When you first hear the term "cyberstalking" you think it’s a joke. Well guess what. It’s not. Read this. It’s the post of a prominent blogger who has canceled speaking engagements and remains frightened and close to agoraphobic because of vicious and threatening online attacks, both verbal and visual. I started to post one of the photos, but just couldn’t do it. So instead you see how I felt upon reading Kathy Siera’s post.
Death threats, violently edited photos of bloggers as well as violent, vicious prose, are a grave threat not only to women blogers (it appears that women are particularly targeted) but to the wonder that is the blog universe. Those who oppose such behavior have to take a stand – we’re the activist types anyway or we wouldn’t be writing so publicly. SO.
Here, from the wonderful, generous Andy Carvin (left) and other sites, are some things we can do:
Join Stop Cyberbullying, a site created by the aforementioned Andy Carvin.
Post on our own blogs and/or post comments on participating blogs – which Andy will include in "Stop Cyberbullying" site
Visit and share existing resources like Cyberbully.org or this parent brochure
Learn more from other sites like this one.
Check out BlogHer co-founder Lisa Stone’s Hating Hate Speech, in which she discusses this issue and offers the BlogHer community guidelines.
Think of something else, do it and post the idea on Stop Cyberbullying. OH and remember to tag anything you write about this with the stopcyberbullying tag so it will show up in searches. Let’s not be silent in the face of this threat to our community. Thanks, Andy, for giving us a tool to make noise!