[myNetWords.com] : Cyberstalking

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Cyberstalking

Updated : Monday 20 June 2011

Here’s another word to give ammunition to the anti-internet killjoys out there. With the growth of the internet, stalking has taken on a whole new dimension. The advent of social networking websites has provided it with fertile ground in which to flourish.

You must admit, it has become a lot easier to spy on someone, harass them or generally make their life a misery since we all put our profiles on Facebook and began chatting with our virtual friends online. Now there are millions of internet users exposing large parts of their lives to public view, stalkers no longer need to lurk in the bushes or hire a private detective. The anonymity of the internet gives the stalker a sense of impunity. That is why cyberstalking (or internet stalking) is now the fastest growing form of stalking. But how, in practical terms, can you tell if you’re being stalked online?

Cyberstalking is a form of cyberbullying. If your inbox is clogged with hostile or threatening emails, or if insulting or threatening messages start to appear on your Facebook wall, you need to start asking questions.

But the average stalker won’t stop at bombarding you with nasty emails or messages online. He’ll be spying on you, gathering all the personal information you have put on the web. He won’t hesitate to contact your virtual “friends” using a false identity, to find out more about you. He might also pirate your accounts on Facebook, or Twitter, or use your name to set up false profiles and publish provocative messages to try and discredit you. The geekier stalkers could also send you viruses to bring your system down or – worse – infiltrate your computer and networks.

Stalkers are increasingly using the mobile phone as an additional weapon, by bombarding their victim with texts and calls.

The stalker usually tries to make out that he (or she) is the victim…and that the real victim is the villain. He typically makes false accusations against his victim to make his own hostility look like legitimate revenge.

Some of them try to find out your IP (your digital identity) in order to trace your home address or that of your workplace. Stalking can sometimes spill over into real life, with consequences only too easy to imagine – assaults, kidnapping, etc.

A stalker is a psychotic personality, so no amount of reasoning will make him stop. Expert psychological profilers in the USA say that the profile of the cyberstalker is a very unappetising one: he lives alone in a grubby little flat, doesn’t take care of his appearance, lives on junk food, and works at home if he works at all. He has no friends in the real world and precious few virtual ones either. And, surprise surprise, he has personality issues and sexual problems.

So, what do you do if you are the victim of cyberstalking?

The first piece of advice is never to respond to your stalker’s insults or provocations. All you will do by entering into a dialogue is encourage him and become part of his game. Your silence alone may be enough to put him off. If not, make up a file into which you put all his emails, copies of screens, all the messages posted on forums, fake Facebook accounts, and so on. Once you have a completed dossier, you might be able to get the authorities to act if the problem persists. This is far from easy, though. Most acts of stalking are not actually against the law. Simply sending someone an email or phoning them, or even setting up a fake profile, isn’t a criminal offence. It’s the repetition or mass-mailing that is the problem – the fact that you are getting thousands of text messages or emails (SMS or mail bombing) from the same person, which is not normal. Laws are changing to meet the challenge, but they are still not adequate.

Many states in the USA have had anti-cyberstalking laws for ten years or so, backed by a one-year jail term and a 1000-dollar fine. In the UK, too, cyberstalking is against the law. In France, the position is less clear, as the legislation has not yet caught up with stalking. There is as yet no French equivalent of web vigilantes like the "cyberangels" in the USA.

In fact, there’s not much protection available against this new form of threat, and the best course is prevention. You can do this by restricting your online news to your friends, and that means selecting your virtual friends with care. Remember that they are often the Trojan horse the stalker will use to infiltrate your cyberworld. So you can forget about counting the number of friends – if you push the count up too fast you might just be letting the fox into the chicken coop. Another precaution is never to use online geolocalisation tools: when you’re on Facebook, Foursquare and so on, try to resist the temptation to tell your friends you’re standing in front of some well-known café just in the hope of getting a cut-price special offer. Anonymity and discretion are your best allies. You can always tell yourself that it’s mainly celebrities who are the victims of stalkers and that you’re not very likely to experience that particular form of bullying. Unless, that is, you’ve made a lot of people unhappy: a serial lover has a higher risk of being stalked, but in cases like that stalking might not be the best word to use – others, like “revenge”, come to mind. And the use of the word "stalking" has tended to become somewhat diluted, as it is increasingly being used just to indicate that you’re taking an interest in what your friends are doing online. To take one example, if you download the application on Facebook that tells you in real time when your friends and contacts break up (breakupnotifier.com), you’ll be called a "stalker", but in a rather nice way. The stalker has gone from being a criminal to someone who’s just curious. A shift in meaning that could give rise to misunderstandings, but now at least you’ve been warned! If your teenager calls you a stalker just because you’ve sneaked a look at his Facebook profile, don’t take it as an insult. He’s not about to report you to the police, he just wants you to know he thinks you’re being a bit too intrusive.