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Internet Harassment or Cyberbullying. I used to work as a moderator at about.com's depression chatroom in year 2000. From that experience I learned how harassment can be as simple as refusing to drop a topic another is uncomfortable to discuss... I learned how hackers can get your personal information and trace your computer address to find out who you are and not only harass and threaten you online and via messages and emails.. but also start calling you and find out other ways to get personal information.
Just Breaking the chatroom rules or guidelines is enough to be considered harassment.... Posting indecent or adult only material information is harassment towards minors and can get you banned off the internet..
Many people underestimate internet harassment as at times its hard to tell the difference if the person is joking or serious....
With my other experiences in Yahoo chats.. which is unmoderated I ran into alot of harassment... You have people who go onto yahoo voice, and Put frequency sounds or obnoxious noises.. or even flood the room with fonts and symbols... Which trigger Seizures in epileptics.. We had to ban fonts in the depression chat because it was making some of our regular chatters very sick as it triggered seizures...
There has been serious cases of people going onto epileptic forums and posting graphics to purposely trigger seizures... in the same way.. through sounds, or sight visuals.
Then there are people who do internet hypnosis or guided meditation, earn peoples trust and lure them into their group or cult.. I have witnessed people going so far with this as talking people out of taking meds for their mental health disorders and getting very ill and going into the hospital....
I have seen the peer pressure harasmenet issue if you do not do this we will ignore you.. .. then the other way around getting harassed and called a wimp for using the ignore button on someone who is harassing you, or annoying you.
There are people who chat or cyberstalk they follow people from chat to chat or forum to forum slandering with false information or informing everyone about their criminal past, true or not... That is also harassment...
People posting videos on youtube or other internet sites that the people claimed they were tapingfor something else, or they did not realise they were being recorded.. posted publicly to humilate them too this is also a bad harassment.
The most common one I see over on yahoo is people Stealing Yahoo accounts, user ids or chat names.... or locking their account out.. or booting them repetitively because they are jealous of something. When I was in the Free Psychic Readings Yahoo userroom under religion the Community when I first went there was great... But then the boot gangs started and hackers stealing peoples ids, and booting non stop the psychics in the middle of a free reading.. or just having a conversation about their experiences trying to help a new psychic whose abilities are just opening... There is alot of boot abuse on yahoo. The reason booting itself was not banned is to keep suspected minors out of the adult only rooms.. or harassers who are spamming or posting links to pictures claiming it is something else, and instead its an porn or indecent picture.
What to do if you see cyber harassment?
First step record transcripts and the time you saw it..
Email the transcripts and the time you saw it to the Host.. and point out it's against their TOS.. or guidelines.. if they ignore it as yahoo often has done..
Then if its death threats, admitting to illegal activity, or illegal hacking. (keep in mind all a hacker is is just a program not all of them are illegal or out to steal your identity or chat name, or cyber harass you)
You can then report it to crimestoppers if you want to report it anonymously
http://www.tipsubmit.org
If it has happened before make sure you have a good friend go in with you next time you visit the chat or forum so you have a witness...
https://www.tipsubmit.com/
Cyberbullying has a few examples
http://www.cyberbullying.org/
For normal Internet Crime reporting you can either call your local police..
Or you can report it here...
Internet Crime Complaint Center
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
If you run into an FBI most wanted, or a sex offender with minors, or Terrorists online.. Report them to the FBI gov site.
https://tips.fbi.gov/
It is really easy to accidently step into the wrong chat, or forum, and find yourself surrounded by some serious cyber harassment...
I recommend only using webmails for internet registrations and sites, Using disposable phone numbers if you think you met someone you can trust.. then you can discontinue the number.. k7.net or inumbr has them... googlevoice also has a phone number system but I think it costs 10$ to change the number.. but it allows you to block people.
If you ever go to meet anyone you met online offline always meet at a public place where there are law enforcement and many people around who you know who will help you if an issue arrives.
I have seen both good and bad come out of internet communities.Be careful of what you discuss, if you have money do not let on to people you have alot of money... We had serious break ins in the area after someone who ran an internet business out our way told to much information... she was robbed 4 times.. it lead to everyone out our way getting robbed but us they tried.. it was my family who lead to their arrest..
If you state your town state a really big next big general town as where you are from. Do not give out a school name, or work name or address.. to anyone until you know for sure they are safe...
