Social Media News

Revolutionized social communications, via social media, show no signs of peaking as the growth remains at an increase; at a very expeditious pace, interest in Internet socialization and user-generated content, has surpassed all predictions. The modern day revolution has been accepted by most Internet users; as 80% participate, or have a membership, in at least a single medium. Souring to fame in 2009, not a single person predicted the influence Twitter’s micro-blogging would have; a small company, Twitter, was first started as an idea with very limited funds, currently that small co-owned company has a bank of $155 million in estimated funding — according to, technology blog TechCrunch. Largely responsible for a new exploration of social media, and how user-content is created and perceived, Twitter has lead to sites like Facebook, Jaiku, Plurk, Friendfeed, and many others shaping their web interface around one or more concepts of Twitter. While social media has its charms that draw the attention of millions in a uniquely global interconnected society, and those positive attribute jettison the negative; social media can be a hellish playground for a new age stalker, the possible criminal cyberstalker.

Often said “Twitter is a stalkers dream”, an accurate quote; all social media sites have the negative pitfall of stalking and harassment. Clearly defined, cyberstalking is the use of the Internet and/or other electronic connective devices to stalk or obsessively follow another person; or a group of target individuals — such as races, creeds, those with alternative lifestyle, those bisexual or homosexual, those of various religious or political beliefs, those with disabilities, etc.. Cyberstalkers, usually possessing one or more mental illnesses, use the Internet as their playing field to cause another reasonable person distress; again, not limited to single person — businesses, groups, organizations, and groups of connected friends on a social network can also be subjected to this criminal behavior. With the motive of causing damage to the victim, cyberstalkers have various reasons for the havoc they bring; the most common is that of jealousy or envy.

Stalking, or cyberstalking, is continuous in its process; even occurring after the target demands the behavior be stopped. Quoted by Lamber Royakkers, at the center of ethics and technology; “Stalking is a form of mental assault, in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwantedly, and disruptively breaks into the life-world of a victim; with whom he has no relationship with stalking with motives that are directly or indirectly traceable to the affective sphere. Moreover, the separated acts that make up the intrusion cannot by themselves cause the mental abuse but do together — as a cumulative effect.” In lameman’s terms, the single purpose for stalking is to cause distress or mental abuse to an individual or group, by putting together many factors; in a continued manner –- which can be six month to more than six full years, most cyberstalkers do not retreat until legal actions are taken. Most cyberstalking cases are the act of civil legalities, however, some quickly become criminal – nonetheless, cyberstalking should never be taken lightly, as the outcome can be dangerous and even deadly; for those stalkers who take it offline, after forming obsessions with their prey. Again, usually suffering from one or more mental illness, this unique type of stalker will began a regimen of personal real-world chaos; such as excessive phone calls which may arrange from hang ups to threats, vandalism of the target’s property, obscene snail mails or deeply threatening mail, a stalker may be so serious to send a package with a self-created pipe bomb for the victim’s death, sending chemical though snail mail that will harm the target such as anthrax, trespassing onto the victims property or work environment, acting to personally hurt the target by phoning their employer, and/or violence by physical assaults.

Finding their targets and victims by search engines, chat rooms, discussion forums, online classifieds, and most recently the method of social media; these stalkers are at no limit to what they can and will do, for attention and the cause of emotional and mental distress to another –- sadly, some of these stalkers attack and pressure the terminally ill, seeking dominance over them and viewing them as weak links. Until the stalker comes forth, many wronged victims may not even have the knowledge they are being stalked; as this act usually starts out in private, or with the stalker pretending to be a friend on social mediums to find out insider information –- getting comfortable in a criminal role, cyberstalkers come out of their hidden confinement and into their victim’s life to cause anguish. It is always in the best of judgment to maintain Internet safety, as stalkers will 85.6% of the time fulfill their obsessions and curiosity to research their targets beforehand — after such concealed research does the “hunt for prey” proliferate into madness. Cyberstalkers may also obtain the unique IP address of their victim to gain a full name and location; once with that information they can easily map their way to the location, purchase criminal background reports, purchase personal information, research public documents, perform obsessive searches, and more — a victim may be directed to a personal web forum, where a IP tracer is embedded into the development; and threatened by the stalker the IP has been obtained. As another tip, to protect yourself, do not go to personal sites that you do not know; and never give your personal information or passwords out to anyone — personally recommendation, to insure safety; change your password often, invest in utility programs that remove malice material, and utilize firewalls.

