anonymous comments,” [privacy lawyer and anti-bullying activist Parry] Aftab told CNET. “It allows kids who may be abused to reach out and get help and it enables people with unpopular political views to be heard…”

What do you think? Will this legislation go anywhere?

original post found here

Harassers Are Losing Their Anonymity...

By Yamil Berard

Imagine waking up one day and finding out that you have been labeled a thief, hooker, pimp, child abuser or tax evader on an anonymous blog.

As people ramp up their trash talk online, such harassment is becoming more common, said Kenton J. Hutcherson, a Dallas attorney who specializes in Internet defamation cases. "I see these cases every day," Hutcherson said. "I have a unique niche."

The Internet has become a Wild West of hooligans apt to besmirch the name of anybody they don't like, because they think they can get away with it under a cloak of anonymity, legal experts say.

"The real difficulties you are going to have is finding who are the John Does who are posting this stuff," said Frank Snyder, a law professor at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth.

Indeed, for a while, the anonymous posters could hide. They counted on Internet service providers to refuse to unmask them.

But now, courts are ordering that they be exposed, opening the way for defamation lawsuits.

Just this week, a Tarrant County. Texas jury awarded a couple $13.8 million in a libel judgment, said to be one of the largest ever in an Internet defamation case. Hutcherson is now trying to unmask other anonymous posters who targeted three area residents, including two from Tarrant County.

He filed a lawsuit this month against "John or Jane Doe" on behalf of the three, who have been named on a Google-hosted blog as "two pimps and a prostitute." The accusations on the blog have caused "severe emotional distress," the lawsuit states.

Hutcherson says his clients are ordinary people. One, a Kaufman County woman, is a homemaker, a PTA member and a mom, he said. "She is scared to death that other people in the neighborhood will see this stuff and see that she's accused of being a prostitute," Hutcherson said.

None of the three have been charged with prostitution-related offenses, according to a check of criminal records. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Hutcherson said his clients aren't looking for a big verdict. They just want the allegations removed from the blog, known as "open secret" and affiliated with an online escort service. The blog identifies the plaintiffs as associated with Dallas brothels, a spa and another agency.

The information is easily accessible on Google, Hutcherson said.

[We are] not identifying the plaintiffs to avoid spreading the allegations.

In most of these cases, clients shun publicity, Hutcherson said. "The client in these cases is put at a difficult position because in order to vindicate their name, they have to go out there and file a public lawsuit," he said. The first goal in many Internet libel cases is to identify the anonymous poster.

To do that, the plaintiff's attorney issues a subpoena to the online service provider that hosts the pages with the defamatory content.

The provider -- Google, for example -- then typically notifies the anonymous defendant, who has 20 days to file a motion to quash the information. If no motion is filed or the court denies the motion, the provider must turn over the information, Hutcherson said. Once it is released, the defendant's real name replaces "John or Jane Doe" in the lawsuit.

Hutcherson's plaintiffs have a slam-dunk libel case if the allegations are false, Snyder said. Under age-old common law rules, it's unlawful to call a "chaste" woman a prostitute. It is called "libel per se" -- or libel that is obviously harmful.

"You're not only impugning a crime to them but implying unchastity as well," Snyder said. "If it's untrue, the common-law rule would be you get damages just by showing someone has falsely called you a prostitute."

The same rule, however, doesn't apply for men labeled pimps or prostitutes, he said. "Go back 150 years, a man who had affairs with other women was kind of admired."

Hutcherson's advice: Be careful what you post.

"People get behind the computer and they think they're anonymous and are not going to be held liable so they do things they normally would not do," he said. "They have this sense of empowerment. ... The way they act on the Internet is different than they way they act normally. The problem is that the Internet is the real world and it affects real people ... causes real damage."

original article found here

THE BAD BOYS OF CYBERSPACE

Getting Known Through Anonymity

Much has been said lately about how anonymity on the internet "disinhibits" people. Feeling relatively safe with their real-world identity hidden, they say and do things they otherwise wouldn't normally say or do in "real life." In some cases, that seems to be a good thing. People may be more honest, open, generous, and helpful. In other cases, however, the nasty side of a person gets unleased.