Internet is fun, but it also can be a very terrifying place I ran into good people and I ended up learning how easily it was to be friends with the wrong kind of people. I was shocked when I saw Internet harassment push my friends over the edge... Eric, Dylan, and Cho ... All ended up later doing school shootings... I do not remember the name of the exact chat we used to all hang out.. at oddly also the ones who kills themselves in Heavens Gate was also regulars of this room. We also had leaders of very successful internet companies comefrom this community.. In the end everyone ended up doing something really big good or bad. Good one as Nurse, the major site operators I do not want to list their company names to draw bad attention to them.... It was a Spiritual/religious chatroom we all studied all beliefs good and bad and even Atheist and Agnostic were welcome in an un moderated teen room... But we constantly had people invading and harassing the room... One thing that was misunderstood about us is at night we had fun writing horror stories... or thriller stories we all used to hope to be better than Stephen King at it... Some of them were really good.. I was saddened to see when people found my friends stories they start to harass them and call them a psychopaths, and all kinds of other things. I also was getting into trouble over my stories.. and dark poems as people took them seriously.... My friends and I were harassed horribly over our stories.. The only thing we should have done with our talent.. was.. to put it on hold till we were over 18 years old.. But eventually the community snapped and lost it the shootings happened then we had the press and media harassing us pretending to be our other friends or relatives trying to get information on our friends.. Then we had feds, and others.. We split up... and to my knowledge only 5 out of 40 of us are still living...
So cyberharassment is very very serious and underestimated.. and what stinks is many do not realise how badly it is going on, and if the chat does not record transcripts or no one is notified it ever went on.. The person who snapped is automatically labled as psychopath because there is no proof on record that they were indeed harassed through the internet.. as my friends were.. from booters, and hackers...and others trying to "save our souls" or convert or revert us to their religion...
Anyhow.. I went off topic a little there. I stand out as different, I am open and will speak about many things.. So I tend to attract unwanted attention and plenty of harassment from time to time...
Sometimes we even harass others not deliberately knowing it.. Just purely by making a person you are talking to online becomes harassment after they notify you that they are uncomfortable with the conversation and you insist on going on...
With certain acceptions like talking the suicidal or depressed.. or other person with mental issues you think may harm themselves or others.. into getting professional help.. but even then you have to becareful of your approach... so you are not badgering or harassing with it.
Hope that is enough info,
- DNatureofDTrain
Tags: harassment, cyberbullying
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abuse-calling someone a name
harass-always clicking on unhelpful on a particular person
threaten-threatening to do a number of obnoxious things to someone
impersonate-using someone else's username
intimidate-suggesting that if someone does not do as you say, you will do bad network things to them.
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I think the frequency in which it occurs is one of the major differences between harassment online and offline. For example, if someone called me a name or said something inappropriate *once* online, I'd probably let it slide. It's very unlikely I'd let it slide in person without at least a snarky comeback. People have less of a filter when speaking via the interwebs, so I generally just ignore things like that unless it is persistent.
For example, I recently had someone send me a message on Mahalo calling me "stupid." That's literally all the message said. I found it odd and a little humorous, but if it persisted, I would be annoyed and find it harassing.
In the end, it really comes down to having a good checks and warning system in place so that any such situations can be judged individually. I think Mahalo is doing a good job with this.
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I personally feel harassed when someone starts responding to me instead of the post I made on a forum and then doesn't stop.
This can escalate to a level where the I (being harassed) don't want to go online anymore or have to ask for help from a webmaster or ISP.
I think the mildest forms of harassment are preceived differently from person to person, while the more obvious forms are very close to what we would experience in the real world.
I am webmaster on a fairly popular forum, and am faced with complaints of cyber harassment on a regular basis.
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Having a pattern of:
Voting another users contributions "uninteresting" without reason.
Commenting negatively in the answers of a specific user.
Answering the questions of a specific user without appropriate information.
Asking questions (either privately or in public) that are in any way inappropriate, misleading, slanderous or not interesting.
Negatively commenting in SERP elements.
Changing any SERP in any way that does not reflect the purpose of the page manager.
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Personally I feel that the digital realm does not change this. My own definition would be that acting with the intent to cause someone or a group emotional discomfort in online interactions would be harassment.
