"I've Had A Cyberstalker Since I Was 12"

[P. K. Qu'est Que Ce]

-Roni Jacobson.

Quite the statement, and she has quite the story. Before we go any further I want to just say that this is far removed from the realm of games and the game industry, so if people could try to leave that baggage at the door I'd appreciate it.

Roni Jacobson is a journalist, a freelancer who writes stories in the medical and psychological field. She's been published in the New York Tims, Scientific American, and elsewhere.

https://backchannel.com/i-ve-had-a-cyberstalker-since-i-was-12-384ea9853b79

The basics and the background can be summed up thus

Danny (not his real name) has stalked and harassed me, online and off, for almost 15 years ? more than half my life at this point. He has used a variety of methods to do so ? phone, text, email, Facebook and other social media ? updating his tactics with every advance in technology. In the last three years he has also sent dozens, possibly hundreds, of defamatory letters, emails, Facebook and Twitter messages about me to my family, friends, employers, friends? employers, professional organizations and political offices, including the State Attorney General of New York. (I know because he sent me copies of the letters.)

By now I was used to ignoring Danny?s harassment and advising others to do the same, but this was different, more serious than what I had endured before. It looked like Danny had stolen my identity and was now posing as me to my friends online. Had he hacked my accounts? I was terrified of the havoc he could wreak with my personal information suddenly at his disposal.

In essence, she ignored the troll until the troll went criminal, although obviously he did that long before. The rest of the story is interesting, and I'd love to discuss all of it, but my main question is: should you just ignore stalking and harassment and hope it goes away? The state of the law is such that it's a huge deal to get something done about it, and many people don't have the resources to make that happen. Once things get blatantly illegal beyond the stalking (such as a hack) the police are much quicker to help.

If you read the article, it's a crazy level of work and commitment on the part of the victim (not law enforcement) to even get the wheels of justice moving in these cases. I imagine that for people who don't have more than a decade of experience with this, and a journalistic background, it's a lot more overwhelming. What changes do we need to make to existing laws, or what new laws do we need to address this? Is it not a matter of laws, but a matter of training law enforcement? Do you have some other idea of how things should be dealt with? What did you think about the article in general, and Ms. Jacobson's experiences in particular?

What would you have done?

 

[Kina]

I've never really been a victim in this sense so I may have reacted differently but my gut feeling is would've just been 'ignore it'. That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever I hear a B-celebrity complain on twitter that he or she was receiving 'death threats' online. Death threats are no joke, don't get me wrong, but let's be honest now - every 14 year old **** will "come find you and kill you" at some point, no?

Sure there will be the one off extreme case as with everything as displayed above but, there's really not much you can do about it aside from report it and move on with your life, right?

 

[P. K. Qu'est Que Ce]

I've never really been a victim in this sense so I may have reacted differently but my gut feeling is would've just been 'ignore it'. That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever I hear a B-celebrity complain on twitter that he or she was receiving 'death threats' online. Death threats are no joke, don't get me wrong, but let's be honest now - every 14 year old **** will "come find you and kill you" at some point, no?

Sure there will be the one off extreme case as with everything as displayed above but, there's really not much you can do about it aside from report it and move on with your life, right?

First of all, let me congratulate you on the speed reading. I posted that less than three minutes ago, you read it, thought about it, and formulated your response in less than three minutes!

Wow.

You know what, I'm re-reading your post, and I think actually you might have no idea what the article is about. At all. You might not actually have even read the introduction, because maybe you can't read that quickly after all? Plus, what you said has literally nothing to do with the article. At all.

Want to try again?

 

[Kina]

Didn't read the article, I read the summarized section you quoted in your opening. I don't really have too much to say regarding the laws in place or how they could be changed since it essentially always comes down to a what-if scenario till something actually happens.

Merely shared my thoughts on what I would've done had I done facing that very scenario brought up above.

Wow.

 

[P. K. Qu'est Que Ce]

Didn't read the article, I read the summarized section you quoted in your opening. I don't really have too much to say regarding the laws in place or how they could be changed since it essentially always comes down to a what-if scenario till something actually happens.

Merely shared my thoughts on what I would've done had I done facing that very scenario brought up above.

Wow.

