Social networking sites and blogs have increasingly turned into breeding grounds for anonymous online groups that attack women, people of color, and members of other frequently disadvantaged groups. These dangerous groups target individuals with defamation, threats of violence, and technology-based assaults that silence victims and damage their privacy. Victims go offline or perhaps assume pseudonyms to circumvent future attacks, depriving victims of the social and commercial opportunities of the internet. Attackers manipulate search engines to duplicate their lies and threats for others to see, producing digital scarlet letters that damage reputations.
Today's cyber attack groups up-date a history of anonymous mobs uniting to victimize and subjugate vulnerable individuals. Regrettably, Web 2.0 technologies accelerate mob conduct. With virtually no expectancy of self-correction of the intimidation of susceptible people, regulations will have to respond.
Typical criminal statutes and tort law proscribe a lot of the mobs destructive behavior, but the damage they inflict also needs to be fully understood and attended to as civil rights violations. Civil rights suits get to the social harm that might usually go unaddressed. Working against these kinds of assaults will not offend First Amendment standards when they include defamation, real dangers, intentional infliction of emotional distress, technological sabotage, and bias-motivated maltreatment directed to affect a person's professions. In actuality, it will help protect vibrant online dialogue and promote a culture of political, social, and economic equality.
Cyberstalking is regarded as intimidating behavior or undesirable advances online and other forms of web and computer communications. There are 3 basic kinds of stalkers. They tend to be simple obsessional stalkers, delusional stalkers and vengeful stalkers. There is frequent overlap of these basic definitions.
A simple obsessional stalker is certainly not simple. They may be typically the individual who refuses to think that a partnership has ended, even though they had been told repeatedly that it is. Do not be fooled with this kind and consider they are harmlessly in love. Many of them had been psychologically abusive and controlling during the relationship and many even have a criminal history unrelated to harassment. This is the most frequent form of stalker.
Another type will be the delusional stalker, they generally have not had any kind of contact with their target beyond the limits of their own thoughts. They might have problems with mental illness like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or erotomania. What they have in common is a false belief that keeps them tied to their victims. In erotomania they feel that the victim loves them, regardless that they have never met. A different type of delusional stalker might believe that he and the victim are destined to be together and even though they might not have met if he only just shows simply how much he loves her then she will love him and they will be together as it is meant to be. A good example of this type of stalker is John Hinckley Jr. that shot President Reagan in order to show Jody Foster how much he loved her.
A delusional stalker is often a loner, unmarried, socially immature and doesn't have the social skills to keep friendships and relationships. They have had few if any sexual relationships. They most often select victims that are unobtainable like a celebrity or a married woman, their doctor, teacher, nurse or therapist. Those helping occupations are in danger of attracting a delusional stalker. Delusional stalkers are extremely tough to stop many continue for many years fixated on a single individual.
The last form of stalker is the vengeful stalker. These people get angry at their victim because of some slight either genuine or imagined. Often disgruntled employees, these types of vengeful stalkers can easily be as harmful as the delusional. They stalk to get even and believe that "they" have been victimized. Ex-spouses can turn into this type of stalker and physical violence is all too common a result.