Online harassment / threats : more law enforcement needed

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I just now read The Cops Don't Care About Violent Online Threats. What Do We Do Now? by Anna Merlan, 1/29/2015 -- about the lack of follow-up by law enforcement on complaints of about online threats and harassment.

This is one of the reasons why I'm against the idea of "defund the police." They apparently don't have enough resources to investigate anywhere near all the complaints of serious crime that they receive.

Serious reform of law enforcement IS needed to counteract racism and police brutality, among other problems, but law enforcement is still very much needed. It should be re-prioritized by not "de-funded" or otherwise reduced overall.

I hope Kamela Harris will be in a good position to lead the way.

The solution is people need to stop using their real identities online. I don't get how anyone can use their real identities. I know for a fact you can write something that would piss someone off and this is why people atomic delete all their tweets from time to time and start again to avoid this stuff and also deleting their Reddit account and starting over from time to time to keep people from collecting information about them.

Then there are places like Kiwifarms and they do post your personal information if you put it anywhere online such as your Facebook account. They have even put down peoples real names and their home addresses and this sets the subjects up for harassment in real life. This is why I don't ever make my # visible anywhere online and put it anywhere online and my address. I don't share my Facebook either. I use face names online. I have an email I only use for real life and that has my real name to it. Also for god's sake, if you find yourself on Kiwifarms don't say anything about it because whenever I hear someone moan about being on there, I then go and look for them on there to read about them because I am curious what they are saying about them. All you are doing is drawing attention to yourself by mentioning they did a thread about you.


I have heard of well known bloggers and vbloggers being doxxed or harassed in real life. You don't need to post anything bigoted or transphobic or racist or anything phobia to be doxxed and harassed. All it takes is for some people to be butthurt because they didn't agree with something you wrote so they decide to look you up and find personal information about you and start harassing you. I think if you are a well known public figure and online, you are more likely to be a victim of this.

I respectfully disagree.

Back in the heyday of Usenet, people were required to use their real identities, and the discussions were civil, for the most part.

To take another example, people on the unlicensed CB Radio channels often hide behind anonymous "handles", refuse to reveal their real identities, and use the the kind of foul and abusive language that I only heard in a Navy barracks or onboard a Navy ship.  By contrast, people on the licensed Amateur Radio bands are required to identify themselves by their callsign, and anyone can look up the identity of the person by their callsign and file a complaint with the FCC.  If a violation is severe enough, a Ham Radio operator can lose his license, have his equipment confiscated, and be denied the privilege of operating on the Amateur Radio bands permanently (not to mention the fines and possible jail time).

I assert that anonymity is what enables some people to be abusive while on-line; but if a person is determined to be abusive, no amount of "Doxing" will inhibit them from doing so.

Yes I have noticed that trolls online tend to be anonymous so I take them less seriously. If they don't have the balls to say these things under their normal account, then they lose credibility for what they had written.

I don't say bad stuff while anonymous online because I am not a dishonest coward. All these haters who are anonymous are cowards because they don't have the balls to say them under their regular usernames or real identities.

I have been harassed, over the internet, for literally decades.
I remember when it first happened, and it caused me a lot of distress.
Eventually, I got used to it, built calluses, and can laugh it off.
I am virtually bulletproof against internet a$$holes, now.
I sometimes wonder why I let it affect me.

But I am not saying that something shouldn't be done about the online sociopaths and psychopaths.

The human psyche/psychology is an unfortunate result of, you guessed it, the Evolutionary process.
Horrible creatures, these hoomans, all too often.

Wouldn't it be funny if trolls posted misinformation on Kiwifarms?

Thankfully that doesn't happen.
Thankfully most people use their critical thinking skills to think for themselves and not jump to conclusions. [irony]

For the record, my real name is 'Pepe'. [joke]
And I am an Australian born skunk.

The Internet was a much smaller place back then. By the time I got involved with Usenet for a while back in 1995 or so, pseudonyms were not only allowed but commonplace, at least in the newsgroups I participated in.

Anyhow, what may have worked well in a small, self-contained subculture (e.g. Ham Radio and early Usenet) does NOT work well on today's massive Internet, especially in today's massive social media like Facebook. We now live in a world where ordinary people are exposed to all of the hazards but none of the perks of being a movie star.

In a smaller world, the use of people's legal names may have been a reasonable way of holding people accountable. In today's world, it just exposes people -- especially women -- to the danger of severe and unwarranted harassment/bullying.

In today's world I think we are safest posting in small moderated online forums like WP, where we are allowed to use pseudonyms (and where the moderators will personally intervene in cases of severe harassment), and staying off of massive social media like Facebook.

I've been against Defund The Police from the very beginning and stuff like this is part of the reason.

I am sure they have but I take everything there as a grain of salt. What I read there are just opinions on the subjects.

The moment when google wanted you to put in your name and so did youtube, I started using fake names. Like hell I would put my real name online and I use fake names for my emails as well since those also show your name next to your email.

This is very well put.

I don't use FB. I've never even looked at Reddit or Kiwifarms. I only do autism sites.

The issue of online harassment seems to be very much on the radar of at least two large, well-established feminist organizations:

- Online Abuse 101 and Online Harassment - Women's Media Center
- Online violence: Just because it’s virtual doesn’t make it any less real - Global Fund for Women

It's also on the radar of at least two major U.S. think tanks:

- Against The Odds: Overcoming Online Harassment of Women in Politics, Center for Strategic and International Studies, November 8, 2018.
- Tackling Online Abuse and Disinformation Targeting Women in Politics by Lucina Di Mecoand Saskia Brechenmacher, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 30, 2020

and various international organizations of various kinds:

- There’s a pandemic of online violence against women and girls, World Wide Web Foundation, July 14, 2020.
- IPU study reveals widespread sexism, harassment and violence against women MPs, Inter-Parliamentary Union, Wed, 26/10/2016.
- Violence Against Women Online in 2018 - Amnesty International

and the United Nations:

- Take five: Why we should take online violence against women and girls seriously during and beyond COVID-19, UN Women, Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Hopefully this attention will eventually result in more than just talk. Hopefully there will be progress in getting governments, including the U.S. and state governments, to take it more seriously.