So recently the pothead from my previous GQ thread has taken to harassing me and my friends online. He gotten into my MSN account somehow (which, thank god, I only use for MSN) and has been messaging all of my friends with things along the lines of “hi, I have HIV, so I’m staying in America” or “I need to confide in you… I’m a pedophile”. He’s also been creating sockpuppet facebook accounts and messaging my friends there similar messages. Before blocking me personally on facebook, he also threatened me fairly explicitly. So here’s my question – what can I do about this? Is there legislature against this? Would it make sense to do anything about this? Can anyone give me any advice?
Talk to the police?
Well yes, that’s why I’m asking here. -.-
Change your msn password.
Block messages from the public on Facebook.
As to your friends, ask them to do the same. You can’t really help them otherwise.
Save/print screenshots of everything relevant. Contact fraud departments of whatever websites he’s spoofing you on, and take evidence to the police. If you have his IRL name, make sure to give it to them.
What thread?
Here’s what wikipedia has on Cyberstalking.
speculating it’s this one.
edit: i don’t think i helped very much. sorry.
taking another approach, what exactly caused your ongoing beef with this guy (or his with you)? i ask wondering if there’s a way to bury the hatchet so he just gets off your back amicably rather than instituting some new use of force…
not to be a doomsayer, but i’ve heard too many stories of people like that and their relentlessness. in a recent case of a tech journalist, they basically destroyed his digital world. wiped his iphone, ipad, mac…he lost all his data and had to do major damage control once they took over his twitter. i’d vote for making nice if you can, rather than employing something that might piss him or his friends off more in the long run.
Your best option is to block and ignore the guy till he goes away.
The police are unlikely to take action unless there has been a very explicit threat of violence, or an offline crime.
The ToS departments at Facebook etc will be reluctant to take action except where there has been a clear and independently verifiable violation of their rules (an explicit threat, spam, impersonation, or copyright violation). Even if they do take action against his existing accounts, that won’t stop him from creating more.
If your complaint amounts to “this guy is sending me unwanted messages”, your complaint will be at the end of a virtually limitless queue.