In closing, a number of key factors have been identified; however with humanity so diversified a stalker may possess one or more of the following characteristics noted below –- some may be unique in themselves to encompass none of the listed key factors below, and act with their own in attempts to stand out. Remembering that in all situations, cyberstalking is that of a dangerous and illegal act; legal action should be taken if the stalker does not fade away and/or cause health risks or distress – contact local police department and forward all information as well as involve a laywer. For the victims benefit, screen shot all harassing content at the second it appears as this stands up in court; doing this with immediacy benefits the target as the stalker may edit or delete their threats – screen shots will also serve as proof if lies are made about the target’s character – copy and save all electronic mail, screen shot will be a third proving factor in e-mail abuse. Practice Internet safety; never give out personal information, credit information, or changed passwords; also protect yourself by protecting your technological device.

Characteristics of an Internet Stalker:

• Falsehoods in Information: Attempts to defame a victim may be made to the victim’s friends, family, co-workers, and so forth. Most cyberstalkers act, in jealous envy, to damage the reputation of their targets by creating a tangled web of lies and deception –- this may include the stalker claiming the victim is lying about them, when in reality the victims information about the stalker is true. These mental individuals post to a website or many websites, in modern times, to harm their prey; and make create their own blogs, forums, or websites to defame further.

• Excessively Searching the Target: In conjunction with gaining a IP address and using Google to search/map for their target; cyberstalkers may go to friends, relatives, group members, co-workers, employers, and even children to find more information about their “object of prey”. Police reports show that in some strange encounters a private detective was hired for malicious purposes to track the target. Cyberstalkers also constantly monitor a victim’s online actions, and mimic them; at times assuming ones identity by claiming they are what the victim is –- for example if the victim is a well known and successful journalist the stalker will assume that role. Stalkers will hunt links in modern day social media, to other social accounts and return to each site in a obsessive manner; going further the stalker will then create accounts at the sites held by the victim, in attempts to keep track and cause distress on other social platforms –- in some cases the stalker may threaten to have had the site first as a child throwing a tantum, when in reality it was the stalker who followed the target to the medium; also the violations continue as the cyberstalkers makes loose threats to get their prey kicked off of the site for a non-existent made up violation –- even threatening to bring forth police or lawyers if their prey does not follow their attempted false dominance and leave. Also, these cyberstalkers make friends usually with the friends of their victims — even becoming greedy and envious when the friend refuses to complete the friendship, drop the victim as a friend, or associate with them –- this may also happen with relatives.

• Encouraging Others to Harass: A large percent of cyberstalkers want to operate themselves because of the pleasure they derive from the mayhem of torturing the defenseless and innocent target; at time this is related to sexual pleasure/gratification –- or boosting of a prideful ego when afflicted by poor self esteem. Other types of cyberstalkers encourage that other people harass their prey, to cause more misery; they may employ a partner in crime who dislikes the victim or find a stranger to do a dirty job for them. In order to do this, the stalker claims that the innocent victim harmed or hurt them or their family, to manipulate the other victim into an open gate of torment — at times the victim’s full name, IP address, links to sites, and telephone number is publicly posted in this feat to involve more. Stalkers may even create a massive list of “fake” self-manned accounts, to do this.

• Falsifying Information: Usually in all cases of intensified cyberstalking the stalker will claim the defenseless victim is the one harming them, when caught or questioned; this role reversal removes the attention from the stalker and puts negative attention onto the prey — mentally ill, sick, cyber stalkers have the illness of pathological lying so they are remorseless in the action of pinning the blame on the victim for all the actions they have done.

(Copyright © Social-Media-News 2009)