E-Stalking, where to draw the line May 7, 04:43
It’s undoubtedly one of the hottest topics of the moment, e-stalkers. In corner 1 you have the e-stalkers who are either doing it to be funny or are truly insane. In corner 2 you have the people who are being e-stalked. And in corner 3 you have me, the person who thinks that both parties are to blame in, shockingly, quite a few cases.
Maybe that sounds harsh, and as Jenn pointed out it could be compared to saying a woman who was raped asked for it by wearing revealing clothing. The difference between a rape and e-stalking is that we can, in most cases, control the flow of information that is fueling the fire the e-stalkers are warming themselves on, but a rapist cannot be controlled by just wearing loose baggy clothing1.
When you post personal information, and by personal I mean your address, pictures of your family, phone numbers, cell numbers, directions to your house, ect. you need to realise that by doing so you may be putting yourself, and the ones you love, at risk, since when is all that worth the price you have to pay worth posting photos of yourself and directions to your house?
Bloggers should be held responsible for giving out information, you shouldn’t have to censor yourself but you should be able to draw lines between what is acceptable and what isn’t. Don’t want people making fun of the pictures of your butt? Don’t post them, don’t want people phoning you? Don’t post your phone number; it’s a simple enough concept to grasp, so why do people continue to do it?
Sure they have every right to post whatever they want, freedom of speech and all that jazz. But when they’re complaining about their safety you have to stop, take a step back and think about who is fueling this, who is providing the e-stalker with the information they’re using, why continue being harassed if you can stop it?
It is possible to maintain a low profile on the internet, people don’t want to see millions of photos of you, they don’t need to know that you live in Smalltown USA and they certainly don’t need your contact information. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone other than yourself and people need to realise that. This isn’t a game where the person who has the realest life is the winner, this is the safety of our families and ourselves we’re talking about.
Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they don’t exist, the idea that the internet is safer than real life is a myth. You need to be just as careful online as you are offline, and that includes being choosy about who you give your information to. Especially since you cannot see who they are, you don’t know if they’re crazy and you can’t really rely on the opinions of your friends because they can’t see him/her either.
Don’t think that I believe that every case of e-stalking is the victims fault, there are a lot of crazy people out there. I just think that if you can take steps to protect yourself then you should. This cannot be compared to staying in your house all day to avoid being hit by a bus, handing out personal information is an invitation to other people to act upon it. When you walk outside you aren’t asking to be hit by a bus or raped, but when you hand out your phone number to strangers you’re, in effect, asking them to call you. Otherwise why would you give them your number?
1 Which is what most rapists prefer as it’s easier to remove. They also like women who have ponytails or any other hairstyle that is easy to grab and they prefer if you aren’t carrying a weapon (an umbrella, walking-stick, etc.).
Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular