Cyber stalking

Cyber stalking essentially refers to stalking over the internet. In practice, however, it works very differently. In most cases, cyber stalking is unprosecutable, and few jurisdictions even have laws that explicitly prohibit it (although existing laws can sometimes be applied in cyber stalking cases). Cyber stalking is seen to be one of the most serious problems with the internet today.

Reasons that a person begins cyber stalking

The reasons are often similar to the reasons that stalking begins; however there are also a variety of other reasons. These include:

• Someone is cyber bullying someone else, and, because of the difficulty of prosecuting for cyber stalking, they take it further, often involving an external site such as LJ Drama and potentially involving a smear campaign that uses lowest common denominator tactics to scare others into thinking that they need to be stalked and upset.
• Two people have an argument, and, after one party loses the argument, they decide to penalise the other by stalking them.
• One party feels that the other party deserves to be punished in some way, so starts stalking them.

Cyber stalking can often involve many people stalking 1 person. It should be noted that 1 person never stalks many people; hence if you find lots vs 1 in a cyber stalking case, the 1 is always the innocent party. Cyber stalking cases are often incredibly confusing as both sides claim to be the victim.

Cyber stalking for the same reason as stalking

When cyber stalking happens for the same reasons as for stalking (or is claimed to be for the same reasons), it can be prosecutable, especially if the victim is female and the person accused of doing it is male. A girl who gets a lot of e-mails asking her personal things can in many cases prosecute. If this happens in a work place, the person doing it can often be fired for it (although this is often described as sexual harassment). Whilst sometimes a person can get away with it, usually due to anonymity, the law is generally fairly keen to prosecute for this reason for cyber stalking.

Cyber stalking as an extension of cyber bullying or as part of a smear campaign

When cyber stalking is an extension of either cyber bullying and/or as part of a smear campaign, things can get pretty confusing.

Ultimately, you often have either:

• One side claiming that they are being stalked, and the other side saying nothing.

OR

• Both sides claiming to being stalked.

Both may present web sites that prove that they are the victims, yet the other side is claiming that the web site itself exists as a vehicle to stalk them.

The conclusion that is often made by inexperienced people that read this kind of thing is that "they are both responsible" or else that it is all made up. Unfortunately, there is only ever 1 person who is responsible in this kind of situation, and by people doing nothing, they damn the person who is victimised. However, if they go after the wrong person, then they can make matters much, much worse.

Smear sites such as LJ Drama regularly encouraged cyber stalking, often initiating it themselves, under the guise that someone had done a lowest common denominator crime, such as rape, child abuse, racism, homosexuality or the like with a minimum of evidence, which is often fabricated or at least exaggerated.

How to stop it

The main way to stop cyber stalking is to not encourage it. Things might seem funny, but when there is the chance that a real person who you do not personally know could be punished, you have to stop doing anything that might encourage it. If in doubt, do not do anything. Do not start sending hundreds of nasty e-mails to someone who you think might be guilty of something - if in doubt leave them alone. You might be making things worse. Ultimately, you have to put yourselves in their shoes, and consider the possibility that they might be innocent. Obviously, if they have personally attacked you, then you have every reason to think that what they did really happened - because then you know - but otherwise you should be careful.

There are some key ways to recognise real cyber stalking, but these are guides more than anything. Each case must be taken on an individual scenario.

It also should be noted that in many cases of cyber stalking the person doing it is not aware that they are doing it (although obviously this is never the case if it is an extension of cyber bullying - these are cases where the person thinks that the victim deserves it).

Tips for detecting who is the stalker and who is the victim

1. Is 1 person claiming to be cyber stalked by many and many claiming to be cyber stalked by 1? If this is the case, you can be certain that the 1 is the victim, and the many are culprits (although it may be that only 1 of those culprits is definitively aware of it, the others may simply think it is funny).
2. Are there any lowest common denominator type claims? If there are any, how firm are those claims? If only one side is making LCD type claims, and the claims are not reasonable, then almost certainly the side making LCD claims is the culprit (unless of course the victim had in fact done one of those things).
3. Is the evidence presented by one side manipulative in nature? Does it lead you to naturally assume a position, or is it open? If it is manipulative of nature, there is a good chance that they are the culprit. For example, if in one line it claims that their children were crying and in another publishes an unrelated article in another country about a rapist that was caught, then there is some big manipulation going on.
4. Does one party seem genuinely afraid to speak and the other side is laughing about it? If a party is laughing about the situation on a regular basis, then they probably are the culprit. A victim wouldn't find this funny at all.
5. If you put the scenario together for both sides, which side makes more sense? Which side is holeproof? If one side's argument has a big hole that doesn't add up, then they are probably the culprit.
6. Of their evidence presented, is there anything that could not possibly be interpreted as defending themselves? If one side is all defence, and the other side has aspects that could not possibly be interpreted as defensive, then the side which is not all defence is probably the culprit.

There is no definitive way to be certain, but there are tips for how to find out who is who.

Tips to protect yourself from cyber stalking

1. Every time that you speak, do it assuming that the whole world can read it. Nothing is private, and everything can be reprinted somewhere. Do not trust friends-only, private blogs, private web forums or anything that is supposed to be private on the internet.
2. Do not trust anyone too soon, especially with things that they could use against you or could use to libel you.
3. If you have previously been targeted by cyber stalking, do not tell anyone about it, or if you do tell people, tell them using an identity that is entirely different to your other internet aliases. The surest way to make sure that it happens again is to let people know that it has happened before. It will make people feel justified in doing it again, as they will either feel that you deserved it and hence deserve it again or else they think that you were weak enough to be targeted and hence they can do it again and get away with it.
4. If you must tell people, do it in an inspirational way that helps others, and be prepared to take the heat from it all. You will be targeted for it, but hopefully you can make things better for others in doing so.
5. Use the same internet aliases or else your real name everywhere on the internet. People will hurt you more by finding out supposed secrets than they will by finding out things that you freely admit yourself. Even if you haven't actually done anything bad, people will presume that you have based on you using many identities. People will hurt you no matter what you say, but you are safer by being consistent.
6. If you choose to use different internet aliases, make sure that you keep track of them. You might use a different one for each role, and retire one each time that they are compromised, or that you get cyber stalked or something similar.
7. Do not ever tell people your full real name, or if you do, make sure that people either refer to you by your first name only or else by your internet alias - unless you are choosing to only speak things in a very public way, in which case you may choose to use your full name.
8. Do not ever associate yourself with people who engage in cyber stalking. Even if they are supporting you, later on they might turn on you.
9. Do not ever support cyber stalking, and be very careful not to support it.