Woman, How Dare You?

I just saw Huffington Post blogger Gretchen Kelly's 2015 post that has gone viral again: The Thing All Women Do That You Don't Know About. I had to send her a tweet of thanks and to tell her this post was a gift to all womankind. It gives all of us validation.

What Gretchen's entry tells us is that this is the every day physical life of what it is like to live in the skin of a woman. What it doesn't include is the every day vitriol half the population faces online for merely existing.

While the offline experience is innuendos, cat calls, grabs, and outright physical abuse, the online experience is outrageously venomous because hiding behind a keyboard seems to allow the perpetrator to feel safe from repercussions. Plus, see the offline behavior, court and sentencing examples of situations that were called out, and -- because perpetrating any of this behavior against a woman is an acceptable part of society.

No, this isn't a man-hating piece. If you read Gretchen's post, she is not calling out all men, just the assholes.

Online, there are assholes and there are those who don't know what it's like because they have never walked a block in a woman's body.

If there is anything this election season has offered us (besides the need to have a shower) is that these issues are becoming conversations. No, we don't report it offline any more than we report it online -- until our lives are threatened, which is, sad to say, more often than you'd like to believe.

This may not be the experience of every woman online. It depends on how active you are online and what you talk about, ... and gaming. God forbid a woman would participate in what some young males consider their domain. It probably doesn't matter what platform you're on, although some tend to rally the haters more.

Here are some examples:

Twitter abuse, why cyberbullies target women: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-23488550

Young women twice as exposed to cyber bullying as men: http://sciencenordic.com/young-women-twice-exposed-cyber-bullying-men

Why women aren't welcome on the Internet: https://psmag.com/why-women-aren-t-welcome-on-the-internet-aa21fdbc8d6#.n8m2xwjtk

Don't Blame Twitter or Other Platforms for Cyberbullying

It always baffles me when the advice given to someone who is bulled, by their lawyer or their friends, is to delete their Twitter or Facebook accounts.

Cyberbullying and trolling isn't the platform's problem. It isn't even the network privacy settings. It's the fault of the assholes who are perpetrating the bullying. Period.

Mike Klein (@kleinkleinklein) said this in a post on TechCrunch: "Online abuse is omnipresent and not exclusive to one platform over another. It’s a behavior that starts with a mentality, not a platform."

So in other words, blame the person, not the platform. Sure, the owners of the platform are held accountable to waive their magic fairy dust to rid these trolls from abusing the decent, law-abiding users. However, they are not miracle workers and face it, it you have trouble managing 200 emails a day, imagine what it might be like to manage over one billion Facebook accounts every day. It's why the reporting option doesn't always get you justice, kind of like our court systems. But for all platforms, there are two surefire buttons that will rid you of THAT bully:

Delete and Block.

I was watching one of my Facebook friend's post comments get hijacked by a single "friend" who decided that nobody else's opinion mattered but his, Instead of editing his first post and add to it (like most of us might do), he posted thought after thought, but really, they were more hate speak, trolling, and bullying than intelligent thought. I unfollowed the feed so that I wouldn't keep getting notification of his diatribe. The only reply my friend made was that he was confirming the point she made in the original post. He continued and continued.

A week from now or a year from now, when Facebook gives people a look back at their activity, will that person still stand by his diatribe? Will he be proud to see it? Or will he finally see it with the eyes of the people who do not know him, who use his posts as a way to determine his character?

You do have control as to what you post, but also on what you see in your own feed. If you don't like what you see day in and day out (as when I hear friends complain about the drama in the Facebook feeds), then get better friends. YOU choose what you see. If you like the friend but don't like the posts, unfollow them while still remaining friends. You don't have to keep them as friends, especially if you don't know them well. But when you open up your networks, if you are not inspired, educated, entertained, or even interested by the home feed, find better friends to follow who will offer you that option.

In the case of being trolled or cyberbullied, if it's an onslaught and too much to handle (as in the case of Twitter pooping), don't delete your account, rather change your notifications. You don't have to be alerted to every tweet. You can take a break, but when you do, find the strength to shake off these strangers who have no clue as to who you are and are just living in their parents' basement jerking off to Spiderman comics. They don't deserve your reaction, your fear, your sadness, or your anger. Mute them as if they are the political pundits you hate to see on the cable news station. When you see them, think about Foghorn Leghorn: "Your mouth is flapping and nothing comes out."

You deserve to be heard. You deserve to be on the platform, front and center like everyone else. These cyberbullies are just mosquitoes in a forest of tweets. Slap them away.

When a Bad Decision Goes Horribly Wrong. The Tiziana Catone Story.

September 13, 2016: a beautiful 31-year-old Italian woman is dead.

Tiziana Catone lived a public hell. She tried twice to end her pain, but finally succeeded on try number three. A desperate plea for help for a system that could not save her.

It all started with a sex tape, one that she willingly made, and then sent to a couple of friends. It was a mistake she could never take back.

Almost immediately, the tape was posted online, reshared, and viewed over a million times -- without her knowledge and without her consent. There were t-shirts, smartphone covers ... a serious marketing campaign was created at her expense, to which she never saw a dime.

Tiziana was mortified. She did everything she could to get her life back. She tried moving, changing her identity, but the notoriety followed her to the ends of the earth.

She won a "Right to Be Forgotten" ruling and the video and all of its chemtrails were ordered offline. It didn't work and the courts invoiced her 20,000 euros for her efforts.

She hung herself at her aunt's house.

Even in death, the bullying continues. Yes, she may have been naive to think such a video might stay private. But if you really look at the backlash against her, would it be so horrific if she were a man? (Hint: the lover in the video didn't have to change his identity. He doesn't have his name up in lights, or had to go to court to fight for a Right to Be Forgotten order.)

Tiziana Catone saw no way out and felt that society actually bought her the rope. Her life didn't matter. Why? Over a sex tape? What about Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian? They made their careers from a sex tape. Why don't you hear about the man getting beat up online about his involvement?

For all the Tiziana Catones out there, I hope there is another way. Perhaps if one can build up their personal shield to deflect all the bullshit, they can eventually call out the haters and expose the hypocrisy of this type of cyberbullying. In the case of Tiziana's family, what they should do is sue the bastards for royalties.

If the cybercriminals can't be held accountable on criminal law, then maybe it's time to get them to pay up from the commercial side.

Who Are Adult Cyberbullies?

Workplace bullies follow you home on the computer.

Stalkers lurk on your ever post, your every digital move.

Your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse seeks revenge and talks trash about you on Facebook or publishes your private intimate photos and videos on YouTube and in spam text.

Disgruntled clients create a web page to destroy your business.

Unsuccessful job candidates seek revenge and create a web page to destroy your business.

Creditors troll your Facebook and send messages to your friends to ask questions about you. 

Strangers take issue with your looks, your name, your profession, your gender, your social status, your sexual preference, or your existence.

You don't have to go far to find an adult cyberbully. They sit in every nook and cranny of your computing devices, lying in wait, ready to pounce, just because technology makes it easy for them to do so.

@notonmyinternet shared a link to a 2015 New Yorker article that talks about how the Internet has changed basic bullying. Bullying researchers are finally seeing that cyberbullying isn't just a school age problem. It's as equally, or more, prevalent in the adult world.

The article admits: "To date, no one has systematically studied how different bullying settings affect bullying behavior..." Three years ago, when I began researching business and adult cyberbullying, there were very few links to people talking about it. The search engines would only bring up school bullies. Today, there are a handful of links, but most still revert to children.

There is a lot of room for psychologists and academic researchers to step up their game. Our lives and our economies depend on it. If you think about the impact cyberbullying has financially on adults and businesses ... if only there were more statistics. Because only then will our law enforcement have any teeth to prevent it.

Just Joking Doesn't Give You A Cyberbully-Free Card

Kendall Jenner

It really doesn't matter how famous, infamous, or anonymous you are. "Just joking" is not a viable excuse for your bullying behavior.

Like her or not, Kendall Jenner's story is just one example of what many people experience, whether you're a celebrity or not. It only takes one lame-ass comment to trigger the Twitter trolls into mob mentality and group troll an account or hashtag.

Stephanie Seymour has modeled for many of the high end fashion magazines during the course of her career. Like all of us, her past has had its ups and downs, both professionally and personally. She recently called out Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid, inferring that they are not really models, even though they are being professionally paid to do that job. Her comment was to conclude that the term "supermodel" did not apply to the new girls and rather that they were the "B***hes of the moment!"

