Harassed online?

[Deleted]

I've gotten lots of such pictures on another forum as well. People are just creepy. :|

Sometimes with detailed descriptions of what they would want to do to me. ._.

Ain't easy being a woman on the interwebz.

[Raphtheone]

A school mate to my brother harassed him over ICQ (this was -98/-99 I believe), I think it's different when you know the person. It led to the police getting involved.

And a few years later (between 01-04 somewhere), during the peak of my Counter Strike playing, there was this guy I really, really loathed. I did "hack" his hotmail (more like, I made educated guesses), and sent some BBW shit smearing porn to all his relatives. He never knew who did it. If that isn't harassment I don't know what is.

And somewhere around that same period I was stalked by the ex of the person I was dating. He followed me on social medias (I think it was playahead), sent messages to me over ICQ/SMS, and it wasn't really nice messages either. It was the stuff like "I know where you live", and "I'm at location x (a few hundred meters away from me), come out and lets do this" which was sent to me 4 in the morning. It didn't help this guy was a gym freak, iirc he took steroids and everything.

Over the years, sure, I've learned that my mother has been with hundreds of teenagers I've never met, and I've unjustly been called some really naughty stuff. Only in really few cases have I've been followed and that person I've never met kept on going at me. And some of it has been very unsettling.

If I degrade you, question your sexuality, make fun of your religion, tell you to go back to the kitchen, if I offend you in my statements regarding the color of your skin, if I undermine your ethnicity, etc etc, it's all harassment. You might not feel harassed, but it doesn't mean that I'm not harassing you.

[Sunaka]

So many options yet people somehow wantingly succumb to abuse AND join in on it when they don't need too.

Considering an actual example has been given. 2, even.

Harassment can include people with grudges turning guilds against you, circumventing ignores/blocks, finding personal info, reporting you for things that haven't happened but are illegal, and more. It's not even an ineptitude thing, as info is easy to get. My contact info is posted publicly because of a job I had, for example.

OT: Sounds like you're still naive even with the time; you'll know easy enough if it happens to you. Don't boil it down to stupid generalizations and get some empathy. Even if you don't care, someone else might.

[Aspect of Death]

lol, when was this?

last year on irc

[Cirque]

I haven't, but harassment in this context means bullying, be it online. Typically those being bullied are those who have little ways or knowledge to defend themselves, or, because of people like you, believe they should have a tougher skin and somehow bear it all this time while it is slowly killing them on the inside.

It is really short-sighted to believe that just because YOU have been fine for 10 years (as have I), that this does not happen. Just recently in my country, a young girl of 15 or so killed herself because of online bullying. Another kid killed himself over bullying just before that, and the bullying did extend over the internet. It can get very serious. It's often a lot of small things, just tons of them that in the end make the bullied lose any self-esteem he may have had. Now I do not know the details of these cases, but small things included bullies to post extremely suggestive and hurtful things on various review sites of the job-place where the guy worked. The girl had to suffer extended humiliation on social media and no way to stop it. Like I said, I don't know what else happened but there's obviously more, these are just small examples, and in the end it was enough for two kids to choose death. THAT is how much it affected them.

Closer to home, my sister-in-law who was then 13 or so has received extended and intensive WoW-form bullying, where she was repeatedly whispered by another rogue whose gear she probably got in a raid. You may say ignore button, and I will tell you other characters. In the end she came to me desperate and crying and said she didn't know what to do. I ticketed a GM on her behalf and afaik that guy got banned (or well, we never saw him again).

So I ask of you, don't act so proud. Some people have it a lot rougher than you. Respect that and help them where you can. There's no point in acting like you're so much better than anyone else. Be nice to others and try to understand where other people are coming from, even if it would not affect you the same way.

[Siri]

Back when I still played Ultima Online a bit a guy found out my phone number, where I lived and where I worked, it started online but once he had that information it moved offline. He harassed both me, my family and my co-workers. To this day I still have no idea how he found out but I try to be more careful these days at least.

[Deleted]

OT: Sounds like you're still naive even with the time; you'll know easy enough if it happens to you. Don't boil it down to stupid generalizations and get some empathy. Even if you don't care, someone else might.

I know it's a common thing to think, but if it hasn't happened so far, I doubt it ever will. I should be like a perv magnet according to the people there but I've never even had anything close to that. I believe it takes two to tango and there's a lot of obvious things I can do (or not do) to avoid getting harassed. Even though I might act like "harass me" on forums, I'm very careful with where I give my personal info, and I don't hardcore flirt with crazies, so I can't really think of any reason why or how would I get harassed.

Being overly-sensitive isn't something that happens because you live in a certain place. Living in an American culture doesn't teach you to be sensitive. That is all based on your parents, you childhood, your day to day life, etc.

I've heard the day to day life in America is quite different of Europe. Which also means your childhood and parents are different. But fine, I'll take a note that your opinion is that the sensitivity is the same everywhere.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I don't interact with people that crazy, they're easy to spot if you spent the first 10 years of your life around one.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Ever heard of the young people taking their own lives because of what's been going on online? No? Of course it's more than possible to be harassed online, and it happens, OFTEN!

Personal experiences I have come mainly from a dog forum I used to spend a lot of time in back when I was a fresh dog owner. One specific user didn't like what I had to say and that I wouldn't change my opinions about mixed breed dogs. Yes, I love all dogs and I aim to own a purebred rottweiler within a year or so, but I also love mix dogs and I don't scold people for buying or adopting mixed breed pets...why should I? My first dog was a mix and he was the best friend I ever had.

