Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Harassment of Writers on the Web

Cathy Young discusses the issue of harassment of writers who publish on the internet. The problem, if it is a problem, is that feminists and possibly females in general, receive harassment which they cannot deal with, emotionally. As Young points out, all writers get harassed, not just women, not just feminists. In fact, feminists throw out some of the nastiest of the nasty as they target their enemies in their class war. But Young is right; probably anyone who writes about more than kitten photo captions gets harassed.

It is concerning when the harassment turns into stalking. An unfortunate consequence of the open internet is that many, possibly all, addresses and other information can be mined on most people. Much of my personal history exists on the 'net, without my permission or knowledge until I looked to see.

A few years back I wrote something which offended an Atheist who decided to cyber stalk me. It is unsettling to know that a psycho can determine all your personal information right down to your current address and phone number right off his computer screen. I removed all references to my last name from both my sites, and more recently I have added a tracker which allows me to know the ISP of readers who come to the site. I haven't had to use that information, because references and comments from those types of individuals ceased immediately upon installing commenter ID. They obviously do not wish to be identified themselves, so they stay away altogether it appears. There's nothing of interest here if they can't even try to destroy it any more.

This approach affords both myself and serious readers and commenters a forum for discussion without pre-juvenile harassment and schoolyard bullying. I sometimes think I should fully identify myself, but then I think back and remember. I don't want to have to shoot some incensed Atheist child-man who shows up to break in and settle my hash. And with the psychotic nature of the current class war as well as the venom on the web, who is to say that it wouldn't happen?

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