Jenner called her out and Seymour's apology somewhere along the way included the "just joking" scenario. 

If you have to use the term "just joking" to justify a remark you'd like to take back, maybe just apologize and just leave it at that.

When Citizen Journalism Goes Bad and Inadvertently Rallies the Cyberbullies

The pitchforks still rise when the shot is newsworthy and the intention is pure.

The fallout for the subjects of citizen journalists can be devastating. It goes well beyond the Twitter trolls when mob mentality takes over and vigilante justice reins its ugly head. This is not what the citizen journalist intended. Maybe they did try to out someone's potential bad behavior. But in the case of this elderly woman, who seemed to skip out on her taxi fare at the video's glance, was not the story at all.

Here's another example from public transit and the website STOMP.

In many cases, a simple headline, especially a clickbait headline, is all it takes to destroy a reputation.

There are many cases when vigilantes rose up to wield their shields of justice when no action was needed. The intention of the citizen was to make the public aware of something, show a crazy mistake, or something that may have seemed kind of funny at the time.

We do need citizen journalists more and more these days, so this trend towards ganging up on a subject is more than just a tad disturbing. It may deter someone from reporting a story when there is no journalist around, when the citizen journalist is needed more than ever.

 

Offline Threats By Adult Cyberbullies Causes Wedding to Cancel

It doesn't matter how strong you are mentally or physically, a cyberbully can get into your psyche and destroy it. Anyone can be a target.

There is not very much about adult cyberbullying online as Sarah Donohue learned when she struggled to find help. There were threats that the online assault would endanger her offline, so she cancelled her wedding and moved to a new location.

How to Know if You've Been Defamed Online or If You've Been Guilty of Defaming Someone Else

Who are you going to call when you've been defamed online? The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one resource that will help you figure out how to defend yourself.

The EFF is a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties in the digital world. Everyone needs to bookmark this site right now.

It's a membership-driven organization. It was founded in 1990 by Mitch Kapor (former president of Lotus Development Corporation), John Perry Barlow (Wyoming cattle rancher and lyricist for the Grateful Dead), and John Gilmore (an early employee of Sun Microsystem) to respond to an unwarranted government raid that ruined the business of a games book publisher.

This website is filled with case studies, white papers, news updates, events, and all sorts of advice as to what your rights are as a blogger, coder, and more.

For example, under Bloggers' Rights, it describes what a blogger is and what he or she is able to talk about. The site describes what online defamation is, opinion versus fact, and reporting on public or private individuals.

Bookmark this for your superhero cyber crime fighting folder.

How to Piss off Your Trolls

How dare you.

What were you thinking? You know when you post an opinion about anything, some troll is going to crap in your space. It might even be someone you like.

There are other Internet trolls whose mission from their perceived god is to make life as miserable and ugly as possible for others. Why? Because they have nothing better to do. They'd rather get all up in your space than find a life of their own. All you have to do is be breathing.

Some trolls are outright cyberbullies. They don't just post contrary and negative opinions or get personal and tell you you're ugly, fat, nobody loves you, or whatever. They've got to take it a step further and cross that line to cyber-crime and purposefully try to destroy your online reputation and business.

The universal response for all three types of trolls is ignore. Do not respond. They live for that. If you do, the conversation will escalate and you will have dug yourself an impossible trench. However, if the comment is really ugly, or if it is a cyberslur, delete it and block that person from being able to post in your space again.

But do you want to know what really pisses off a troll? Ignoring their existence, for one. Going about your business as if nothing ever happened, for another. What this does is two things. One: it allows you to take control of your own Internet, regardless of what others may say about you. Two: You absolutely can't let them win.

Any response or acknowledgement you provide to an ugly post means they win. So stop it. Don't do it. If you have to sit on your hands, scream at the ceiling, and chisel the block button -- never let them see they have got your goat. It isn't easy. It may hurt like hell, but your only hope of sanity is to piss them the hell off.

LinkedIn Warns Members of Data Breach Fallout Four Years After the Fact

Um, what?

Seriously. This is no joke. LinkedIn sent out a note from their legal department and it is as real as the words on this page. You can even read it on the LinkedIn site.

On May 17, 2016, we became aware that data stolen from LinkedIn in 2012 was being made available online. This was not a new security breach or hack. We took immediate steps to invalidate the passwords of all LinkedIn accounts that we believed might be at risk. These were accounts created prior to the 2012 breach that had not reset their passwords since that breach.

Member email addresses, hashed passwords, and LinkedIn member IDs (an internal identifier LinkedIn assigns to each member profile) from 2012.

We invalidated passwords of all LinkedIn accounts created prior to the 2012 breach that had not reset their passwords since that breach. In addition, we are using automated tools to attempt to identify and block any suspicious activity that might occur on LinkedIn accounts. We are also actively engaging with law enforcement authorities.

LinkedIn has taken significant steps to strengthen account security since 2012. For example, we now use salted hashes to store passwords and enable additional account security by offering our members the option to use two-step verification.

We have several dedicated teams working diligently to ensure that the information members entrust to LinkedIn remains secure. While we do all we can, we always suggest that our members visit our Safety Center to learn about enabling two-step verification, and implementing strong passwords in order to keep their accounts as safe as possible. We recommend that you regularly change your LinkedIn password and if you use the same or similar passwords on other online services, we recommend you set new passwords on those accounts as well.

This is Hacker 101. Hack website, steal information, sell on the dark web. This would have been a no-brainer in 2012. It's almost laughable that it took LinkedIn this long to figure it out.

The bottom line is, you really need to change your passwords often on the sites you use the most, a minimum of every six months. I know I've changed mine several times over since this breach happened, and most definitely when we were alerted to the Heartbleed bug. You need to take care of your own security.  

Seriously, if I were LinkedIn's brain trust, I'd be firing the ass of its security and legal teams. In 2016, if you have a business where you access a computer or mobile device, you are negligent and should lose your business license if you are putting everyone in your network at risk by keeping a security breach secret and not upgrading your IT.

Cyberbullying = Mental Rape

Candace Cameron Bure said it. She said what many, if not all, targets feel: cyberbullying feels like rape.

Digging deeper, Karma of the Poodle describes mental rape in a Yahoo discussion board as: "... where you are raped of your common knowledge or knowledge of your current life and have it taken from you and replaced with someone else's information done out of fear and abuse without your consent and willing participation."

Mental rape is being raped by words and images, which is the quintessential behavior of a cyberbully. A person is psychologically traumatized and it is not uncommon for depression and post-traumatic stress to set in as a result.

When someone has their digital footprint vandalized and destroyed, they experience mental rape. There is no other way to more accurately define it.

So what do rape victims have to do in order to start the healing process? The very same things a victim of cyberbullying must do.

Pandora's Project offers some advice in this post: What do do if you have been raped.

1. Find a safe environment to decompress and share your experience.
2. Solicit help from someone who has been through it or an expert who can guide you.
3. Do what you need to do to document, block, and delete your cyberbully and his or her friends from your life.
4. Report it (backed up by your physical screenshots and documentation) to the proper authorities, such as Facebook, Twitter, the police.
5. Find your way back to going about your business through empowerment. Surround yourself with positive and supporting people, find links and sites to help you expel the toxins.
6. Know that you are not alone. It doesn't matter what you've done, it does not give another person license to cyberbully or post trash about you. You are not responsible for other people's behavior.

Cyberbullies Are Taught, Not Born

You don't have to go very far to see adults behaving badly. It's rampant in your Facebook feeds, in Twitter, and pretty much every facet of media.

Here's just a couple of examples take from the day I wrote this post:

For generations, psychologists and law enforcement have been assessing the home lives of those who perpetrate crimes. It may not be 100 percent of the time, but in many cases, if a child has witnessed their parents disrespect for authority, bully their spouse, steal or cheat in some way, it leaves a resounding impact.

Children learn bullying behavior from their parents. While it's difficult to find links that say this about cyberbullying, the correlation can still be made because cyberbullying is still bullying, whether you're a child or an adult.

Hate begets hate.

I don't have to tell you that adult bullying is rampant in the workplace. We've all had that boss or know of a co-worker who makes life miserable for the rest.

Here is an interesting post about serial bullies from bullyonline.org.

