h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"There's no "online/real life" divider any more"

That's the difficulty I have. There *IS* a divider, and it's a huge one.

If someone starts randomly abusing me on the street, I can't just switch the street off and go and do someting else. I can't, with a near-impercetible motion of my hand, cause them to disappear and no longer be able to abuse me. Wouldn't it be great if I could? I really wish online and real life were the same, I could just block 99% of the humans on the planet and my life would bloody wonderful. Asda would be empty, instead of filled to the gills with whining children, pinch-faced harridans with double buggies, packs of gibberish-jabbering ninjas in qaqbags or whatever those masks they wear are called and fat men in vests with tattoos and a body odour problem. If only real life was like online, I'd be able to go about my business without ever seeing any of those... people.

But it's not. Real life is real life. Online, on the other hand, you have choices. Choices like, say, not going online. Choices like, say, not reading messages from people too stupid to correctly spell the swear words they're directing at you.

Bullying at school is a huge problem because you have to go to school. There's no law that says you have to go on Facebook. The differences from "real life" could not be more stark.

So my sympathy, as someone who was bullied *properly* as a child (i.e. in person, in places I had no choice about being in, by people who used weapons and violence), for people who claim they're being "bullied", where by "bullied" they mean "I keep going back to this particular website over and over again even though every time I go there are some harsh words on there that I don't like", is, shall we say, limited.

And also on Twitter, some charming chap took a picture of himself with a mask and a knife and posted it to Stella Creasey MP, accompanied by a very clear threat.

I think you have to take that fairly seriously.

Less seriously, one of the idiots posting abuse stopped when someone threatened to tell his mum what he was doing after it was retweeted!

sprout

Further: I have a right to walk down the street unmolested. A child has the right to go to school and feel safe there. Anyone interfering with the exercise of those rights by offering violence or abuse deserves to be punished.

However: it is NOT an inalienable human right to use Twitter. It is not an inalienable human right to use Facebook. If what happens when you use these services upsets you - stop using them.

Is it such a radical idea to say to someone who complains "it hurts when I do that", to respond, in the voice of Tommy Cooper, "Well, don't do it then."?

So you don't have any sympathy for a child for example in which online bullying and harassment was a factor in their suicide?

"Online, on the other hand, you have choices. Choices like, say, not going online. Choices like, say, not reading messages from people too stupid to correctly spell the swear words they're directing at you."

Which is great, when you're not the generation that grew up with the internet. I appreciate that argument when we're talking about Caitlin Moran (even if I don't necessarily agree with it), but not when it comes to children.

For kids like the one mentioned in the BBC article, the internet is a part of their social life - like (or, let's be fair, instead of) football after school, youth clubs, scouting, whatever.

Do you think that if a child is bullied at Scouts, the correct answer is for them to stop going to Scouts? It's not an inalienable right for them to enjoy socialising with their peers outside of school, after all.

Why should people who are the victims of online bulling or harassment be the ones that walk away?

These types of behaviour need to be confronted and dealt with not deferred too.

@26 targets rather than victims would have been a better word

'packs of gibberish-jabbering ninjas in qaqbags or whatever those masks they wear are called'

are not a few harsh words they are derogatory ones

Way back (Before the Wayback machine even) when access to the infant Internet was restricted to those with heavy Unix machines and a few people with modems and geeky friends, all the users were pretty clued up. Everyone knew the status of online communication was, legally, off the bottom of the scale. Even fax machines were not recognised for legal contracts; only Telex counted.

The main forums in existence, other than private bulletin boards, belonged to Usenet which, along with News and Email were about the limit of data communication until the invention of The Web. Usenet hosted a largish number of discussions with disparate aims and readership, united only by the strong possibility that whichever streams you read, sooner or later, a flame-war would erupt around you and, occasionally, you would get involved.

Now in these flame-wars many arguments were put forward, big opinions were expressed and a number of threats of violence were made. We were all fairly certain at the time though that five minutes away from the keyboard and the enmity would evaporate and the threats would proves to be ironic rather than serious and anyway, it was the Internet and nobody gave a damn.

