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.

Winning Against Your Childhood or Online Bullies

Leonardo DiCaprio paints Kate Winslet

Success is what you would call the last laugh. Imagine if these targets had given up?

Never let someone else dictate your life based on what they might perceive as a flaw. It's only a flaw to them, to you it is your strength and your power.

So what do Kate Winslet, Eminem, Jackie Chan, the Dutchess of Cambridge, Elvis Presley, and YOU have in common?

Kate Winslet was called "Blubber" in school. Perhaps there was an internal smile of revenge during the scene in Titanic when costar Leonardo DiCaprio was painting her naked.

You will be empowered when you click this link.

Online Bully Murders Cop, Injures Another, Takes Own Life

Constable Dan Woodall

All hell broke loose on the Monday night of June 8, 2015 in West Edmonton when a warrant was being executed by members of the Edmonton Police Services Hate Crimes Unit to a known anti-Semite.

The officers didn't make it to the front door.

Constable Dan Woodall and Sergeant Jason Harley were both hit by a flurry of 53 bullets that were fired through the door. Sergeant Harley was injured after being hit in the back but Constable Woodall was fatally wounded. Both men were wearing bullet-proof vests.

The warrant was being served for extreme criminal harassment and the online hatred and bullying of a local family. The perpetrator's bullying behavior was known back to February 2014 and had escalated enough for the warrant to be issued, as the family feared for their safety.

The perpetrator torched his house immediately after firing the rounds and is said to be dead as the home burned to the ground. The house was reported to be in foreclosure and the man was described by his neighbor as a deadbeat who left his property in serious neglect.

It's a terrible story that emphasizes the depth that an online bully can go to wreak his or her carnage.

The victimized family will likely sleep a little better now that their tormentor is dead, but not without a heavy price. He left behind two additional families in distress, one of them in an unrecoverable state. God speed to Constable Woodall's widow and young children. The cowardly perpetrator's name was purposely left out of this entry because it is more important to know who the real heroes are.

RT @NumberGenie: #EPS #EPSstrong #PoliceLivesMatter #foreverinmyheart #love #unity #family 
#father #husband #forever

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.

Australia's Chronicle Discovers Adult Cyberbullies Worse Than Kids

When readers responded to an article about the cyberbullying of students, they said that adult cyberbullies can actually be worse.

The Chronicle is actually looking for story examples from fellow Australians.

For more about the newspaper's story on adult cyberbullies, click here.

Harassment & Bullying of Reporters Is Still Harassment & Bullying

It's the clip that has been seen around the world, well at least Canada.

News reporter Shauna Hunt encountered a team of neanderthals outside a Toronto FC soccer game, which on it's own is not so unusual, at least for females these days. But where the story got interesting was that one of the perpetrators was fired from his job, once his employer caught wind of his ugly behavior. He and his gaggle of cavemen buddies were also banned from attending the pitch for a year.

Because the venue was owned by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the fools may end up being banned indefinitely from all MLSE events, and certainly from all Major League Soccer games at other centers.

Some might think that women can't take a joke. We can. We just don't like being demeaned, especially in our workplace.

Like Hunt says in the clip, it gets old very quickly. The string of incidents keeps growing. And with respect to the "man" in the video, I'll bet money his mother is not laughing. If she is, she is more a candidate for child protective services than mother of the year.

As women, we're mad as hell and we prefer not to experience these acts of moronism any more.

Personally, I experienced the lack of respect a different way. In the city where I did most of my reporting, the players were, for the most part, great to work with. I had very few issues with them. The behaviors that impacted my ability to do my job came from management. On more than one occasion, I'd be in the middle of a one-on-one interview with a player, who would be in mid-sentence to answer a question, when a PR director or team president, or another member of the team that wasn't on the playing field, would barge in, and interrupt only to talk to the player about something mundane. I could tell it even annoyed the player, who was forced to recalibrate his thoughts to resume the interview after the team representative finally left the scene.

The examples of the harassment of female reporters are endless. Below are just a few that will give you the idea of the working environment.

Five female sports reporters and the disrespect they face
Calgary man charged with shouting obscenity at female reporter
Every year, women journalists are killed, assaulted, threatened and defamed
Most female journalists have been threatened, assaulted, or harassed at work.
Women journalists confront harassment, sexism when using social media
Sports media misogyny: what is fans' problem with female commentators?
Female journalists harassed at offices all around the damn globe

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.