I’ve often toyed with the idea of getting rid of anonymity on the internet. Unfortunately it is way too one sided, as in your reach can be so far, and thus people would be anonymously able to harass you from around the globe, which would happen.
I was harassed years ago despite not (at the time) putting my real name online. I was on Twitter (back when Twitter was actually decent) and someone messaged me about my religious beliefs. Now, I never would force anyone to follow what I believe, but I’m always willing to discuss it in a purely informational sense. (“This is what I believe and why and I’ll never judge anyone for believing differently.”)
Quickly, however, something seemed off. Her questions started veering into “if you knew someone did something really bad wouldn’t you have to report it or shouldn’t they turn themselves in” territory. I stopped replying, but that didn’t stop her.
What I didn’t know at the time was that this lady, let’s call her D, harassed many people online (including Boy George and the then-CEO of Firefox). D literally thought that God spoke with her and told her bad things that people did. Obviously, there’s no arguing against “God told me you’re guilty” and she would harass various people as well as anyone else people talked to. As far as what she thought we did? Let’s just say she thought we were doing disgusting things with children.
Now, D targeted me because I was blogging at the time and liked photography. One of her other targets lived in New Zealand and liked photography as well. Of course, we all know that all photos on the Internet are just posted by one guy so D figured that he and I must be the same person. All those photos of my family? Faked.
D was determined to report me to the police for all my crimes as well as contact any companies I was working with to “warn” them. Thankfully, she wasn’t Internet savvy or she could have tracked me down. She also wasn’t the type of Internet stalker to try to travel to her victims. She did send threatening messages. A lot.
Now, I was lucky because I was “anonymous” (as far as her skills were concerned). The “other me” in New Zealand, though, had used his real name and mentioned his employer - a school. She contacted his school to report him (luckily, he warned them) and contacted everyone she could find in New Zealand with the same last name. He needed to have some very uncomfortable discussions with family members.
I finally got her off my case with some web developer trickery. I got her IP addresses from comments she left on my blog and set my htaccess file to return 404 for those IP addresses. Sure enough, she crowed on Twitter about how she brought down my blog and told everyone to see how I was taken offline. Meanwhile, everyone else was able to see my site just fine.
Last I knew, D is still online and harassing people. When she was targeting us, we’d report her and her account would be suspended, but she always had 5 or more backups ready to go. It’s possible that she’s still going through her normal cycle of harassment - only with Twitter/X less likely to suspend her account unless “God” tells her to target Musk.
I’ve often toyed with the idea of getting rid of anonymity on the internet. Unfortunately it is way too one sided, as in your reach can be so far, and thus people would be anonymously able to harass you from around the globe, which would happen.
I was harassed years ago despite not (at the time) putting my real name online. I was on Twitter (back when Twitter was actually decent) and someone messaged me about my religious beliefs. Now, I never would force anyone to follow what I believe, but I’m always willing to discuss it in a purely informational sense. (“This is what I believe and why and I’ll never judge anyone for believing differently.”)
Quickly, however, something seemed off. Her questions started veering into “if you knew someone did something really bad wouldn’t you have to report it or shouldn’t they turn themselves in” territory. I stopped replying, but that didn’t stop her.
What I didn’t know at the time was that this lady, let’s call her D, harassed many people online (including Boy George and the then-CEO of Firefox). D literally thought that God spoke with her and told her bad things that people did. Obviously, there’s no arguing against “God told me you’re guilty” and she would harass various people as well as anyone else people talked to. As far as what she thought we did? Let’s just say she thought we were doing disgusting things with children.
Now, D targeted me because I was blogging at the time and liked photography. One of her other targets lived in New Zealand and liked photography as well. Of course, we all know that all photos on the Internet are just posted by one guy so D figured that he and I must be the same person. All those photos of my family? Faked.
D was determined to report me to the police for all my crimes as well as contact any companies I was working with to “warn” them. Thankfully, she wasn’t Internet savvy or she could have tracked me down. She also wasn’t the type of Internet stalker to try to travel to her victims. She did send threatening messages. A lot.
Now, I was lucky because I was “anonymous” (as far as her skills were concerned). The “other me” in New Zealand, though, had used his real name and mentioned his employer - a school. She contacted his school to report him (luckily, he warned them) and contacted everyone she could find in New Zealand with the same last name. He needed to have some very uncomfortable discussions with family members.
I finally got her off my case with some web developer trickery. I got her IP addresses from comments she left on my blog and set my htaccess file to return 404 for those IP addresses. Sure enough, she crowed on Twitter about how she brought down my blog and told everyone to see how I was taken offline. Meanwhile, everyone else was able to see my site just fine.
Last I knew, D is still online and harassing people. When she was targeting us, we’d report her and her account would be suspended, but she always had 5 or more backups ready to go. It’s possible that she’s still going through her normal cycle of harassment - only with Twitter/X less likely to suspend her account unless “God” tells her to target Musk.