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.

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.

Hacking Law Covers Act of Corporate Computer Sabotage

Disgruntled employees that try to knowingly and intentionally permanently delete corporate computer files are committing a federal crime.

Illegally deleting files falls under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, otherwise known as the hacking law.

If a person accesses a computer without authorization or oversteps the authorization they do have to access confidential files, such as financial records, government documents, and protected information -- it falls under this law. If that person causes transmission of files they do not have authorized access to, try to change the records in any way, or delete them, it falls under this act.

Here are some examples of people who have been charged under this Act:

IT administrator Michael Thomas deletes files before leaving his job.

NFL Twitter hacker tweets Commissioner's death.

Journalist accesses content management system and defaces file.

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.

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.

Ransomware

This is an example of ransomware from wired.com. This is not the Department of Justice as the screen might indicate, but rather some blackhat who has infiltrated your system and is looking for a easy cash grab.

Imagine turning on your computer and discovering all of your keys are locked, except a couple of open boxes on a screen, telling you that before you can get access again, you must pay a fine.

This is what happened to the Los Angeles Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. The entire network was shut down and access would only be granted if they paid a ransom of $3.6 million.

You can see how ransomware has the potential to wreak havoc for anyone whose livelihood relies on a computer. It's a malware that encrypts files and requires a key to unlock. It can come into a network through a simple file attachment in an email.

Do not respond to the demands of these cyber hacks. First check out reputable sites, like your Google FAQs, PC World, and perhaps first: your antivirus company, such as Vipre, Norton, or McAfee, to see what types of patches they have to remove this Trojan horse.

Most viruses hold your devices hostage but ransomware ups the ante with a payment demand. Now, just like a real-life kidnapping, paying the ransom doesn't mean the hacker will release your computer.

The best prevention is to play safe online. Top up your protection software and make sure it's current. Look at the link of a website before you click it to make sure it matches what you're expecting. For example, if you receive an email from Amazon advertising a product that interests you, when you mouse over the link in the email, you can see what link highlights before you click in most cases. But to be safe, go to the top of the browser and log directly into the account and search for the product. Don't open unexpected attachments unless there is an explanation from a known sender or if the email looks suspicious (even from a known sender.) Ask the known sender if they sent you a file out of the blue. When in doubt, don't open the attachment.

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.


 

Customers Who Are Bullies

"People treat us this way (with disrespect) because they don't respect us." +Jeff Mowatt

Do you ever find in business that the people who pay the least amount of money for your services or who wine and dine you until they learn the contract isn't free, these are the ones who cause you the most grief?

Most of the time, before you sign someone up, you have an inner sense that this might be a difficult customer. But you want their business anyway because they may be high profile or they're someone with an interesting job description. Other times, the customer catches you off guard.

Sometimes, not always, that sixth sense comes true. Maybe the reason you feel it beforehand comes down to seven letters: r-e-s-p-e-c-t. You don't necessarily feel that it goes both ways.

You may be just starting out and you need the business. Unfortunately, that is when you talk yourself into such a contract, even if you know it's going to be a dud. They nickle and dime you and have a freak-out on every little thing that doesn't go exactly to plan. If you're not available at the customer's beck and call, they berate you until they bring you to tears, all because you weren't there for some answer to an impromptu question that could have waited until morning.

Mowatt says everything comes down to this: equal status. Both you and your customer are equals. If it doesn't feel that way, then you may want to reconsider continuing the relationship.

The sad thing is that you have no control over your customer's behavior. They can easily post a horrific review about you on Yelp or worse.

Certainly if your client is a bully, nothing you can do or say will alter his or her behavior. You can only distance yourself and go about your day. If they decide to use the Internet as a weapon, then document everything, investigate as to which laws they might be breaking, and file a police report, then go about your business as if they don't exist.

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.

