Net World IS Real World
I think that a fundamental shift has occurred and is still occurring wherein it is not "Just the Net" any more.
Net World IS the Real World.
People meet for fun and sharing. They have done this from the dawn of time.
At one point this was caves, then straw and mud huts, then much later, Men's Clubs and Women's Clubs and Churches made out of brick and mortar.
Then later, out of aluminum siding and plaster.
Now we have our clubs made out of electrons, out of pixels, out of binary codes....
Yet whether in a cave or on a computer, it is people meeting and interacting and sharing.
Some ask what a e-community manager's responsibility is. It is the same as the person who's cave it is. It is the same as a Club President, the same as a minister of a church.
It is to keep the peace and to make sure that the environment is safe for those who are only here for the sharing and exchange. For those who follow the Code of Conduct.
This does not simply mean that the person in charge is to wait on the sidelines for an altercation to erupt, though in the case of some members who have never done wrong before it works out that way.
It also means being proactive. Which many managers do. Some MSN community managers, for instance, require a membership application. It is not generally mentioned, but there are times where a person might be declined.
Why?
Well, if a minister knows that someone has no intent but to disrupt services at church, why accept him in the first place? What good would it do to let that one in, then wait for him to attack a member or members, then when the damage is done, push him out?
No good at all. Which is why church ministers, club presidents, and MSN community managers often like to do a screening, and keep out trouble makers....when they know that they are trouble makers.
However....the situation has gotten worse the past few years.
The net is not simply for some few nerds or rich folk. Everyone has a computer...or at least so many as to make that statement not jar too badly.
We who are on the net are not those who, "Have no lives"....no, the net is where we choose to live our lives, many millions of us....many tens of millions of us. More then most nations can boast of.
All human interactions short of "touch" can be done on line. We work on line, we chat on line, we watch and listen and talk with cameras and mikes. We read on line, we can go to school, we can fellowship with co-religionists, attend seminars, conventions. We meet and make friends, we find romance and love, even marriage partners.
There are those alive today who'd not have been born were it not for their parents meeting on line.
It's time we stopped excusing certain vile forms of behavior and attacks on the net with the annoying mantra of "It's just the Net".
It's not "just" anything, when it impacts so many tens of millions of people so strongly, so deeply, so personally that we see lives being destroyed....and lives being created....and lives in all stages in between.
There is no "just" in that.
Net World IS the Real World.
Now. What does that mean?
It means that we need to take a more proactive stance against the net criminals and cyberstalkers that prowl and skulk around these communities. If a person had attended three churches in one town, and shouted obscenities in each.....what minister would see that man on the member rolls of his own church, and not be concerned?
Does this mean the minister...or community manager....should instantly ban or bar? I would think that in "real" life as traditionally understood, that such a person would be brought in to talk. He would be asked to explain the issues of concern. And if the answers were not satisfying, he would be barred. Or she.
Likewise this should apply on the net. There are some in MSN Communities who are known to be venemous spewers of hate and bile. Who emotionally rape other members in ways that it would be difficult for some reading this to believe. I am as we speak involved in defending a woman named Cathy who has tremendously suffered by having some net thugs post pictures of her dead child all over the net, with captions like, "It's cold in my coffin, mommy, let me out."......and much worse things then that. Then they post her actual physical address which they tracked, so that any person could find her.
Here is a concept that we all could do right now. It's called shunning. We have no police here, MSN is lousy at that, and they care less then real cops do. I have not the infinite ability to deal with these thugs, but if they were shunned, if they were forced back into a few places, that would work wonders.
There is a need for such types to be identified...and banned. Even before they do something specifically on any given board. Managers who condone them...need to be barred from other places, shunned themselves, shut down if possible. We should not wait for a member to be killed, or to kill themselves, before we then can act.
I also believe that MSN (and Yahoo, etc.) has dropped the ball. They provide these communities, they know these things go on, yet they are cataclysmically slow to respond - and their "response" is usually woefully inadequate. There are some easy things they could do that would put an end to all this cyberstalking quite easily though.