So if all these bullies have kids... But the reality is, bullying behavior is now an online reality. This is the new real life. You can turn off your computer, but it will still be there for the rest of the world to see.

There is a wonderful movie I just saw online that focuses on a school cyberbullying incident to which I will discuss in another post. Some bullies may not think of themselves as bullies, until someone exposes them. Others don't care. But if a child is a bully, chances are the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. If all adults, whether parents or not, checked themselves before they lash out, before they make a mean comment, think of their motive before posting something, and know that someone is always watching and waiting to use their lead, then maybe we can change the world, one post at a time. Respect, regardless of race, religion, size, culture, age, job title, politics, hair color, clothing, sexual orientation, or country.

The Allow Comments Button: Is It A Two-edged Sword?

We know that Twitter and Reddit can turn ugly over a single moment or hashtag and that Wordpress can turn into an onslaught of spam, that YouTube can be the King of Mean.

What is it about being able to comment on the Internet that turns people into assholes?

Comments on YouTube can be so bad, that Google tried to force its users to have to log into a Google + account, thinking that showing their identity might curb the nasty. Well, it worked so well that it was announced in July 2015, the alliance was over.

Mean-spirited comments even has the psychology community trying to assess some of the reasons. Anonymity may be one reason, but still. How many of us are inclined to set up fake profiles just for the sake of harassing someone?

While there are some mean comments that actually come out as humorous, but there are some that are so hateful that you have to flag the users as a cyberbully, block, and ban them from all of your media.

You don't have to look far to find a mean comment. There are many taking to video to read them aloud. Besides exposing these bullies for who they are (and why do they all write like they are illiterate?), the act of reading them diminishes their power.

Fired Employee Orchestrates Cyberbullying Campaign

It's kind of ironic when someone involved in law recruiting opts to become a cyberbully. That's exactly what has happened in this story.

Harrison Barnes is a law recruiter who hired a couple of fellows way back, even though they had been fired from their previous jobs. After discovering that their recruiting practices were underhanded and would put the company at risk, the two were fired. They have since used a website to besmear Barnes, who has responded through the legal route, as well as creating a post of his own.

This isn't a unique case, and it unfortunately won't be the last.

The Internet is full of disgruntled employees, who have taken to cock their mouse as the new firearm when deciding to seek their revenge.

I met a real estate agent who has experienced a similar online trashing from someone he didn't hire. It doesn't have to take much to set off a bully. But they will continue to test you, enlist others to set up traps, and do their best to destroy your digital life.

All we can do in response is to carry on as if they don't exist. Engaging them adds coal to the furnace, but ignoring them and finding a way to succeed and live happily, despite their best efforts to destroy you, is the best revenge you can bestow on them.


 

Cyberbullies Troll on Job Seeker's Creative Resume

A lot of us can relate to Jamie Kyle. He's a 28-year-old creative looking for work in London, United Kingdom. Job hunting is hard enough without a bunch of trolls trying to sabotage your efforts.

Kyle came up with a cool idea of handing out scratch cards to potential employers, where the prize was the ability to recruit a professional artist and illustrator. His idea was innovative enough to capture some positive attention in the socialsphere, including a Buzzfeed post.

Enter Reddit, which seemed to give him the most grief. Posting examples of his work there triggered an onslaught of haters.

One can never appease, or erase, the hateful posts of a cyberbully, even when you just want to apply for a job.

This Mirror story offers up some help for those who might find themselves in a similar position.

Twitter Pooping

+Michael Nuccitelli Psy. D. describes Twitter Pooping as: "a colloquial expression used to define the cyberbullying tactic of using Tweets to disparage and humiliate a target ... Twitter Pooping tends to be frequent insults and provocations that often use 'net lingo' to fit the harmful message the cyberbully is attempting to convey."

Tweets can be dispersed in rapid succession, much like an AK-47, by numerous people, sent at the same time.

We know there is a legion of Twitter trolls who respond with insults and unrelated garbage when they take issue with a tweet or someone's existence. Twitter Pooping actually takes that to a new elevated level. Such as if your cyberbully enlists 10 of his friends and they set out to spend the next three hours firing off hateful tweets to your @twitterhandle at breakneck speed, flooding your Inbox and Mentions for seeming eternity.