I'd like to give a slightly different spin to this "disinhibition through anonymity" concept. My basic premise is this: NO ONE WANTS TO BE COMPLETELY ANONYMOUS. No one wants to be totally invisible, with no name or identity or presence or interpersonal impact at all. Everyone wants and needs to express some aspect of who they are, to have others acknowledge and react to some aspect of their identity. In some cases, it's a benign feature of who you are. In some cases, not. Anonymity on the internet allows people to set aside some aspects of their identity in order to safely express others. Snerts need someone to react to and affirm their offensive behavior. This need is a bit different than simply catharting their frustrated drives, as the "eros-ridden" idea suggests. Snerts are trying to express some unresolved and warded-off feature of their troubled identity in an (often desperate) attempt to have it acknowledged. Unfortunately, they do it in a way that abuses other people. Under ideal conditions, they may be able to accept and work through those inner feelings and self-concepts that torture them. If not, they will continue to vent that ooze through their online snert identities, while safely dissociating it from their "real world" identity.

Does greater anonymity result in greater deviance? It's an interesting question. Because greater anonymity usually is associated with less accountability for one's actions, the answer would seem to be "yes." (snipped)

The higher prevalence of misbehavior among anonymous users may be more than just a "disinhibiting" effect. Rather than the anonymity simply "releasing" the nasty side of a person, the person may experience the anonymity - the lack of an identity - as toxic. Feeling frustrated about not being known or having a place in the group, the new user acts out that frustration in an antisocial manner. They need to feel that they have SOME kind of impact on others. It's not unlike the ignored child who starts acting "bad" in order to acquire attention from the parent, even if it's scolding and punishment. The squeakiest wheel. Humans, being humans, will almost always choose a connection to others over no connection at all, even if that connection is a negative one. Some snert guests may think (perhaps unconsciously) that their misbehavior is a justified retaliation against a community that they feel has stripped away their identity and alienated them. They reject because they feel rejected.

In rare cases, people who are well known in the community may become the trouble-makers. Social psychology has demonstrated that people with power and status often have "idiosyncrasy credit" - they are given a bit more leeway in violating some of the less critical rules of the community.

EXCERPTED FROM THIS ARTICLE

This is from a fascinating site on the Psychology of Cyberspace which can be read (which we STRONGLY recommend) in full here.) And many many thanks to OneofSeven from our sister site for once again, finding such a wonderful article!! - EOPC

What Happens Online Stays Online?

By Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S

Today’s omnipresent fear that one’s personal identifying data (e.g., social security number or credit card information) may be vulnerable to hackers and identity theft has pushed millions of subscribers into the arms of “identity theft protection” companies like LifeLock.

But is anyone really paying attention to what will happen when the sexually explicit language and photos that are sent via the latest “friend finder” smart-phone app or sex website get hacked or otherwise exploited?

When “joining” sites like Ashley Madison or downloading apps like Blendr, participants are offered some measure of comfort via a click-it guarantee that personal information will be securely maintained. But somehow it seems off the radar to the same professionals and/or married individuals, who would never send their social security number online via an unsecured site, that when you sext and arrange app-based sexual hook-ups, every word and pic sent via these apps also resides in a far-away server. And that information lives there for a whole lot longer than the instant it takes to sext a potential hook-up.

What happens to all the intensely personal, intimate sexual imagery and language now housed in the servers of companies like Ashley Madison (currently reporting over 9 million members), Adult Sex Finder and Grindr, to name just a few, if these business are bought out, go under or just plain get hacked? If recent news stories are any indication, online sexual activity isn’t nearly as private as many may naively believe:

Last month, Grindr, a popular smartphone app that enables gay men to meet other gay men using their phone’s GPS, was compromised by a Sydney hacker, who then placed users’ personal chats, explicit photos and private information online. This app currently has more than one million users worldwide. Security experts warn that the same vulnerabilities are present in other hook-up apps such as Blendr (the straight version of the app) and Ashley Madison.