1. Require a valid credit card number of any net nic a person has. Let no one be on the boards who's full name and actual address is not known to MSN or the other service providers.
2. Prohibit the creation of community groups at whim. As it is now, anyone can create a group, and there are whole communities created for no other reason then harming others, and they are created with fake nics. The creation of a community should require another application process, and the entering of the same credit card number as the net nic that is seeking to make the community used in the first place.
3. MSN should be required by law to see to it that the credit card holder's address matches with the physical address of the computer he/she is using. Hard for them to do? You bet. They'd have to liaison with hundreds of phone companies and cable service providers all over the planet. Yet if we were each charged an initial fee of $25, and $5 per month thereafter, that would more then cover it.
4. No second chances. When it's found that someone has posted an address, or porn, or such other material that violates the Code of Conduct we all agreed to, then MSN should not only delete that person's nic, but see to it that another nic can not be purchased with that same credit card, that same name, that same address ever again. If a new person buys that house, then that will be a person with a different name and card number. But the same person at the same address should not be able to reapply with a second card. Nor simply create new nics at a library computer with the same credit card.
Our government has similarily dropped the ball. They love to speak of taxing the net, of grabbing some of the money that others make...but where are they when it comes to our lives being endangered? No where.
Oh, you'll occassionally hear of some child porn sting, and that's good as far as it goes, but the enforcement even of that is spotty and random and all but non-existent.
When a man or woman contacts the police and says, "This person on the net threatened to kill me." or "This person on the net posted my real address." then there should be laws in place that allow them to go to MSN - or Yahoo, or any where - and say, "Give us the real name and address of the person who posted this."
Then laws need to be in place to allow them to go and arrest that person for the crime of "menacing" or whatever it is called in each nation. And the punishment should be severe, not less then six months in prison. Which considering the danger a person is in when their address is posted, that is hardly too severe a punishment for the person who posted it.
I am tired of the net being some free for all place where losers can vent and hiss and spit things they'd be terrified to say if they were off line - or if their own names and addresses were known.
While I oppose taxation, we don't have private agencies for handling this, so if the police need funding, I'd suggest that rather then tax the citizens, that they take a ten percent cut of that $25 initial fee we'd pay to MSN, then a ten percent cut of that $5 per month fee.
This stuff isn't brain surgery. It only requires common sense and a sense of dignity and a regard for the intrinsic worth of human life. A knowledge that free speech and threats and harassment are not semantically equal concepts.
For while it can easily be shown that there are people alive today who's parents met on the net, it can even more be shown that there are too many suicides and murders as the result of the same net. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of my kids being threatened by these skulking cowards, I'm tired of seeing this woman I'm defending being threatened by sociopaths, I'm tired of all these cowardly jerks hiding in the anonymity of the net, speaking on matters they'd be scared to whisper to me off line.
I'm tired of wondering each time a person stops posting - did they tire of it? Or was the person who flamed and threatened them last month more serious then I thought?
Dean West
Net World IS the Real World.
People meet for fun and sharing. They have done this from the dawn of time.
At one point this was caves, then straw and mud huts, then much later, Men's Clubs and Women's Clubs and Churches made out of brick and mortar.
Then later, out of aluminum siding and plaster.
Now we have our clubs made out of electrons, out of pixels, out of binary codes....
Yet whether in a cave or on a computer, it is people meeting and interacting and sharing.
Some ask what a e-community manager's responsibility is. It is the same as the person who's cave it is. It is the same as a Club President, the same as a minister of a church.
It is to keep the peace and to make sure that the environment is safe for those who are only here for the sharing and exchange. For those who follow the Code of Conduct.
This does not simply mean that the person in charge is to wait on the sidelines for an altercation to erupt, though in the case of some members who have never done wrong before it works out that way.