I think maybe you just read the title of the thread, and assumed a lot. Nothing in my summary indicated that she's a celebrity (she's not), and after 14 years of living and moving on the guy hacked her and stole her identify, forcing her hand.

It's um, you know, in the article. Again, no one is forcing you to read anything, but by the same token, when you comment on something without knowing anything about it, you invite hostility.

 

[DefunctTheory]

The first step against most annoyances in life are to ignore it, particularly people. Refusing to engage can solve a lot of problems right at the start.

But this... this is something special. I can't even begin to fathom what its like to be on the opposite end of this, nor how broken an individual has to be on the inside to go to such lengths. It's as bizarre as it is disturbing.

 

[Ryotknife]

Police seem hesitant to get involved unless there is a physical threat of violence. For example, there are plenty of stories of them taking a hands off approach when it comes to restraining orders, child support, domestic disturbances, and theft. I know a person whose car was stolen that had lojack, meaning the police could track the stolen car via GPS. The person got a call from the police a week later that they found his car in a field stripped down to the frame. I can understand not wanting to get involved in a high speed chase with a thief, after all those are dangerous to the community, but this is unacceptable.

 

[Kina]

I think maybe you just read the title of the thread, and assumed a lot. Nothing in my summary indicated that she's a celebrity (she's not), and after 14 years of living and moving on the guy hacked her and stole her identify, forcing her hand.

It's um, you know, in the article. Again, no one is forcing you to read anything, but by the same token, when you comment on something without knowing anything about it, you invite hostility.

That's odd, I'm fairly certain that I didn't refer to the woman in question as a celebrity. It was an example referring to, what my posts original intention was, to at face value ignore such harassment and people. Whether that is the right choice in all cases is up for discussion, but circling back to my first post, once again, that's what I would've done had someone been harassing and stalking me online. Sadly that wasn't enough in this case as it continued, being one of the extreme cases I referred to once again in my first post.

As for the 'invite hostility' part - That's cute.

 

[mad825]

"I've Had A Cyberstalker Since I Was 12" aka 5 years ago when I started disliking the guy. She is not the brightest person in the world.

I spent most of my youth without a computer and most probably had more technosense than her.

When I got a Facebook account in 2006 he found me again and, not wanting to be rude, I accepted his friend request. He often sent me rambling accounts of his day-to-day life. I usually didn?t respond, but sometimes I messaged back if I was bored or lonely.

I didn?t think much of Danny?s behavior until one evening during my sophomore year of college.

epic facepalm

 

[Terminal Blue]

A very similar thing happened to a friend of mine so no, this isn't something that only happens to "celebrities". Also, nice to see the victim blaming has already begun..

I do wonder how many people who will immediately sneer at this article have actually figured out what the ultimate point is, which is that it's gender biased to predicate the criminality of acts on the presence or absence of a particular emotional response in the victim. Which is actually a really fascinating point which I really shouldn't have to explain the implications of. Duluth model, anyone?

But nope.. A woman said it on the internet and used a personal experience (one primarily experienced by women) to relate it, ergo she's wrong and oversensitive to boot, isn't that right guys? Let's all laugh at the silly oversensitive woman! Ha ha ha ha ha.

 

[Qizx]

"I've Had A Cyberstalker Since I Was 12" aka 5 years ago when I started disliking the guy. She is not the brightest person in the world.

I spent most of my youth without a computer and most probably had more technosense than her.

When I got a Facebook account in 2006 he found me again and, not wanting to be rude, I accepted his friend request. He often sent me rambling accounts of his day-to-day life. I usually didn?t respond, but sometimes I messaged back if I was bored or lonely.

I didn?t think much of Danny?s behavior until one evening during my sophomore year of college.

epic facepalm

Yep, that's pretty much a huge mistake when it comes to stalkers.
I had a stalker for over a year and a half, a real life physical one not internet. My first and foremost weapon against my stalker was ignoring them. I did inform the campus Public Safety and the college but neither of them gave a flying fuck (1 guess why). After enough time of me giving my stalker nothing, not reaction, nothing to feed on, they finally gave up and left.

Now I'm not saying that will always work, and I was lucky they never did anything that made me fear for my life. But it should be the first line of defense, if they DO up it and start doing things that make you legitimately fearful contact a lawyer and the police.

 

[Neverhoodian]

A very similar thing happened to a friend of mine so no, this isn't something that only happens to "celebrities". Also, nice to see the victim blaming has already begun..

I do wonder how many people who will immediately sneer at this article have actually figured out what the ultimate point is, which is that it's gender biased to predicate the criminality of acts on the presence or absence of a particular emotional response in the victim. Which is actually a really fascinating point which I really shouldn't have to explain the implications of. Duluth model, anyone?

But nope.. A woman said it on the internet and used a personal experience (one primarily experienced by women) to relate it, ergo she's wrong and oversensitive to boot, isn't that right guys? Let's all laugh at the silly oversensitive woman! Ha ha ha ha ha.

Uh, I haven't seen a single post here dismissing her out of hand because she's "just a hysterical woman." Claiming that smacks of a straw man fallacy.

People are mostly pointing out actions that don't seem to make much sense, such as accepting Danny's friend invite on Facebook, occasionally replying to his messages because she was "bored or lonely," and contacting him as late as 2012. Now I've never had a stalker (thank God), so I don't claim to be an expert on this subject...but it seems to me like a better course of action would have been to block and ignore Danny outright.

And no, that doesn't mean I'm all "fuck that *****, she was asking for it!" I'm sure enduring any form of stalking is extremely stressful, and people don't always make optimal decisions when they're stressed out. Hell, I don't always make optimal decisions when I'm perfectly calm.

 

[mad825]

I do wonder how many people who will immediately sneer at this article have actually figured out what the ultimate point is, which is that it's gender biased to predicate the criminality of acts on the presence or absence of a particular emotional response in the victim. Which is actually a really fascinating point which I really shouldn't have to explain the implications of. Duluth model, anyone?

But nope.. A woman said it on the internet and used a personal experience (one primarily experienced by women) to relate it, ergo she's wrong and oversensitive to boot, isn't that right guys? Let's all laugh at the silly oversensitive woman! Ha ha ha ha ha.

Swing and miss. In case you've been off the interwebz, it's a very apathetic place. Also....

Not only that, Duluth model doesn't really apply because that's about relationships - not random people off the street. Her continued friendship with the stalker was permitted by her internal pressures.

Not only only that, OP is perma banned so more validation of the "story" would be appreciated.

 

[Terminal Blue]

People are mostly pointing out actions that don't seem to make much sense, such as accepting Danny's friend invite on Facebook, occasionally replying to his messages because she was "bored or lonely," and contacting him as late as 2012. Now I've never had a stalker (thank God), so I don't claim to be an expert on this subject...but it seems to me like a better course of action would have been to block and ignore Danny outright.

A lot of the time, stalkers don't start off that way. Often, the point at which it's obvious that someone has become a stalker is only when you try to cut them off. Before that point, they can be good friends.

The idea which seems to be coming across here (and I wonder if anyone has actually considered the implications of it) is that anyone who comes across as socially awkward or "creepy" should be shunned and ignored from the word go. That is, to put it bluntly, not a nice attitude. It isn't how most real people think when they're actually in these situations, and thank god, because if it was the world would be a much sadder and lonelier place for a lot of people.

I don't deny that this kind of "advice" is ultimately well meaning, but it doesn't come off as helpful so much as defensive. It smacks of a just world fallacy, in that it's based on the assumption that "normal" people don't get stalked so when people do get stalked it must be due to something they did wrong. Trying to pretend that tolerating socially awkward behaviour behaviour is somehow risky or that people "should have known better" just smacks of retrospective justification and victim blaming.

Not only that, Duluth model doesn't really apply because that's about relationships - not random people off the street. Her continued friendship with the stalker was permitted by her internal pressures.

Missed the point.

The Duluth model is another example of a case where law enforcement will explicitly use the perception of emotional states to gauge whether a crime has been committed. That means that if police walk into a DV situation, they will generally assume that whoever appears more frightened is the victim and whomever appears less frightened is the perpetrator, which will guide the priorities in the subsequent arrest, as well as the prospects of any meaningful prosecution.

Now, as the article points out, while the expression of fear may be theoretically gender neutral, the requirement that a victim be afraid is only generally taken into consideration in crimes which are overwhelmingly perceived to be gender specific or directed at women. So what implication might this have for male victims of domestic violence? Might it be possible that the requirement that a "victim" act a certain way (and indeed, that a victim acting a certain way is necessary for an action to be recognized as criminal) might also constitute a gender bias which works to the detriment of male victims of domestic violence.

