from TinyLittlePuni@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 13 Sep 16:18
https://lemmy.world/post/35869766
This guy is 38 and she was part of some chatroom and he started talking to her 13 year old little sister in a way that very obviously had ill intent. She called him out on this and posted screenshots of that chatroom online. Now ever since this, he has a site where he archives almost everything she says online. She made a post about how she prefers cats over dogs, then he archived that and posted the link to the archive on his site saying “never trust a dog hater with anything” and it just goes on, and on, and on for years.
When she even makes a passing mention about him, even if he’s not named or only vaguely mentioned, he chimes in, and posts a link to his site with some variation of “don’t trust her, she’s not to be trusted” and links to pages on his site which were all made by him over the years in an attempt to maliciously discredit her. It’s often a gish-gallop of links.
He also says that he’s made an account on every site he knows of, likely in an attempt at surveilling or intimidating her.
#nostupidquestions
threaded - newest
Ignore him?
She would normally, but he’s actively spreading misinformation about her, claiming this is “karma” for her spreading “misinformation” about him. She has fibromyalgia and he’s going around accusing her of faking it, and he’s also accused her of being a shoplifter because of what was extremely obviously a joke that was taken out of context
Nobody cares about what some random person says about some other random person. If she just stops stalking this guy stalking her, he’ll either get bored and move on, or, he’ll continue to waste his life posting insults that she’ll never read.
Nope, not when it’s a crazy person. This can get out of hand.
It’s not just about whether anybody cares. He might escallate. He seems crazy enough.
Have a detailed, copy-pasted reply with links ready to go. Every time he pops his head up anywhere, remind anybody watching that he is a known pedophile. Also, talk to a lawyer about the possibility his behavior might rise to the level of harassment.
Good idea!
Depending on the jurisdiction you’re in accusing someone of being a pedophile may not be a good idea. You should definitely talk to a lawyer though, preferably before you make any accusations.
No, absolutely terrible idea. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. He isn’t, from what you’ve said, a “known pedophile” because he hasn’t been charged and convicted of anything that would make him so.
Careful, falls under libel if you can’t prove it.
I heard you can safely call someone an asshole
Wonder if creep would likewise be safe
I don't think I've seen OP mention which country their friend is a citizen of. Many countries have libel laws that don't care if the claims are true or not, but instead just look at what your intention is by making them.
This is stalking. She could get a restraining order which includes interacting with her online content, so if he continued to repost it would be a violation of the order.
I highly doubt a random website will get any traction. Why doesn’t she just make her social media private? Why hasn’t she blocked this random dude
She's the victim here and shouldn't need to do any of this.
Everyone regardless of victim status should use the tools available to protect their personal information online.
If someone is publishing your personal information without your consent, local laws and regulations may apply. You kinda have to be lucky with police and the legal system to take you seriously though.
No, no one should feel the need to make their socials private because someone is being an asshole.
This is like saying you dont need to look both ways before crossing the street when you have the crossing signal. Sure, you might be correct but that doesn’t protect you when you get hit by a car.
You need to practice making comparisons. No, that's nowhere near the same thing.
Here's a better one: -"Stop wearing short skirts if men are cat calling you"
Yeah, no.
It’s reasonable advice, if you are sure that not wearing short skirts results in less cat-calling. The societal solution is to discourage cat-calling in whatever way. But if a particular individual doesn’t want to be cat called more than they want to wear short skirts, then the solution is obvious.
This is similar advice to “if someone is trying to mug you, just give them your wallet so you don’t get stabbed.” Certainly there should be a larger discussion about decreasing the amount of muggings - but for the particular individual in a particular circumstance, they should take the action that is in their immediate self interest.
No, it's not. Please tell me you're not a parent.
So lets hear your solution to the problem if you feel your idealist approach is the most effective way to deal with this.
Let me guess, you’ll suggest going to the police who won’t actually do anything or pay thousands of dollars to hire a lawyer who may or may not be able to accomplish something after months of time and a bunch of court hearings. Maybe even loudly announcing to this mentality ill individual that their behavior is wrong forcing them to back down as everyone around claps for OP? Yeah I’m not so sure that’s how things work in the real world.
Nobody is blaming the victim here but we don’t live in a fairytale world where good always triumphs over evil and justice is always served. You need to do what you can to protect yourself and we’re simply offering real solutions.
Yeah, you go to the police and fheir hosting provider. At no point do you teach women that the right action when bullied is for them to take a step back and be quiet.
Care to point out where anyone said “this woman needs to step back and be quiet,” or does your whole argument hinge on this strawman?
That's what "change your socials to private" means. To verify this, ask yourself why yours aren't.
The few I have are set to private actually because there’s zero reason to expose personal information to a bunch of strangers.
No, your posts here are public.
🙄 We’re all anonymous here.
I find it better to always post under my real name rather than believe I'll manage to stay anonymous whilst discussing everyday things on social media. At some point someone will connect that Toyota Camry driving person in Oregon who works at a place that has just had a bunch of layoffs with that nickname and then you'll have to rethink everything you've posted.
Victims aren't the ones that need to close down and stay quiet. The perpetrators are.
So your real name is “troed?” Is that a single name like “Cher?”
Funny that you take the idealist approach while committing the very act that you’re railing against as if your whole argument is worthless. Should I call the police on you and report you to fedia.io as you suggested someone do when dealing with an unhinged individual like yourself?
It's indeed - and unique enough that you should be able to find me in seconds.