Last week, a young man affiliated with hacker group Anonymous claimed to have hacked into a website operated by pornography provider Brazzers. The emails, usernames and other personal information of more than 350,000 users may have been exposed, a small sample of which were posted publicly online.

Anonymous has also just claimed responsibility for taking down the CIA website. Previously, the group took aim at the FBI, the Department of Justice, entertainment companies and the Church of Scientology, among others. Similar groups have targeted the U.S. Census Bureau, Interpol and various state public safety departments.

Over 20 years as a specialist in the field of adult intimacy disorders and sexual addiction has taught me (and you can see it clearly in the film Shame), that those intellectually stable, but emotionally challenged adults with problem patterns of sexual behavior can and do destroy their careers and tear apart their relationships without meaning to do so. All the while they believe they were somehow “safe” from being found out.

Unfortunately nearly all of these men and women prior to getting help expressed feeling when they are in the pursuit or “bubble” of their sexual and romantic highs that:

• They are “in control” and “know what they are doing”
• “No one will ever know or find out” if they’re “careful”

I need only cite Fmr. Congressman Anthony Weiner as one of the many unfortunate examples of this type of denial. And there are many more such individuals with stories in and out of the media nearly every day.

As technology becomes more intimately threaded into our lives, perhaps we need to broaden our ideas about what is truly “private” and what can be readily uncovered and shared in a public forum. If not, when the day comes (and it will) that the personal data currently maintained by any of the friend-sex-finder websites/apps are exposed and posted on a U.S. website, the Anthony Weiner sexting story, his subsequent marital separation and congressional resignation are going to look like a Girl Scout party by comparison.

Robert Weiss is the author of three books on sexual addiction and Founding Director of the premiere sex addiction treatment program, The Sexual Recovery Institute. He is Director of Sexual Disorders Services at The Ranch and Promises Treatment Centers. These centers serve individuals seeking sexual addiction treatment, love addiction treatment, and porn addiction help. Specifically, the Centers for Relationship and Sexual Recovery at The Ranch (CRSR) offer specialized intimacy, sex and relationship addiction treatment for both men and women in gender-specific, gender-separate treatment and living environments.

original article here

Being 'Anonymous' Online Changes People's Behavior

Faceless communication online or over phone often turns nice people nasty
By Diane Mapes


(excerpts)
One minute, they’re nice, normal people. The next, they’re frothing at the mouse.

“It’s mind-boggling the things people will say and even the things I will say,” says Catherine McIntyre, a 38-year-old medical billing specialist from Houston. “People who’d never say something horrible in real life will do it again and again and again online. It’s like the behavior of crowds, or those mass beatings where no one gets blamed because everyone’s at fault.”

Sheri Pineda, a 59-year-old customer service representative at the Daily Breeze in Torrance, Calif., encounters the same bad behavior in the after-hours messages left by her newspaper’s subscribers.

“It’s appalling the way people talk,” Pineda says. “They’ll rant and rave and cuss at us with extremely foul language. And I think a lot them specifically wait until we close the phones. They’re looking to let it all out and then get on with their day. And then they’re surprised when I get back to them. They’re like, ‘You actually heard that?’ and will be embarrassed.”

Hello. You have reached the split personality zone. Press 1 to melt down. Press 2 to hang up and act like a normal person again.

I, anonymous
Between out-of-control customers, vituperative online posters and road-raging drivers, it’s hard to find an individual who hasn’t succumbed to the siren song of faceless, consequence-free communication. Online boards are clogged with insults hurled by readers hiding behind deceptively mild screen names — (“I hope you rot in hell!” signed Kittyface) — and customer service reps endure blistering tirades from disembodied voices week in and week out.

These days there are a dozen ways to communicate without actually having to look somebody in the eye. As a result, not only have we developed an abrupt, abbreviated way to chat (IMHO), but our technological advances have spawned new psychological terms such as “online disinhibition effect” to explain our tendency to open up — in both good ways and bad — when we’re sitting in front of a screen.