Source(s):
http://www.uslawbooks.com/books/harass.htm
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I'd say perhaps what makes for harrassment is behavior that is inappropriate, unwanted and persisent, especially after the person has been told that the behavior is unwanted.
Inappropriate - If someone asked a question about career options, and got a response with sexual innuendos, that would probably be inappropriate. If they had asked an NSFW question and the whole thread was banter of that kind, the same answer would probably be appropriate. At least it would have to be pretty extreme before we'd think about calling it harrassment.
Unwanted - It can be hard to know what's wanted or unwanted. Do people like being complimented, or does that get them feeling like they're being hit on? Are they up for NSFW banter or do they find it distasteful? Do they enjoy a bit of flirting, or resent it? Usually its a good idea to suggest that the person that feels harrassed first let the person doing it that the behavior is unwanted. Face-to-face sometimes people are so intimidated they feel they can't even say that, but online I don't see a lot of reason for that not to be the normal first step.
Perisistent - I think that is an important element in the meaning of harrassment. A one-off incident might be a problem in itself, for example if it was abusive or threatening, or so far out of line that it could never be appropriate. But harrassment generally refers to a whole pattern of behavior. In the real world, if the police pull you over once, you've got nothing to complain about. If they do it every day, it could be considered harrassment.
Again all of the things have to be taken together. The police pulling you over every day is not harrassment if you drive recklessly and pose a serious hazard to traffic every day. So while their behaviour may be persistent and unwanted by you, it is not inappropriate. Likewise on Mahalo repeatedly calling a person out for copy-pasting is not harrassment, unless it's done in an exceptionally unpleasant way.
As the example I've given suggest, harrassment can be pretty broad category. It can include sexual or racial remarks, persistent belittling of someone, or singling out an individual unfairly. e.g. Alway marking a person's answers unhelpful when theirs answers are similar to everyone elses.
Being so broad, it's not possible to give a complete list of things that could constitute harrassment, just illustrations of what is not acceptable.
Source(s):
Have had to study policies and procedures on such matters in the past
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taking actions to impede another user's internet experience through the use of inflammatory comments, baseless voting, unwanted personal messages, the posting of antagonistic or insulting questions, or shadowing this person throughout the community. Also any acts of encouragement to rally other online members against a particular user should be considered harassing. Any of these actions which are meant to intimidate, threaten, or impugn a person or their community standing or reputation constitutes harassment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like real world harassment, online harassment can come in fits and spurts. One week the harasser may leave their target alone, but the next week levy a series of negative votes, messages, etc. against him/her. It can be an underlying "rivalry" that brews over a long period of time, one that stems from disagreements or differences (if there's any reason at all).
So when does it cross a line from disagreement to harassment?
When one side backs down and remains actionless, while the aggressor continues to pursue him/her, especially outside of the bounds of the original question/board/comment.
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Some sates like Connecticut have passed laws against online harassment. In those laws it is defined as being different from cyberstalking because online harassment only needs to happen once, whereas a number of incidences is needed to prove cyberstalking.
I believe that often time harassment on the internet has a malicious intent behind it. Also, when I have had to deal with it on my forum, it often has a source that goes beyond the particular incident(aka something happened before between the two parties and this is just an effect of that).
Source(s):
Owning my own forum where this has taken place.
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Online harassment occurs daily every second online. It is important that people understand that even though it is online they still have rights and if they feel like they are being harassed they can report it just as if in the real world.
Source(s):
http://www2.gmu.edu/dpt/unilife/sexual//brochures/OnlineHarrassment.pdf
Tags: real, harassment, life, community, online
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M$6.49
August 02, 2009 05:08 AM
How would you define harassment in an online community?
--Quote--
You must not use the Services to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate, intimidate or otherwise violate the legal rights (including rights of privacy and publicity) of others.
--/quote---
In the Mahalo Terms of Service the 5th term includes the term "harass."
Harassment within an online community is a bit different than harassment in the real world. With that in mind, what does online harassment mean to you?
You must not use the Services to abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate, intimidate or otherwise violate the legal rights (including rights of privacy and publicity) of others.
--/quote---
In the Mahalo Terms of Service the 5th term includes the term "harass."
Harassment within an online community is a bit different than harassment in the real world. With that in mind, what does online harassment mean to you?