It also means being proactive. Which many managers do. Some MSN community managers, for instance, require a membership application. It is not generally mentioned, but there are times where a person might be declined.
Why?
Well, if a minister knows that someone has no intent but to disrupt services at church, why accept him in the first place? What good would it do to let that one in, then wait for him to attack a member or members, then when the damage is done, push him out?
No good at all. Which is why church ministers, club presidents, and MSN community managers often like to do a screening, and keep out trouble makers....when they know that they are trouble makers.
However....the situation has gotten worse the past few years.
The net is not simply for some few nerds or rich folk. Everyone has a computer...or at least so many as to make that statement not jar too badly.
We who are on the net are not those who, "Have no lives"....no, the net is where we choose to live our lives, many millions of us....many tens of millions of us. More then most nations can boast of.
All human interactions short of "touch" can be done on line. We work on line, we chat on line, we watch and listen and talk with cameras and mikes. We read on line, we can go to school, we can fellowship with co-religionists, attend seminars, conventions. We meet and make friends, we find romance and love, even marriage partners.
There are those alive today who'd not have been born were it not for their parents meeting on line.
It's time we stopped excusing certain vile forms of behavior and attacks on the net with the annoying mantra of "It's just the Net".
It's not "just" anything, when it impacts so many tens of millions of people so strongly, so deeply, so personally that we see lives being destroyed....and lives being created....and lives in all stages in between.
There is no "just" in that.
Net World IS the Real World.
Now. What does that mean?
It means that we need to take a more proactive stance against the net criminals and cyberstalkers that prowl and skulk around these communities. If a person had attended three churches in one town, and shouted obscenities in each.....what minister would see that man on the member rolls of his own church, and not be concerned?
Does this mean the minister...or community manager....should instantly ban or bar? I would think that in "real" life as traditionally understood, that such a person would be brought in to talk. He would be asked to explain the issues of concern. And if the answers were not satisfying, he would be barred. Or she.
Likewise this should apply on the net. There are some in MSN Communities who are known to be venemous spewers of hate and bile. Who emotionally rape other members in ways that it would be difficult for some reading this to believe. I am as we speak involved in defending a woman named Cathy who has tremendously suffered by having some net thugs post pictures of her dead child all over the net, with captions like, "It's cold in my coffin, mommy, let me out."......and much worse things then that. Then they post her actual physical address which they tracked, so that any person could find her.
Here is a concept that we all could do right now. It's called shunning. We have no police here, MSN is lousy at that, and they care less then real cops do. I have not the infinite ability to deal with these thugs, but if they were shunned, if they were forced back into a few places, that would work wonders.
There is a need for such types to be identified...and banned. Even before they do something specifically on any given board. Managers who condone them...need to be barred from other places, shunned themselves, shut down if possible. We should not wait for a member to be killed, or to kill themselves, before we then can act.
I also believe that MSN (and Yahoo, etc.) has dropped the ball. They provide these communities, they know these things go on, yet they are cataclysmically slow to respond - and their "response" is usually woefully inadequate. There are some easy things they could do that would put an end to all this cyberstalking quite easily though.
1. Require a valid credit card number of any net nic a person has. Let no one be on the boards who's full name and actual address is not known to MSN or the other service providers.
2. Prohibit the creation of community groups at whim. As it is now, anyone can create a group, and there are whole communities created for no other reason then harming others, and they are created with fake nics. The creation of a community should require another application process, and the entering of the same credit card number as the net nic that is seeking to make the community used in the first place.
3. MSN should be required by law to see to it that the credit card holder's address matches with the physical address of the computer he/she is using. Hard for them to do? You bet. They'd have to liaison with hundreds of phone companies and cable service providers all over the planet. Yet if we were each charged an initial fee of $25, and $5 per month thereafter, that would more then cover it.