Then, gradually at first, a new wave of users began to join in through large and organised portals; Compuserve, AOL and the rest and, without anyone changing the rule book (There always was netiquette), expectations of behaviour on the Internet became different. This was partly due to a dilution of the geekiness; normal people could now join in. This change in population (size and demographic) also drove new applications. Much to the surprise of most of the early geeky users, people wanted to do social things on the Internet; share pictures of their children, give each other stolen music and, remarkably, they wanted to do it 24/7 reliably and securely.

About this time I can still remember the perverse aspirations of the newcomers who not only had ambitions for video on demand (imagining that it was just a question of a bit more bandwidth) but were also willing to trust such things as online banking on the Internet. Did they not understand the basic principles of data communication using TCP/IP? I had to ask myself. You send a packet and it's anybody's to read.

Much spilled milk later, now 98% of the population have learned never to click on THAT again, the aspirations of the modern Internet generation have more or less arrived. Fraud pops up from time to time; politicians occasionally wax on about how the Internet is the source of all ills of society, much as they did for television for the previous 30 years and online banking is secure most of the time and streaming video almost works except for 6pm on a Saturday.

But what of the status of all those threats. They haven't really changed. No-one is threatened with anything worse than they were 20 years ago (whatever a vocal twittering minority might wish us to think), but the attitude seems to have changed for a proportion of Internet users. All of a sudden the Internet is indispensable. The idea of walking away from the keyboard for five minutes no longer seems to apply (Hey, you wanted mobile Internet!).

So for me, the debate is about nothing. I don't offer or receive threats, but then I hardly touch social media anyway. I'm not so desperate for attention that I couldn't just walk away from large parts of the Internet right now. No-one who threatened death or the rape of my Mother 20 years ago has got around to it yet and I expect the current round of controversial threats have exactly the same level of credibility. That doesn't excuse the people who made them, then or now.

The general population has learned to live with the background level of technical and security threats on the Internet. Sometimes an individual seems to get singled out for a bit of spear phishing, but generally it's just impersonal - business. These twitter threats are the same, lots of noise signifying nothing that we didn't already now about human nature; not behaviour created by the Internet, just amplified in an uncomfortable way.

exactly, Mr603 - the expectation these days, and for at least the last decade, is that people do have an online presence. From filing your tax return to applying for jobs recommended by the Job Centre - a great deal of our lives are lived out online.

That's not to say that a large part of our lives aren't also offline but we're not really talking about that part.

In the good old days of "proper bullying" (and I had my share as an army brat and near permanent "new girl") it was mostly out of the sight of grown-ups, and even if grown-ups did know, what could they do that wouldn't excacerbate it?

I remember a lot of low-level bullying directed at those of us who wore the wrong brand shoes, Lee jeans instead of Levis etc etc. It's no different now, but the possibilities are nearly endless (of bullying). And I don't for one second think that online bullying wouldn't exist for a child who didn't have their own online presence. It would go on, as it does in RL, behind their back, or to their friends in the expectation that it is passed on.

And for this reason we grown ups have to take the online lives of our yongsters seriously. The genie is out of the bottle, and it's not going back in any time soon. When I see how my two teenagers coordinate their lives via social media (either from notebooks, netbooks or smartphones) and very rarely by knocking on their mate's door and asking if they're "coming out today" I sometimes hanker for the good ol' days when if I couldn't get to my friend's house, or they weren't in, it was difficult (not impossible) to arrange things.

So the question for our society is: how are we going to handle it?

To some degree I agree with Hoo: it's a fact of life that the internet includes trolls and you can either ignore it or avoid the worst places. The best places are the ones where you either have a lot of control over what you see (like facebook) or sites that tend not to attract the trolls (like here).

I think that, as with RL bullying, you need to teach kids to be able to ignore it and when to tell a real threat from just hot air. Avoiding the internet is just plain impractical these days so you do need to develop a coping/ignoring strategy. I've never received one, but I can imagine what a real online threat would look like, just like I can tell the difference between some wofftopic on the street mouthing off and someone who means me harm.

I also think it's the current generation of kids who've got the worst of it as they're the pioneers of something completely alien to their parents and many parents haven't caught up. It's very easy for those of us who didn't grow up with these things to underestimate how important they are in kids' lives.