I think I would still ultimately say no or "not to a degree sufficient to warrant action", but it's kind of interesting to wonder how many people taking huge exception this article would read an article about male victims of domestic violence being ignored or dismissed on the basis they refused to conform to the stereotype of how a "victim" should behave and go "hmm.. well, clearly he was an idiot because he didn't do X".

Swing and miss. In case you've been off the interwebz, it's a very apathetic place.

Yeah, I noticed.

It's very easy to be a tough guy on the internet. It's very easy to be the guy who would instantly roundhouse kick anyone who looked at you funny through the nearest window. It's very easy to have no feelings, no emotional attachments and no sympathy for people you know nothing about.

Again, people (especially women) in real life don't immediately stop talking to someone if they come across as socially awkward or annoying. In partciular, a lot of teenage boys are socially awkward and annoying, a lot of teenage boys mistake pushy over-enthusiasm for friendly or romantic gestures. A teenage girl having to ignore a guy's phone calls is not instant red flag for ohmygod this guy is gonna' stalk me for a decade. Frankly, any young woman with male friends has probably had to tolerate some kind of socially awkward shit at some point, and while as mentioned I've seen that backfire the idea that it will isn't a pleasant or reasonable assumption for most people to make. Most people don't like hurting people's feelings, especially when someone seems weak or vulnerable or when their intentions (however misguided) seem genuine.

That sympathy and desire not to hurt people is normally a very pleasant and admirable thing, and one of the most horrible things about this kind of stalking is that it takes that very generous and admirable impulse in people not to hurt others and punishes them for it. That doesn't make it admirable or reasonable to adopt the approach of instantly kicking someone to the curb when they step slightly out of your comfort zone. I know it's "the interwebz", but have some empathy, people.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

People are mostly pointing out actions that don't seem to make much sense, such as accepting Danny's friend invite on Facebook, occasionally replying to his messages because she was "bored or lonely," and contacting him as late as 2012. Now I've never had a stalker (thank God), so I don't claim to be an expert on this subject...but it seems to me like a better course of action would have been to block and ignore Danny outright.

A lot of the time, stalkers don't start off that way. Often, the point at which it's obvious that someone has become a stalker is only when you try to cut them off. Before that point, they can be good friends.

The idea which seems to be coming across here (and I wonder if anyone has actually considered the implications of it) is that anyone who comes across as socially awkward or "creepy" should be shunned and ignored from the word go. That is, to put it bluntly, not a nice attitude. It isn't how most real people think when they're actually in these situations, and thank god, because if it was the world would be a much sadder and lonelier place for a lot of people.

I don't deny that this kind of "advice" is ultimately well meaning, but it doesn't come off as helpful so much as defensive. It smacks of a just world fallacy, in that it's based on the assumption that "normal" people don't get stalked so when people do get stalked it must be due to something they did wrong. Trying to pretend that tolerating socially awkward behaviour behaviour is somehow risky or that people "should have known better" just smacks of retrospective justification and victim blaming.

Not only that, Duluth model doesn't really apply because that's about relationships - not random people off the street. Her continued friendship with the stalker was permitted by her internal pressures.

Missed the point.

The Duluth model is another example of a case where law enforcement will explicitly use the perception of emotional states to gauge whether a crime has been committed. That means that if police walk into a DV situation, they will generally assume that whoever appears more frightened is the victim and whomever appears less frightened is the perpetrator, which will guide the priorities in the subsequent arrest, as well as the prospects of any meaningful prosecution.

Now, as the article points out, while the expression of fear may be theoretically gender neutral, the requirement that a victim be afraid is only generally taken into consideration in crimes which are overwhelmingly perceived to be gender specific or directed at women. So what implication might this have for male victims of domestic violence? Might it be possible that the requirement that a "victim" act a certain way (and indeed, that a victim acting a certain way is necessary for an action to be recognized as criminal) might also constitute a gender bias which works to the detriment of male victims of domestic violence.