In a February 2008 study published in the journal Psychological Reports, researchers found that out of four groups of participants, only those in the anonymous group took part in antisocial behavior — in this case defined as violating rules to obtain a reward.

“I definitely believe that anonymity affects the frequency of antisocial behavior among individuals to some extent, even when these individuals have a reasonable sense of morality — so-called ‘ordinary people,’” says study author Tatsuya Nogami of Nagoya University in Japan.

“In my personal opinion, people generally try to comply with social norms in everyday life, even when such compliance with norms and rules conflicts with their personal self-interests. However, if you can get what you want without receiving any punishment or negative evaluations from others, are you still 100 percent sure that you’ll always refrain from engaging in that kind of undesirable behavior?”

Rage against the machine
...
McIntyre, the billing specialist from Houston, says the online news forums she’s participated in over the years have led her down many a dark and dysfunctional corridor.

“People get sucked in,” she says. “You can be whoever you want, you can put out there whatever you want, and there are no consequences. I even got sucked in and was mean to people. I consider myself better than that, but I did it too, and that bothers me. I guess it’s just the dynamic.”

Rider University psychology professor John Suler wrote about this dynamic in his 2004 paper “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” In it, he describes both toxic disinhibition — angry, threatening behavior such as that seen in flame wars or cyberbullying — and benign disinhibition, in which people make overly personal revelations due to the intimate nature of the medium. (Think online daters who “fall in love” without ever meeting.)

A lot of this effect has to do with feedback — or lack thereof, says Wallace.

“The environment affects how you behave,” she says. “Any time you go to places where you’re not known — even if it’s a hotel in another city — you might be more aggressive. So when you construct an environment like the Internet or long-distance call centers with a help desk worker in Bangalore, you’re creating an environment that facilitates uncharacteristic behavior.

You’re not getting those nonverbal cues that calibrate your behavior and give you feedback if you’re going off track. Those people who do customer service for Comcast probably need double doses of Zoloft.”

Cherise Oleksak, a 35-year-old cable TV customer service representative from Fife, Wash., says dealing with people’s disinhibited side can definitely be a challenge. Some scream and rage; others get a little more, uh, personal.

“You’ll get people who will turn into perverts,” she says. ”They’ll ask you out or ask you to do (FREE) phone sex. They’ll be like, ‘Can you read those pay-per-view adult movie titles out loud to me again?’”

Robin Taylor, 42, a customer care representative from Nashville, Tenn., says she’s seen this split, as well.
...

“I guess they feel they can say whatever they want because they’re anonymous, but the funny thing is we have all their information: their name, their address, their phone number, even part of their Social Security number.

Not that I would ever retaliate, but if we ended up with some psycho (employee), it could happen.”

Going public
Interestingly enough, some folks are starting to retaliate.

Surreptitious tape recordings of outrageously bad customer behavior have started to pop up on YouTube in all their profanity-laced glory.

In 2004, comedienne Margaret Cho posted dozens of hateful e-mail messages she’d received in response to a monologue on her Web site, along with each sender’s full name and e-mail address. Shamed — and deluged with their own hate mail from Cho’s fans — some posters sent in abject letters of apology.

In the online world, abusive users hiding behind anonymous screen names are being outed, sometimes to huge public embarrassment as when Whole Foods chief executive John Mackey was unmasked as the sock puppet responsible for posting numerous attacks against competitors on a Yahoo! financial message board.

And media sites from Sacramento to Soho are stepping up their moderation of anonymous comments in an attempt to keep the incivility down to a low roar.

“When we first started with online blogs and that sort of thing, people weren’t aware of how much the environment could affect their behavior, but now people are getting much more savvy about it,” Wallace says. “But the issue that needs to be considered now is there’s no privacy. People need to recognize that they just can’t send out these blogging responses and e-mails and expect their anonymity to be preserved. It probably won’t be.

Recording devices are everywhere and Web 2.0, with its user-generated content, greatly amplifies the Net’s power to expose and publicize.

“It also archives forever.”

(full article found here)

(please see our far right column for a few of the VICTIMS of Exposed Predators and how they fought back against smear and lies from the Exposed Predators)