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| August 02, 2009 06:28 AM |
Just Breaking the chatroom rules or guidelines is enough to be considered harassment.... Posting indecent or adult only material information is harassment towards minors and can get you banned off the internet..
Many people underestimate internet harassment as at times its hard to tell the difference if the person is joking or serious....
With my other experiences in Yahoo chats.. which is unmoderated I ran into alot of harassment... You have people who go onto yahoo voice, and Put frequency sounds or obnoxious noises.. or even flood the room with fonts and symbols... Which trigger Seizures in epileptics.. We had to ban fonts in the depression chat because it was making some of our regular chatters very sick as it triggered seizures...
There has been serious cases of people going onto epileptic forums and posting graphics to purposely trigger seizures... in the same way.. through sounds, or sight visuals.
Then there are people who do internet hypnosis or guided meditation, earn peoples trust and lure them into their group or cult.. I have witnessed people going so far with this as talking people out of taking meds for their mental health disorders and getting very ill and going into the hospital....
I have seen the peer pressure harasmenet issue if you do not do this we will ignore you.. .. then the other way around getting harassed and called a wimp for using the ignore button on someone who is harassing you, or annoying you.
There are people who chat or cyberstalk they follow people from chat to chat or forum to forum slandering with false information or informing everyone about their criminal past, true or not... That is also harassment...
People posting videos on youtube or other internet sites that the people claimed they were tapingfor something else, or they did not realise they were being recorded.. posted publicly to humilate them too this is also a bad harassment.
The most common one I see over on yahoo is people Stealing Yahoo accounts, user ids or chat names.... or locking their account out.. or booting them repetitively because they are jealous of something. When I was in the Free Psychic Readings Yahoo userroom under religion the Community when I first went there was great... But then the boot gangs started and hackers stealing peoples ids, and booting non stop the psychics in the middle of a free reading.. or just having a conversation about their experiences trying to help a new psychic whose abilities are just opening... There is alot of boot abuse on yahoo. The reason booting itself was not banned is to keep suspected minors out of the adult only rooms.. or harassers who are spamming or posting links to pictures claiming it is something else, and instead its an porn or indecent picture.
What to do if you see cyber harassment?
First step record transcripts and the time you saw it..
Email the transcripts and the time you saw it to the Host.. and point out it's against their TOS.. or guidelines.. if they ignore it as yahoo often has done..
Then if its death threats, admitting to illegal activity, or illegal hacking. (keep in mind all a hacker is is just a program not all of them are illegal or out to steal your identity or chat name, or cyber harass you)
You can then report it to crimestoppers if you want to report it anonymously
http://www.tipsubmit.org
If it has happened before make sure you have a good friend go in with you next time you visit the chat or forum so you have a witness...
https://www.tipsubmit.com/
Cyberbullying has a few examples
http://www.cyberbullying.org/
For normal Internet Crime reporting you can either call your local police..
Or you can report it here...
Internet Crime Complaint Center
http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
If you run into an FBI most wanted, or a sex offender with minors, or Terrorists online.. Report them to the FBI gov site.
https://tips.fbi.gov/
It is really easy to accidently step into the wrong chat, or forum, and find yourself surrounded by some serious cyber harassment...
I recommend only using webmails for internet registrations and sites, Using disposable phone numbers if you think you met someone you can trust.. then you can discontinue the number.. k7.net or inumbr has them... googlevoice also has a phone number system but I think it costs 10$ to change the number.. but it allows you to block people.
If you ever go to meet anyone you met online offline always meet at a public place where there are law enforcement and many people around who you know who will help you if an issue arrives.
I have seen both good and bad come out of internet communities.Be careful of what you discuss, if you have money do not let on to people you have alot of money... We had serious break ins in the area after someone who ran an internet business out our way told to much information... she was robbed 4 times.. it lead to everyone out our way getting robbed but us they tried.. it was my family who lead to their arrest..
If you state your town state a really big next big general town as where you are from. Do not give out a school name, or work name or address.. to anyone until you know for sure they are safe...
