A sickening read about trolls and internet abuse

[madrabbitwoman]

I love the internet. I love the access to information and ideas, goods and services, convenience and communication. Sadly some folks can use this wonderful resourse we have to totally fuck up other folks lives. No wonder people commit suicide because of it.

The end of kindness: weev and the cult of the angry young man

How internet abuse works: she displeases him and he tries to punish her. He posts doctored photos of her to the web. In one, a noose is near her head. In another, her children appear to be performing sex acts. He emails graphic threats about violating her with a chainsaw. He sneers that she is too fat to be loved, and then — missing the irony — calls her a slut. He distributes her Social Security number online. He posts lies about a prostitution bust. Posing as her, he solicits sex in online ads and includes her home address so men knock on her door at all hours. Maybe he’s anonymous but often he doesn’t bother hiding his identity. Why worry? He knows that in his corner of the web, women who complain about harassment are the enemy.

[Rushgeekgirl]

This is not surprising at all. On my days of AOL message boards there were so many ugly trolls who stalked people just for the fun of hurting them. Someone got offended by someone else’s opinion and decided to make a website using the images of the woman and her daughters they got off her myspace. Another person found a guy’s address and sent him a photo and a letter claiming to be a girl he went to high school with, and another called the employer of someone she wanted to get in trouble. Then there was the weirdo who flirted with a woman with his fake internet persona and when he got sick of it he made new names pretending to be family of the guy, claiming he’d died. People on the internet can be sick, and with the anonymity they get braver in their meanness.

[Obnoxious_Hood_Ornament]

I once had a roommate whose favorite Friday-night activity was jumping into random chat rooms and getting everyone as pissed off as possible. He’d do it for hours at a time. I no longer associate with this individual. As I suspected at the time, such practices are not savored by honorable, well-adjusted individuals. I’ve no doubt shrinks could have a field day with him.

Eccentricities are fine – being a dick, not so much.

[kushiel]

Yup, I’ve increasingly distanced myself from the internet on a personal level. I mean, I’ve got places I hang out at online, the SDMB being one of them, but I don’t engage personally. My friendships are surface level, like how people have work friends they never hang out with outside of work. I have only one person on Facebook I met online. It’s just easier this way.

[Gatopescado]

@Obnoxious_Hood_Ornament

I once had a roommate whose favorite Friday-night activity was jumping into random chat rooms and getting everyone as pissed off as possible.

So, you lived under a bridge too?

Edit: I’m certainly not implying that you are a “under bridge dweller”, but you shared a room with a … you know. It was him, not you! Sorry for any confusion. Moving on…

[Obnoxious_Hood_Ornament]

Edit: I’m certainly not implying that you are a “under bridge dweller”, but you shared a room with a … you know. It was him, not you! Sorry for any confusion. Moving on…

Well, if we want to get technical, he was in the next room over

So while he was under the bridge, I guess that means I was standing off to the side, waist deep in water. Heh.