Feel free to call the Swedish police and tell them that you don't like my arguments. Or for that matter, Jerry (who runs fedia.io).
I guess you realized you couldn't counter my actual point.
What’s your point, that you’ll gladly sacrifice your stated beliefs, completely contradicting everything you said previously, if you think it will help you win an argument? You should be a politician.
It’s hilarious how flippant you are here about calling the police or “Jerry” when you were previously so adamant about that being the best way for this woman to protect herself, proving exactly why that was a nonsense solution to begin with. Congratulations for completely demolishing your argument all on your own.
I'm not sure you've understood what you've read so far.
I’ve understood it quite well thank you. I would also be quite embarrassed making a chain of comments like yours, so I also understand why you’re now deflecting away from the topic and pretending like we’re talking about something else.
Ah ok. It looked like you tried to claim that reciting three facts from your public comments here was in anyway similar to what the topic of the thread is about - but I agree that even an american can't be that ignorant.
I’m really interested in hearing your explanation for how it’s any different.
OP claims this stalker is also reciting facts from their public comments in an attempt to antagonize them too. I suppose you feel it’s okay for you to do it though since you seem to think you’re on some sort of moral high ground and “it’s different when I do it,” “this person really deserves it,” or whatever justification you need to tell yourself to clear the cognitive dissonance.
You might need to retake English classes.
My socials are set to private for lots of reasons - situations like this being just one. Pretty much everyone I know also has them set to private. Its just smart
In a world where justice is guaranteed, you’d be right. But we’re not living in a fairy tale, and keeping all your data public is not bringing us closer to that utopia, so what’s the point?
I live in a country where all data is public. We're good, thanks.
What the fuck does that even mean?
You want someone's personal number (americans, think social security number) - call the tax authority and ask for it. While at it, ask how much their declared income is and where they live.
All public information. And our society is most definitely a fairy tale utopia compared to the US.
I’m going to assume that that personal number is not used for identification then. But the information you name are not really relevant for the kind at stalking that OP describes. It’s not like the are no stalkers in Sweden.
Agreed, not just because someone is being an asshole. Everyone should feel the need to protect their personal information, because the world is full of assholes of different levels and your personal information being publicly available can only cause harm to you. It really is as simple as setting your profile to “friends only” to counter the lowest level of assholes.
If the guy is dedicated enough, and he seems to be, it won’t work. He’ll find a way to gain access to the private account. He’ll make others accounts.
You can make a new, private account without saying who you are, but you lose people, it’s exhausting to be careful full time and it’s unfair.
OP, your friend is the victim of criminal cyberstalking and harassment. This dude should be reported to the authorities
My guess is that the guy has several red hats in his closet
Oh, without a doubt
Get the police involved
What’s the site?
Call an attorney to see if there is anything that can be done.
Also, start archiving the website in order to compile evidence for later. Don’t count on this person leaving the site up.
Why hasn’t she gone to the police?
Because she’s in the US and this guy’s from Australia.
Does she know which Australian state? Likely every state has cyberstalking rules, but it would be a state law.
There’s a solution to this.
First, you turn off all the lights in your bathroom and close the door. And then you say"Lindsay Logan" (NOT LOHAN. IF YOU SAY LINDSAY LOHAN SHE WILL COME OUT OF THE MIRROR AND MAKR YOU DRINK VODKA UNTIL YOU DIE) three times, at exactly 3:33 a.m. if you do it right a school bus will hit the person and they will die of school bus smash.
Call the police.
Contact the registrar and host of the site. One or both will likely shut it down.
Also contact the police as others have said.
Send DM if you need assistance.
Good luck. Nothing illegal if it’s just screenshots and copies of her word. Like, what is the complaint?
Its called harassment. And its illegal.
Like I said, good luck proving that or paying a lawyer. Repeating what someone said isn’t illegal. And it’s especially harder when it’s done online.
Edit: I don’t really care if you agree with me or not. I’m in the US and if OP is also, this is very difficult and costly. You may be able to scare him into stopping by getting police involved, but maybe not. In fact, this is a civil issue, cops won’t do shit. And as someone who has been on both sides and now $15k into a defamation lawsuit right now, there is a good chance it will go nowhere.
post anonymously?
If he has uploaded photos of your friend from her social media to his site and she took those pictures, she could have a pathway towards DMCA striking his site down. Talk to a lawyer about it
If these twisted statements are provably false - even if they contain elements of truth - then this is a case of libel.
Creating accounts everywhere someone is in order to track what they do and say is stalking.
Making repeated efforts to ruin a person's day is harassment.
Contact law enforcement and/or legal representation. I'm not either of those but it seems like there's a strong case here.
He’s hiding links in text that twists what’s actually in the links and those links do go to posts she made but it’s like he hides links in text so people don’t click them. A single sentence on his site can contain upwards of five or even ten links.
See it these links show up if you “view source” on a browser. Print the source as evidence to bring to a lawyer. Or find a lawyer who either knows how to find stuff online or has a good IT Person.
Be prepared for much more DARVO and other mind games. Be aware Law enforcement can not shield you from all of this, but is a good ally to have. Try to find other local women only clubs or victim helping organizations as allies.
Be aware if you search for them online, there are nutjob sites designed to hurt women in need. Go in person if you can, to pick up their vibe before you open up.
Stay safe! Best of Luck!
Go talk to a fucking lawyer and stop seeking advice from people online!
The truth has never been more truer.