Internet is fun, but it also can be a very terrifying place I ran into good people and I ended up learning how easily it was to be friends with the wrong kind of people. I was shocked when I saw Internet harassment push my friends over the edge... Eric, Dylan, and Cho ... All ended up later doing school shootings... I do not remember the name of the exact chat we used to all hang out.. at oddly also the ones who kills themselves in Heavens Gate was also regulars of this room. We also had leaders of very successful internet companies comefrom this community.. In the end everyone ended up doing something really big good or bad. Good one as Nurse, the major site operators I do not want to list their company names to draw bad attention to them.... It was a Spiritual/religious chatroom we all studied all beliefs good and bad and even Atheist and Agnostic were welcome in an un moderated teen room... But we constantly had people invading and harassing the room... One thing that was misunderstood about us is at night we had fun writing horror stories... or thriller stories we all used to hope to be better than Stephen King at it... Some of them were really good.. I was saddened to see when people found my friends stories they start to harass them and call them a psychopaths, and all kinds of other things. I also was getting into trouble over my stories.. and dark poems as people took them seriously.... My friends and I were harassed horribly over our stories.. The only thing we should have done with our talent.. was.. to put it on hold till we were over 18 years old.. But eventually the community snapped and lost it the shootings happened then we had the press and media harassing us pretending to be our other friends or relatives trying to get information on our friends.. Then we had feds, and others.. We split up... and to my knowledge only 5 out of 40 of us are still living...
So cyberharassment is very very serious and underestimated.. and what stinks is many do not realise how badly it is going on, and if the chat does not record transcripts or no one is notified it ever went on.. The person who snapped is automatically labled as psychopath because there is no proof on record that they were indeed harassed through the internet.. as my friends were.. from booters, and hackers...and others trying to "save our souls" or convert or revert us to their religion...
Anyhow.. I went off topic a little there. I stand out as different, I am open and will speak about many things.. So I tend to attract unwanted attention and plenty of harassment from time to time...
Sometimes we even harass others not deliberately knowing it.. Just purely by making a person you are talking to online becomes harassment after they notify you that they are uncomfortable with the conversation and you insist on going on...
With certain acceptions like talking the suicidal or depressed.. or other person with mental issues you think may harm themselves or others.. into getting professional help.. but even then you have to becareful of your approach... so you are not badgering or harassing with it.
Hope that is enough info,
- DNatureofDTrain
| Asker's Rating: |
• Thank you for your answer, really well done!
Tags: harassment, cyberbullying
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Other Answers (13)
August 02, 2009 05:38 AM
"abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate, intimidate" abuse-calling someone a name
harass-always clicking on unhelpful on a particular person
threaten-threatening to do a number of obnoxious things to someone
impersonate-using someone else's username
intimidate-suggesting that if someone does not do as you say, you will do bad network things to them.
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August 02, 2009 06:03 AM
In terms of online communities, I would consider harassment to include any threat which might be taken seriously, or any ongoing effort to interfere with someone's participation in the community. With respect to Mahalo, harassment would include consistently downrating someone's questions and/or answers, or otherwise "gaming the system" to someone's disadvantage, in addition to the more typical forms of verbal harassment, release of personal information, etc.
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August 02, 2009 01:05 PM
"Any ongoing effort to interfere with someone's participation in the community"
If I was to define online harassment, I think it would center around this too.
Anyone can have an "off day" and act or comment negatively. When there is a clear history (3 strikes) of "interference", this would then constitute harassment in my mind.
In my definition, I would try to clearly explain what would constitute interference. I'd open this definition up to the community so that everyone could define it as a group. I think that by giving the community an opportunity to provide input that everyone would value it's meaning a little more. Also, when there was a problem, the moderator could mention that the definition of harassment was created by the community and invite the offender to comment on the definition themselves.
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If I was to define online harassment, I think it would center around this too.
Anyone can have an "off day" and act or comment negatively. When there is a clear history (3 strikes) of "interference", this would then constitute harassment in my mind.
In my definition, I would try to clearly explain what would constitute interference. I'd open this definition up to the community so that everyone could define it as a group. I think that by giving the community an opportunity to provide input that everyone would value it's meaning a little more. Also, when there was a problem, the moderator could mention that the definition of harassment was created by the community and invite the offender to comment on the definition themselves.
August 02, 2009 01:09 PM
Reading this question again, Jeff is asking for folks to define what it means. My comment is a bit redundant. Looks like I should have a coffee before commenting any further ;)
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August 02, 2009 06:10 AM
In general, I believe harassment is the same online as it is in the real world, just without the physical element. This would include things like: threats of any kind, name calling, unwanted sexual advances, stalking, racist or hate speech, and making false public allegations. On Mahalo, that could also be expanded to include things like incessant "not helpful" or "uninteresting" votes, excessive unwanted direct messages, and vandalizing a member's Mahalo pages. I think the frequency in which it occurs is one of the major differences between harassment online and offline. For example, if someone called me a name or said something inappropriate *once* online, I'd probably let it slide. It's very unlikely I'd let it slide in person without at least a snarky comeback. People have less of a filter when speaking via the interwebs, so I generally just ignore things like that unless it is persistent.
For example, I recently had someone send me a message on Mahalo calling me "stupid." That's literally all the message said. I found it odd and a little humorous, but if it persisted, I would be annoyed and find it harassing.
In the end, it really comes down to having a good checks and warning system in place so that any such situations can be judged individually. I think Mahalo is doing a good job with this.
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August 02, 2009 08:02 AM
In short I would say any behaviour where a person focuses their attention on another person and not the subject matter can be seen as harassment. I personally feel harassed when someone starts responding to me instead of the post I made on a forum and then doesn't stop.
This can escalate to a level where the I (being harassed) don't want to go online anymore or have to ask for help from a webmaster or ISP.
I think the mildest forms of harassment are preceived differently from person to person, while the more obvious forms are very close to what we would experience in the real world.
I am webmaster on a fairly popular forum, and am faced with complaints of cyber harassment on a regular basis.
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August 02, 2009 01:20 PM
Specifically for Mahalo, here are a couple of ideas... Having a pattern of:
Voting another users contributions "uninteresting" without reason.
Commenting negatively in the answers of a specific user.
Answering the questions of a specific user without appropriate information.
Asking questions (either privately or in public) that are in any way inappropriate, misleading, slanderous or not interesting.
Negatively commenting in SERP elements.
Changing any SERP in any way that does not reflect the purpose of the page manager.
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August 02, 2009 01:33 PM
and also "unhelpful" for no reason with no comments either. It should be mandatory to leave a comment if not the unhelpful vote should be ignored.
If the user reasons with a ridiculous comment, the moderator could intervene blacklist the user and remove the comment/vote.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-suggestions/how-do-we-prevent-users-from-randomly-marking-a-helpful-answer-as-an-unhelpful
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If the user reasons with a ridiculous comment, the moderator could intervene blacklist the user and remove the comment/vote.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-suggestions/how-do-we-prevent-users-from-randomly-marking-a-helpful-answer-as-an-unhelpful
August 02, 2009 09:55 PM
don't forget leaving threatening private messages for other users. (happened to me a couple times).
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August 02, 2009 03:16 PM
"Under the United States Code Title 18 Subsection 1514(c)1. Harassment is defined as "a course of conduct directed at a specific person that causes substantial emotional distress in such a person and serves no legitimate purpose".* Personally I feel that the digital realm does not change this. My own definition would be that acting with the intent to cause someone or a group emotional discomfort in online interactions would be harassment.
Source(s):
http://www.uslawbooks.com/books/harass.htm
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August 02, 2009 04:41 PM
Online harassment to me is when an individual targets another on a frequent basis by either making inappropriate comments to them or about them to others, leaving them nasty comments and/or emails, or attempts to do anything with ill intentions. Harassment may also consist of doing other things to "get" the other person, such as signing them up for several unwanted, obscene, or obtrusive email. When I seen this question, the first thing I thought of was topix.com. Locally, people bash one another and spread personal information so that others may do the same. What is the world coming to?
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August 02, 2009 04:50 PM
Since the TOS mentions abuse, threats, impersonation and intimidation in their own right, it might be useful to consider what constitues harrassment *apart* from those things. I'd say perhaps what makes for harrassment is behavior that is inappropriate, unwanted and persisent, especially after the person has been told that the behavior is unwanted.
Inappropriate - If someone asked a question about career options, and got a response with sexual innuendos, that would probably be inappropriate. If they had asked an NSFW question and the whole thread was banter of that kind, the same answer would probably be appropriate. At least it would have to be pretty extreme before we'd think about calling it harrassment.