These are not just off-hand comments. This is a planned and targeted attack with one goal in mind: destroy the psyche of the recipient.

There is no thought or remorse about what the end result might be. Most of these creeps are anonymous, but often, some are not. The only power they can ever feel about themselves is behind a keyboard when they beat up on someone else, whether it's someone they know or they just decided to poop on someone at random.

  

Captivity Survival Techniques Can Improve Your Life

Loss of freedom can mean many things.

It can mean being held against your will by another person, domestic violence, and a whole assortment of criminal behaviors that are meant to dominate another person into submission.

Sometimes we hold ourselves hostage. If we are unhappy and frustrated with our circumstances and can't see a way out, we can easily fall into captive behavior.

The Hostage Survival Skills for CF (Canadian Forces) Personnel written by Major P J Murphy and Captain K M J Farley describes a form of captivity as being emotionally distraught from a personal crisis or domestic dispute. In other words, a life crisis or environment imprisons us mentally.

It can happen when someone close to us dies, like a parent losing a child, or when we are the target of a cyberbully. Poverty can make people grind through life. We might let the circumstance consume us and keep us from moving forward or seeing the light, so we let our dreams, our goals, die where we left them.

It doesn't have to be that way.

After watching the first interview with journalist Peter Greste on Al Jazeera English after he was freed from an Egyptian prison, he mentioned there were three keys to his survival after being locked up for over 400 days. Keeping fit physically, mentally, and spiritually. He also saw his experience as an awakening. It brought people together in ways he could never have fathomed, but it was also like a rebirth. He missed the little moments more than the big issues: seeing a sunset, the stars, feeling the sand on his feet.

Here are some tips on how to survive in captivity that can translate into helping you survive online and everyday life.

You Look Disgusting

 This is a powerful video from +My Pale Skin that reaffirms there is no pleasing anyone. Chew on this for a moment: those who post hateful comments, how is YOUR life so much more perfect than ours? The only person's opinion that matters is your own.

 

Twitter can be an ugly place for women

We know that largely it is the bad guys who seem to get more press than those who are doing good. The people just going about their daily chores, minding their business, who have made some online connections, share a few photos and stories on social media, who are not on the public radar, are not immune to cyberbullies and trolls. But for anyone who has been in the #trending box or has had any sort of celebrity whatsoever -- these are the people who especially seem to attract the worst of the worst. Or you just have to be a female.

This story was recently shared by my media colleague +Alex Ruiz on Facebook:

Twitter can be an ugly place for women in sports media - The Cauldron - SI.com

It doesn't take much to elicit the ire of a troll. You only have to exist. And for some, if you're female, you are all that is wrong with the world. I guess these trolls must really hate their mothers.

You don't have to "feed the troll" to fight back. In fact, even a troll will admit that any response from his or her target will act as rocket fuel. Expect the abuse to lock into higher gear.

When the tweets get to the point that they are libelous or they egg on criminal behavior, what you can do is document every post with their Twitter handle beside it. Keep a detailed file and make two copies: one for you and one for your police report for when the abuse crosses the line from pure hatred to actual threats. Include any of their Twitter buddies who favored, replied, or shared their hateful tweets (with their Twitter handles), then go back and report and block all of their sorry little asses.

If there are too many, find someone to assist you or hire someone to take that task off your hand. The last thing you should do is close your Twitter account. I just want to scream when people do that. It means you let those bastards win. When one troll wins, they all win.

Although police departments are not necessarily equipped with the ability to fight Internet crime, or know what it is, still file a police report when it truly crosses the line to cyberbullying or you feel physically threatened. Having a police file number is a bit like a security blanket. Even if the police don't pursue the case, that piece of paper validates your experience, if nothing else, for yourself.

It's also good for you to know that some trolls are being jailed for their behavior. It doesn't mean they're sorry, but it does mean the laws are changing to your favor.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/isabella-sorley-john-nimmo-interview 

Hold your head high and spit in the trolls' direction. One of the best empowering tools comes from +Jimmy Kimmel Live with his Mean Tweets. There are others, but it is so important not to let a troll draw you into becoming like them.

Cyberbullies are not always psychopaths but they share many traits

The above chart is courtesy of +Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D.. Check out more of his resources at ipredator.co.