 

Keep Ya Head Up: How Small Businesses Can Win Against Cyberbullies and Trolls | Andrew Chau

Keep Ya Head Up: How Small Businesses Can Win Against Cyberbullies and Trolls | Andrew Chau

"At one point in my life...I was that guy, the person who would post a one-star review simply because I waited too long or someone gave me attitude. I get home and say to myself, "Surely, I'm going to show them!" In reality, it didn't show anyone anything other than how spiteful I was-- like I had it out for the employee or business. It's like I want him or her to get fired over spilt milk (ironically, that did happen one time). That was just mean-spirited and immature."


I think many of us can relate. To echo the words of Maya Angelou, when we know better, we do better. 


Think before you post.

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. 

Twitter User Defames James Woods

Hollywood stars are not immune to criticism, speculation, and rumors. People talk about their careers, their personal lives, and circulate stories, a lot of times without checking the source.

Not everything you read about a celebrity (or anyone for that matter) is the gospel truth. Even if the source seems credible (such as reputable media outlets like +Rolling Stone, +The Hollywood Reporter, +ABC News), there have been documented cases where a story had to be retracted because of an error, a misrepresentation of the context, or the origin was untrue.

Enter a Twitter user who, for some reason, sought out a personal vendetta against actor James Woods.

When you call someone a fraud, child molester and, as in the case of Woods, a drug addict, you'd better have the legal proof to back that up that specific terminology or you have opened yourself up for a lawsuit, even if your target doesn't have the means or the will to pursue it.

Not so the case of James Woods. He's got the will, the dough, and is making the time to hunt down and persecute his tormentor, for $10 million.

Cyberbullying in the Workplace

The workplace can be a gut-wrenching environment for some when you have a bad boss, a job you hate, or your income is such that you need a second job. Sprinkle in the element of cyberbullies and the stress factor goes through the roof.

As the bully's weapon of choice tends to be email, texts, and social media, while those elements may seem hidden from the workplace environment, the impact it has on a company's bottom line can be devastating.

Workplace cyberbullying is seeping in your computers like a flock of locusts during The Great Depression. Trolls are hungry for power and do not care who they take down or why.

In a study from Punched from the Screen, 80% of the 320 respondents had experienced workplace cyberbullying.

Growing a Thicker Skin Is the Upside of Being Cyberbullied

"It has shook me to the core."

That is how +Stephanie Frasco describes being cyberbullied by an adult.

It's true that even if your intentions are good in doing, saying, or sharing something, there are people who will rake you over the coals for it. Haters hide behind the keyboard, lying in wait, for the sole purpose of ruining someone's day and there is no amount of explanation or counter-argument that will be good enough to get them to stop or take it back.

Stephanie responded to the web by posting this blog piece, to which her key advice is to just play nice.

That's probably the best advice ever. By fighting hate with love, venom with inspiration, we can change the Internet for the positive, one post at a time.

Business Owners and Suicide Compounded by Cyberbullies: The Unknown Statistic

North Americans are swallowed in personal debt. This is true for many businesses.

The business cycle can be unforgiving when you're an entrepreneur. An accident, illness, death, bad employee, and a weak economy all wreak havoc on those who are barely hanging on by a thread.

Running a business isn't for the faint of heart. It does take long hours and sacrifices to get anything off the ground. Even the most sound business mind can falter on a decision that sends one's finances out of control. If there are employees counting on the job to feed their families, that adds to the pressure to make things work.

As confident as one might look on the outside, the psyche of an entrepreneurs can be quite fragile. Sprinkle in a cyberbully and in some instances, it's enough to send a business owner over the edge.

Canadian household debt is 163.3% of disposable income. Canada has the highest debt to income ration in the G7 countries. 

Over 1 in 3 Americans are nearing or experience financial disaster. Overwhelming debt and lousy incomes make many people easy targets for creditors, who use the Internet as a tool to shame them and compound their ability to get back on their feet. This is a CRIME. There are laws on the books in both Canada and the United States that address collection laws and what creditors can and cannot do. 



Know your rights. Here is a guidebook on how to fight back.   