Unwanted - It can be hard to know what's wanted or unwanted. Do people like being complimented, or does that get them feeling like they're being hit on? Are they up for NSFW banter or do they find it distasteful? Do they enjoy a bit of flirting, or resent it? Usually its a good idea to suggest that the person that feels harrassed first let the person doing it that the behavior is unwanted. Face-to-face sometimes people are so intimidated they feel they can't even say that, but online I don't see a lot of reason for that not to be the normal first step.
Perisistent - I think that is an important element in the meaning of harrassment. A one-off incident might be a problem in itself, for example if it was abusive or threatening, or so far out of line that it could never be appropriate. But harrassment generally refers to a whole pattern of behavior. In the real world, if the police pull you over once, you've got nothing to complain about. If they do it every day, it could be considered harrassment.
Again all of the things have to be taken together. The police pulling you over every day is not harrassment if you drive recklessly and pose a serious hazard to traffic every day. So while their behaviour may be persistent and unwanted by you, it is not inappropriate. Likewise on Mahalo repeatedly calling a person out for copy-pasting is not harrassment, unless it's done in an exceptionally unpleasant way.
As the example I've given suggest, harrassment can be pretty broad category. It can include sexual or racial remarks, persistent belittling of someone, or singling out an individual unfairly. e.g. Alway marking a person's answers unhelpful when theirs answers are similar to everyone elses.
Being so broad, it's not possible to give a complete list of things that could constitute harrassment, just illustrations of what is not acceptable.
Source(s):
Have had to study policies and procedures on such matters in the past
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August 02, 2009 05:43 PM
Harassment. In terms of what I have witnessed over the years as a member of several internet communities, I'd define it thusly: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Taking actions to impede another user's internet experience through the use of inflammatory comments, baseless voting, unwanted personal messages, the posting of antagonistic or insulting questions, or shadowing this person throughout the community. Also any acts of encouragement to rally other online members against a particular user should be considered harassing. Any of these actions which are meant to intimidate, threaten, or impugn a person or their community standing or reputation constitutes harassment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Like real world harassment, online harassment can come in fits and spurts. One week the harasser may leave their target alone, but the next week levy a series of negative votes, messages, etc. against him/her. It can be an underlying "rivalry" that brews over a long period of time, one that stems from disagreements or differences (if there's any reason at all).
So when does it cross a line from disagreement to harassment?
When one side backs down and remains actionless, while the aggressor continues to pursue him/her, especially outside of the bounds of the original question/board/comment.
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August 02, 2009 06:22 PM
Online Harassment is a deliberate attack on a person or persons by another party. These attacks, though not physical, often contain racial/sexual content, aggressive language, threats, attacks on a particular persons point of view, or repeated a repeated annoyance. Some sates like Connecticut have passed laws against online harassment. In those laws it is defined as being different from cyberstalking because online harassment only needs to happen once, whereas a number of incidences is needed to prove cyberstalking.
I believe that often time harassment on the internet has a malicious intent behind it. Also, when I have had to deal with it on my forum, it often has a source that goes beyond the particular incident(aka something happened before between the two parties and this is just an effect of that).
Source(s):
Owning my own forum where this has taken place.
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August 03, 2009 12:39 AM
Online harassment to me means many things. Even though online harassment is common many people do not know that they are being harassed. When you receive emails from an unknown source and ask them to stop but they continue to email you that is online harassment. When someone is sending graphic emails to you and you ask them to quit but it continues that is harassment. Even with boards such as this one. If someone commented on a question in a derogatory manor and you didn’t like it, you told them to stop, but they keep doing it that is online harassment. Online harassment can even be something as simple as instant messaging someone constantly over and over when they asked you to stop. Online harassment occurs daily every second online. It is important that people understand that even though it is online they still have rights and if they feel like they are being harassed they can report it just as if in the real world.
Source(s):
http://www2.gmu.edu/dpt/unilife/sexual//brochures/OnlineHarrassment.pdf
Tags: real, harassment, life, community, online
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But... I rather not discuss more than I already shared about it. I wish for their spirits to rest in peace... All these people needed some serious help.. they were not getting, and being misunderstood constantly And I know how they feel as I had faced the exact same challenges.. Still am facing some of them.. the family oriented ones... Well, Take care all .
I won't even bother to answer!
Unfortunately, @krysstel ID was the repeat target of "cyberharassing"
Thank you everyone for your kind comments!
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