4. No second chances. When it's found that someone has posted an address, or porn, or such other material that violates the Code of Conduct we all agreed to, then MSN should not only delete that person's nic, but see to it that another nic can not be purchased with that same credit card, that same name, that same address ever again. If a new person buys that house, then that will be a person with a different name and card number. But the same person at the same address should not be able to reapply with a second card. Nor simply create new nics at a library computer with the same credit card.
Our government has similarily dropped the ball. They love to speak of taxing the net, of grabbing some of the money that others make...but where are they when it comes to our lives being endangered? No where.
Oh, you'll occassionally hear of some child porn sting, and that's good as far as it goes, but the enforcement even of that is spotty and random and all but non-existent.
When a man or woman contacts the police and says, "This person on the net threatened to kill me." or "This person on the net posted my real address." then there should be laws in place that allow them to go to MSN - or Yahoo, or any where - and say, "Give us the real name and address of the person who posted this."
Then laws need to be in place to allow them to go and arrest that person for the crime of "menacing" or whatever it is called in each nation. And the punishment should be severe, not less then six months in prison. Which considering the danger a person is in when their address is posted, that is hardly too severe a punishment for the person who posted it.
I am tired of the net being some free for all place where losers can vent and hiss and spit things they'd be terrified to say if they were off line - or if their own names and addresses were known.
While I oppose taxation, we don't have private agencies for handling this, so if the police need funding, I'd suggest that rather then tax the citizens, that they take a ten percent cut of that $25 initial fee we'd pay to MSN, then a ten percent cut of that $5 per month fee.
This stuff isn't brain surgery. It only requires common sense and a sense of dignity and a regard for the intrinsic worth of human life. A knowledge that free speech and threats and harassment are not semantically equal concepts.
For while it can easily be shown that there are people alive today who's parents met on the net, it can even more be shown that there are too many suicides and murders as the result of the same net. I'm tired of it. I'm tired of my kids being threatened by these skulking cowards, I'm tired of seeing this woman I'm defending being threatened by sociopaths, I'm tired of all these cowardly jerks hiding in the anonymity of the net, speaking on matters they'd be scared to whisper to me off line.
I'm tired of wondering each time a person stops posting - did they tire of it? Or was the person who flamed and threatened them last month more serious then I thought?
Dean West
posted by Dean West @ 6:42 PM
13 Comments:
At February 23, 2005 9:29 PM,
Richard said…
Ostrasize them. It is the most effective treatment. If you try to ban them, they will simply find other means to get around any barrier you put in their way. They thrive on the emotional drama they create. When they are thoroughly ostrasized and ignored they will go elsewhere. The original post is ambrosia to these types.
At February 23, 2005 10:33 PM,
caskur said…
Richard, I'm the victim of this stalker. It's been going on for more than a year and still is right now. We've tried everything, channging my ID's the whole works. Nothing has worked. Really. There are some who say I bring it on myself. It's been a hard fight but public exposure has been the best so far.
At February 24, 2005 5:21 AM,
Richard said…
"It's been a hard fight..."
This is exactly what they thrive on, a hard fight. If they can get a response they are happy. If they can provoke an emotional outburst, they are ecstatic. If they can get their "victim" to fight back, they are in heaven. The only thing they cannot abide is to be ignored.
It takes at least two people to play tug-of-war. If one just drops the rope, the game is over.
At February 24, 2005 5:32 AM,
Anonymous said…
Richard,
This isn't grade school where if you ignore the bully he'll go away. And guess what? Even in grade school that never worked.
Bullies don't need an excuse, so Cathy sticking up for herself has nothing to do with their actions. I also find it incredible how many people think that ignoring an attack on you makes it go away.
Even were it too, and it doesn't for she tried that long ago, I'd still counsel for real punishment for the real crimes being done on this net.
Is a rape victim supposed to ignore her attacker? And assault victim? If a woman is being stalked in her neighborhood, she should just ignore the stalker?
This is not where you need to post again saying that this is only happening on the net - her address for any neighborhood nut is around the boards for the world to see.