Every Cyberbully Target's Fantasy

Unfriended is a movie that was released this week (April 17, 2015) that is penned with a brilliant premise.

While it was created for the horror genre, in reality, it could fall under fantasy, at least in the idea that every cyberbullying target will fantasize about what they might do to their own bully.

The storyline goes like this: girl gets bullied online; girl commits suicide; girl's account comes to life and haunts her bullies online; bullies die off one-by-one. Can it get any better than that?

This is not to advocate taking any action against your bully, but we can all dream.

Monica Lewinsky Is Patient Zero From Adult Cyberbullying

"Imagine walking a mile in someone else's headlines."

For over 20 years, Monica Lewinsky has been branded worldwide by Internet "stone throwers." That is what she calls those who continually and relentlessly publicly humiliate her about something that happened when she was 22. A lot of us have done what she did. Only for the rest of us, it may not have been plastered throughout the 24-hour news cycle or joked about on every television comedy hour and stand-up routine.

At age 25/26, I had an affair with my married boss that lasted over a year. I was fresh out of a divorce, in a new job and city, and was about a year into my singlehood. Unlike Lewinsky, I don't think I was in love with him. I might have been 22, when I married the first man I met after a volatile courtship that became only more capricious after the ceremony. I sewed my oats, big time, once the Decree Absolute was served. I was unabashedly brazen for at least 20 years.

When you look at Lewinsky's story in context, now that you know better and are not being influenced by the late-night comics and the pundit news media that gets its advertising dollars from piling on someone's misfortune and shame, you see just how tragic it is.

I remember when her nightmare started. It didn't sit right with me that it was her so-called friend, a confidant, who secretly recorded their private conversations and shared them with the world. I needed a shower after just hearing that. There can be no greater betrayal. I'm fortunate that a lot of my escapades were done before the Internet. However, who knows if someone had some sort of recording device or secret pictures that are now circulating on the deep web.

A lot of people can relate to Lewinsky's Internet experience. Just ask anyone who has been cyberbullied, who have had their personal reputation disparaged by a dedicated web page or had their private moments and words shared publicly without permission and without context.

Kudos to Lewinsky for finding her voice. She has become my personal hero as a result. Her message is clear and echos what I have been working on for the past couple of years: clean up the Internet one post at a time. How you do that is a) post positively and b) report bullying.

http://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame

If I Say I Don't Like You Is It Bullying?

Disliking someone doesn't give you the license to be mean.

Cyberbullying behavior has less to do about how an individual feels about another and more about how they feel about themselves.

Even so, when someone pees in your Cornflakes, you don't have to eat out of that bowl.

Stop Being Dumb About IT

Target, Home Depot, Sony, and many more have something in common. Someone inside their networks, either internally or via a third-party supplier, opened the door to give free reign to hackers.

Of course, anyone who clicks an unsuspecting malicious link hasn't deliberately put their company at risk. It also does the boss no good if he or she singles out and punishes the employee.

What will lessen the chance of this happening is if your company actually invests money into its IT, rather than just pay lip service with an anti-virus here and a firewall there. That may be okay for one computer but if you have more than one synced to a server, installing more than one level of security will make it more difficult for the bad guys to sneak in.

The other thing you can do is train your staff to be more diligent about what might be construed as a phishing link, whether it is in their social media feeds, email, or from an online search for information. They should also be trained on the art of making up a password. If you have to tattoo it to your elbow to remember, so be it, but the simpler and more obvious the password, the wider the door has been left open.

Alex Holden sniffed down a group of Russian hackers who infiltrated 420,000 websites, stole the credentials, and used them for their spam campaign. In an interview with +Mitch Jackson on +Human.Social  he lists steps you must take if you think you've been hacked.

1. Assess the situation. What was taken? How was it taken? Was there more than one entry point?
2. Preserve the evidence.
3. Get the right people to advise you.
4. The process of recovery is a delicate one and cannot be rushed.

Here is the entire interview.