One of the challenges of being so connected to the internet is that just about anyone can find and connect to you in some way. Anonymity is an extremely powerful tool, and plenty of people use it to harass others. Why does it seem like women get the brunt of the attack?
Amanda Hess, a freelance writer for many popular publications, talks about her experience with online harassment. “I was 12 hours into a summer vacation in Palm Springs when my phone hummed to life, buzzing twice next to me in the dark of my hotel room. I squinted at the screen, and a friend was texting me from the opposite coast. ‘Amanda, this twitter account. I’m freaking out over here,’ she wrote. ‘There is a twitter account that seems to have been set up for the purpose of making death threats to you.” As a female journalist who writes about sex (among other things), none of this feedback was particularly out of the ordinary. But this guy took it to another level. He said: ‘“I am 36 years old, I did 12 years for ‘manslaughter’, I killed a woman, like you, who decided to make fun of guys….” And then: “Happy to say we live in the same state. Im looking you up, and when I find you, I’m going to rape you and remove your head.” There was more, but the final tweet summed it up: “You are going to die and I am the one who is going to kill you. I promise you this.”
Needless to say, this would be a disturbing thing to experience no matter if you were male or female. But the way these cases are being handled is somewhat unsettling. Another female blogger by the name of Rebecca Watson tells her story after a man launched a website threatening to kill her. ““Because I knew what town [he] lived in, I called his local police department. They told me there was nothing they could do and that I’d have to make a report with my local police department,” Watson wrote later. “[I] finally got through to someone who told me that there was nothing they could do but take a report in case one day [he] followed through on his threats, at which point they’d have a pretty good lead.”
Protecting People From Online Attacks
There are literally hundreds of thousands of accounts of online harassment. It seems strange that the police have been relatively quiet regarding this issue. Hess had to go as far as hiring a private investigator to stop her online stalker. You would think that the police would be more concerned about people making death and rape threats to other people, no matter the venue. But it can sometimes be difficult for the police to do anything due to the anonymity of the internet, and especially since most of the threats turn up empty. But it is a cause for concern.
If you are receiving threats, take some cautionary measures to stay safe. Although it seems like the police might not be doing much about it, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Do what you can to recognize where the threats are coming from, and keep a record of everything that these people say. If you feel particularly unsafe, it may be best to shut off your social media accounts or make new ones.