I think I would still ultimately say no or "not to a degree sufficient to warrant action", but it's kind of interesting to wonder how many people taking huge exception this article would read an article about male victims of domestic violence being ignored or dismissed on the basis they refused to conform to the stereotype of how a "victim" should behave and go "hmm.. well, clearly he was an idiot because he didn't do X".

Swing and miss. In case you've been off the interwebz, it's a very apathetic place.

Yeah, I noticed.

It's very easy to be a tough guy on the internet. It's very easy to be the guy who would instantly roundhouse kick anyone who looked at you funny through the nearest window. It's very easy to have no feelings, no emotional attachments and no sympathy for people you know nothing about.

Again, people (especially women) in real life don't immediately stop talking to someone if they come across as socially awkward or annoying. In partciular, a lot of teenage boys are socially awkward and annoying, a lot of teenage boys mistake pushy over-enthusiasm for friendly or romantic gestures. A teenage girl having to ignore a guy's phone calls is not instant red flag for ohmygod this guy is gonna' stalk me for a decade. Frankly, any young woman with male friends has probably had to tolerate some kind of socially awkward shit at some point, and while as mentioned I've seen that backfire the idea that it will isn't a pleasant or reasonable assumption for most people to make. Most people don't like hurting people's feelings, especially when someone seems weak or vulnerable or when their intentions (however misguided) seem genuine.

That sympathy and desire not to hurt people is normally a very pleasant and admirable thing, and one of the most horrible things about this kind of stalking is that it takes that very generous and admirable impulse in people not to hurt others and punishes them for it. That doesn't make it admirable or reasonable to adopt the approach of instantly kicking someone to the curb when they step slightly out of your comfort zone. I know it's "the interwebz", but have some empathy, people.

I've been down the course with having empathy, and I do. C'mon, were not all the asshole we are on the internet but I think the apathy on the net comes from the very thing you pointed out.

It's not so simple. It's not black and white. The world is a real fucked up place when it comes to this kinda stuff and there isn't any real broad solution that can be slapped on it. It's like... fuck it man, what can you do but just tend to your own garden?

 

[Amaror]

A lot of the time, stalkers don't start off that way. Often, the point at which it's obvious that someone has become a stalker is only when you try to cut them off. Before that point, they can be good friends.

The idea which seems to be coming across here (and I wonder if anyone has actually considered the implications of it) is that anyone who comes across as socially awkward or "creepy" should be shunned and ignored from the word go. That is, to put it bluntly, not a nice attitude. It isn't how most real people think when they're actually in these situations, and thank god, because if it was the world would be a much sadder and lonelier place for a lot of people.

I don't deny that this kind of "advice" is ultimately well meaning, but it doesn't come off as helpful so much as defensive. It smacks of a just world fallacy, in that it's based on the assumption that "normal" people don't get stalked so when people do get stalked it must be due to something they did wrong. Trying to pretend that tolerating socially awkward behaviour behaviour is somehow risky or that people "should have known better" just smacks of retrospective justification and victim blaming.

Well for one we are talking about a point in time here were he had allready stalked her for years with excessive phone calls, messages and similar things.
And no, obviously not everyone socially-awkward should be shunned, but her response, partly ignoring the guy but not completely, is also helping noone.
If she doesn't want anything to do with the guy she should have ignored him completely, off and on responses just keep him on the hook and keep him fixated, which does neither him nor her any favours.
If she did somewhat like the guy she should have told him once he became too attached. I know that that's not an easy thing to do, but I can tell you from personal experience that it helps a LOT of the time. Often people like the stalker don't really realize what their doing and how their behaviour is affecting the other person. If they're told early they will try to change. If it happens too late they can get aggressive. But keeping them on the hook, not really engaging with them but not really ignoring them either, just makes everything go worse.

And no, I am not f****ng blaming the victim. It's obviously not her fault that she met the guy and got stalked. But there are better ways she could have handled it and if we just keep screaming "VICTIM-BLAMING!" and demonize anybody that tries to talk about how to prevent such things from getting as bad as they got then these things will happen over and over again.
We need to talk about how crimes like this can be prevented, both from the point of the victim and the perpetrator. Not in order to shame the victim for not acting the best way she could, but in order to make sure that future victims know what they should be doing in their situation.

 

[FalloutJack]

Ummm...so...the OP got zorched. Is the topic still valid?