The next generation will have social media savvy parents, because those parents are themselves tuned into social media. I'd say me and my peers growing up had a great deal of street sense because we were raised by people who were themselves street smart.

"the internet is a part of their social life - like (or, let's be fair, instead of) football after school, youth clubs, scouting, whatever"

Then they can treat it like any other area of their social life, and if it becomes threatening, or unpleasant, they can stop doing it.

If going to the park was "part of your social life", but you got beaten up every single time you went there, at what point would the sane choice be to stop going there? Whatever happened to just avoiding the people who cause you problems? Have you never stopped going to a pub because of the clientele?

"Do you think that if a child is bullied at Scouts, the correct answer is for them to stop going to Scouts? "

I did. It was definitely the right thing to do. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with that example.

"Why should people who are the victims of online bulling or harassment be the ones that walk away? "

Because walking away is better than hanging yourself? Duh.

And don't, please, give me any of that utter bullshit about standing up to bullies and making them back down. I was told those lies by teaches and parents over and over again, and fell for them just the once, and thirty five years later I still have the scar from where the knife went in.

If any child of mine was a victim of bullying of any kind, I have just two questions:
1. can you walk away?
2. do you know who they are and where they live?

If the answer to (1) is yes, then you do that. And online, the answer is always yes. Life is simply too short to allow bullying scumbags to ruin it, and assuming the option of simply walking away exists, then they can only ruin it for you if you let them. Take control. Don't let them.
If the answer is no, then you use the knowledge in (2) to retaliate, in a language they understand and on your own terms at a time of your choosing, and in a way which will preclude any possibility of continued bullying. Never necessary online, simply because the option to walk away exists.

" it is NOT an inalienable human right to use Twitter. It is not an inalienable human right to use Facebook. If what happens when you use these services upsets you - stop using them." [Hoovooloo]

Thank you! I had to deal with some bullies myself when I was younger. I'm sorry about the scar. I was hassled by punks on the subway, so I bought a car. Not everyone can do that, but I was lucky. Otherwise I might have had some scars, too.

The question in the first post of this thread was whether online abuse led to physical violence. I found one example. That's not a lot, but it's not nothing. Maybe there are more examples, but I couldn't find them. People with criminal justice expertise might know more, but I know of one such expert at H2G2, and he hasn't weighed in.

If online abuse bothers a person, it might be a good idea to talk to a therapist or clinician. Their advice might also be to avoid the website[s] in question.

I thought the question was how seriously to take online threats?

How often they turning into actual physical events was a part of that but as I have said it is an irrelevant one as threatening behaviour and harassment are criminal offences in their own right.

Tell a teenager to walk away from facebook and you haven't ruined their life, mmm...

I would think that the most serious kind of online threat would be the one that led to physical violence. Thankfully, that seems to be rare. I agree that online threats are crimes in their own right. Jurisdiction could be tricky, though. If someone in Vancouver threatened someone in Capetown, which police force would go after the culprit?

It's worse than that.

If someone in Vancouver uses a website whose owner's head office is in the USA but whose servers are in Sweden to threaten someone in Capetown...

"I thought the question was how seriously to take online threats?"

Welcome to h2g2. As a new user, let me introduce you to a concept we on h2g2 (or "hootoo" as some of us call it) refer as "topic drift". Quite often, in the course of a conversation, the original question gets forgotten, and we move on to other subjects. Sometimes they're related to the original subject, sometimes not. Sometimes we stick to the topic for months, sometimes it drifts before the end of the first post. You just never can tell. I'm sure you'll soon get used to it.

Tsk. Dangling participle there, Hoo.



I think the one point you're possibly not aware of is the existence of many many little threats: a constant background of harassment. That can be extremely wearing, but no single incident looks important to an outsider. There may not be any clear and simple way to deal with this, but "just forget about it" is unlikely to be the answer.

TRiG.

(Incidentally, I have heard of companies which think that a lack of a Facebook profile is suspicious behaviour, so it'll count against you in hiring. So ... perhaps a Fb profile is a right? Ish?)