Either way, this person proceeded to finding out my name IRL, and then called a breeder she knew I had contact with to try and convince the breeder that I wouldn't be a suitable owner for a dog. She only knew me by my opinions about the value of ALL dogs and yet tried to influence my life outside of the forums. Whenever I posted a thread, she was there with snide comments and trying to get me going. Insulting, pretending she knew me irl to make others believe what she was saying about me etc etc. She even went so far as to claim that she had seen me strangle my own dog on a walk (I'd rather have died than hurt my dog)...she lived in southern Sweden, I live in the north.

It ended with the moderator for the forum taking action, letting the woman know that if she kept going HE would call the police if I wouldn't. He made a post explaining what had been going on and that this person did NOT know me irl and was just harassing me over my opinions, leading to her being cast out from the forum community.

The breeder she had tried to influence had told her to f-ck off and then offered me a puppy to show her how little her words meant. I couldn't take a puppy at that time, but I appreciated the gesture. The woman closed her account and I never heard from her again. It did however teach me a valuable lesson...some people are truly f-cked up in the head. And it seems to be very common among dog/cat people...<.<

Just because you haven't experienced it, doesn't mean you never will nor that you're doing something right that others have been doing wrong. That's a very arrogant disposition to have. Sure, a lot of people DO behave in a way online that attracts harassment, but it's ultimately the person behind the harassment doing wrong.

[Toffie]

I once linked Mooneye a full body picture of myself naked (I used Paint to cover personal area though), but i'm sure she was too late to click the link before i removed it. Was up for about 20sec. Your loss for being slow blue-eyes.

Assuming you don't know eachother, that Is the creepiest thing I have ever heard.

[Deleted]

I know it's a common thing to think, but if it hasn't happened so far, I doubt it ever will. I should be like a perv magnet according to the people there but I've never even had anything close to that. I believe it takes two to tango and there's a lot of obvious things I can do (or not do) to avoid getting harassed. Even though I might act like "harass me" on forums, I'm very careful with where I give my personal info, and I don't hardcore flirt with crazies, so I can't really think of any reason why or how would I get harassed.

There is no need for harassment to be two-sided. At all.

Which is why your entire perspective is naive. End of story.

[Deleted]

Yes, of course there are differences, they are two different cultures. However, that doesn't mean that one will make you more sensitive than the other. Being raised in a different culture doesn't make you more vulnerable to being overly sensitive in life. As I said before, it can be based on a variety of different things that happened to you in life.

A different culture has nothing to do with it.

Of course it does. People are raised with variables, change the variables and you change the results.

[Aspect of Death]

that Is the creepiest thing I have ever heard.

If that is the creepiest thing you have heard, then be sure to use a shield when you enter the world. You will most likely get a heartattack.

[Deleted]

If that is the creepiest thing you have heard, then be sure to use a shield when you enter the world. You will most likely get a heartattack.

People randomly posting nude pics without consent is border-line sexual harassment if it's not welcomed.

I doubt that setting that standard is "This is as normal as gets" - Cuz it ain't.

[urasim]

You can only be harassed online if you don't have thick skin. Everyone could be against me, calling me every bad name they can think of, and it wouldn't effect me. If you sent me a picture of your privates, I would be intrigued more so than call you a pervert.

If you're easily offended, the internet is not the place for you.

[zealo]

Online harassment and stalking is a real thing, in most cases is just about growing a thicker skin towards trolls but real stalking and general creepiness do happen.

[Deleted]

You can only be harassed online if you don't have thick skin. Everyone could be against me, calling me every bad name they can think of, and it wouldn't effect me. If you sent me a picture of your privates, I would be intrigued more so than call you a pervert.

If you're easily offended, the internet is not the place for you.

Bi-ased arguments have the flaw of being wrong.

[Deleted]

I guess the "worst" guy has been calling me, harassing me irl, threatening me that he'll come and beat me up irl and that he's going to report me to the police.


Reason? He scammed me on Diablo 3, I took print screen of his skype and posted it to d3blacklist and wrote his name. He thought it was fraud and apparently his small brain wouldn't understand that he shouldn't have stolen the stuff if he didn't want to get his info posted on the internet.

[Siri]

If that is the creepiest thing you have heard, then be sure to use a shield when you enter the world. You will most likely get a heartattack.

Heh, your story made me remember the one about the MMO-C moderator who asked if I wanted a picture of him wearing a hat. Unwittingly I said yes and got a picture of him wearing nothing but a strategically placed hat. To be fair I just found it funny though, he's a cool guy.

[madmanx]

1. It may of came off as if you were looking for attention/drama
2. The American comment isn't necessary. It's stupid to assume all Americans act the same as each other, in that we are all over-sensitive. Sensitive people live everywhere....that's just common sense.

I have lived half my life in several Northern European countries and the other half in North America, both The US and Canada. I can tell you with absolute certainty that Americans, and especially Canadians, are more sensitive. Both those countries are much more polite when dealing with people they do not know and tend to react badly when someone else isn't polite to them.

...and since this is the internet I feel the need to point out that this is of course generally speaking. If not someone will post a YouTube link of 1 rude Canadian.