Dean West
At February 24, 2005 2:17 PM,
It's Me, Maven... said…
Not sure if you know this Dean, but MSN did that very thing, and went to a paid subscription service, as their chatrooms were becoming increasingly popular.
In Oct 2003 the switch was made, and all of the "public" rooms were closed to all who did not pay the $20 fee. All in the name of better online security or policing, so they say. Yet, the "virtual" raping continues.
I agree with Richard, to the degree of shunning & how they thrive on the negativity. Had the shunning been done at the onset, it's doubtful if things would have escalated to the point where it's at currently.
And they no doubt read your blog and entries like today's, no doubt, supercharges them. As sick as it is, even bad publicity is still publicity. Why continue to feed them?
At February 24, 2005 2:32 PM,
Anonymous said…
Maven,
I knew of the chat rooms. That's why I thought of doing it for the community rooms. I do believe that the credit card and fee for the chat rooms had to make them at least a bit safer.
In any case, I ignore and they persist, I fight back and they persist. So I may as well continue to increase awareness, and push for things that will cost them. It doesn't matter when I don't feed them - others do. So I'll just work on costing them.
If others wish to say, "Hey, but it will cost all of us!", then I say, "Really? But I find that preferable to the death threats and violent pics and porn."
For you see, as much as I hate paying money, I hate the pics and posts I see even more. I hated it the first time I retched viewing it...and I hated it worse the first time I didn't even blink any more.
How are my methods ultimately doing? Well...pretty good. As it stood, they were everywhere before, and hardly anyone knew what they were up to.
Now they are in select areas only, and many know who they are. This is good - or at least better.
Take care,
Dean
At February 24, 2005 7:02 PM,
It's Me, Maven... said…
If they go to a paid subscription for the communities, I certainly won't pay for it. My point is that it's not stopping any of the pitiful behaviors which are going on right now. Furthermore, there is no difference in the quality of the service or support, whether you pay for it or not. I'd simply go elsewhere.
At February 24, 2005 8:10 PM,
Richard said…
I have successfully gotten rid of such people for fifteen years by totally ignoring them. I have done it on the Net and in real life and it really works.
At February 24, 2005 8:33 PM,
It's Me, Maven... said…
As have I. I think that ignoring them completely takes more fortitude than actually fighting with them.
At February 24, 2005 8:42 PM,
Anonymous said…
Richard and Maven,
While I respect the obvious sincerity of your opinions and your strong conviction of it's truth, I still disagree.
The bottom line? The woman involved does NOT care to simply sit still until they get tired of pummeling her, and so long as she is fighting, so will I.
You may be right, they may stay the longer - but that has more to do with so many letting them roam about at large unchecked and unchallenged and unpunished, then it does the victim striking back in defense.
Personally? I doubt very much they enjoyed losing so many of their communities to me. I doubt they like any of the things I've done, and if the number of communities they've created to harm me is any indication, I've caused them great distress.
The fight is over when all the managers agree to instantly delete this issue wherever it arises, whoever posts it, and further, to ban all who do so a second time.
Then I'll ignore them.
Take care,
Dean
At February 25, 2005 6:33 PM,
Anonymous said…
I have never read anyone so long-winded, yet saying nothing, in my life!
Sorry, but do you ever shut up??
At February 25, 2005 6:42 PM,
Anonymous said…
At least my goal is to help. One wonders what your goal in being mean was? In any case, I hardly said nothing, rather, you yourself clearly felt it to be something of enough importance to attempt to mock.
So that is something.
Hope things go better in life for you then they apparently are now.
Dean
At February 27, 2005 10:32 AM,
Avellano said…
Saying that net life is real, is like saying that the people who write back and forth as pen pals without ever meeting are "real". Certainly, the people exist, however on the net there are many opportunities for the individual to hide from himself as well as others. Sometimes this is not even apparent to the individual. They create a sense of self from their on line identity, which is different from that of "real" life.
I also agree with Richard. It takes two to tango. Removing oneself from a negative situation is often times the best solution.
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