Harrassment/Stalking Issue - Going On For Years Now - What To Do Next?

[Jinnywitha Cleanslate]

For about 6 years, a chap has been surfacing, and been rather vile in his conversation, with people I know and me, and is abusive.  The Sim owner has banned at least 12 Alts of his, if not more, over the years - and all involved have reporting them all.  We mute him too, but he simply creates another Alt, and he turns up again.... and so it goes on.

Recently, I made a new friend - met just out on the Grid, and it turns out that they too, and other people that they know, have been harassed personally for years by this chap, and have reported him more times than they can remember, and muted him, etc, but he just keeps on coming back. 

The abuse in the convos I've seen - where the person politely also repeats requests that he leave them alone - is disgusting, and now he has also resorted to sending close up pictures of his er... well...use your imagine!....  It's not even nice looking - slightly deformed even - certainly not something you'd put on display... unless it's to a medical professional!  Lol.  But, honestly, this is a serious issue, that actually led to this new person in my sl life,  leaving SL for a while, and honestly I wish this creep's IP would be banned, to remove this blight on SL's grid.

Linden Labs have had many AR's about this person - and nothing has ever happened, at least there has never been any response.... and it's getting to the point of ridiculousness...it has literally been years.  Enough is enough.

So - when AR's fail..... what is the next step?   I really want to help my Staff member a lot, and to stop him causing upset in my club. 

I and my new friend both have free accounts, if that makes any difference.

 

 

[Amanda Crisp]

TBH, I have not had any success in getting Ll to deal with stalkers. They decline to give a true "hide global Presence" tool and policing alt accounts seems to be pretty much impossible. That leaves; "make a new alt and sacrifice your existing inventory" as an option - which reeks.

What stalkers think they are.....

 

What the really are....

Edited May 18, 2017 by AmandaKeen

[Kristin Linden]

Hello Jinnywitha Cleanslate,

I'm sorry to hear about this issue you've been experiencing in-world.

If you have not already, we recommend that you try some of these tips to deal with any harassment you're encountering within Second Life:

• Consider using the Block/Mute feature. The Second Life viewer, as well as all Third Party Viewers, has the ability to block/mute other residents. This will not only prevent you from seeing what they are saying, both in public and private chat, but will also completely block their avatar so you will not see them at all. 
• If you are a land owner, adding their account to the ban list of your land will also prevent them from accessing your personal space. 
• If you feel that the person is following you from place-to-place, it may be that you are visiting your regular locations and the person knows this. 
• If you are using a Third Party Viewer, you may wish to make sure that RLV is not enabled, as this can allow a person to track your location as well (the location for turning that off is different depending upon the viewer, and you will need to access that specific viewer's documentation for further assistance in this regard). 

For more tips on how to deal with harassment, please visit our website: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-deal-with-abuse-and-harassment/ta-p/1339983

As with any harassment, if you fear this may have an impact on your real life, such as threats of personal harm or putting your actual safety at risk, we encourage you to also notify your local authorities so that they can assist you in taking the appropriate steps to ensure your real life safety. 

Additionally, we ask that you please file an Abuse Report if this person continues to go out of their way to harass you. We currently do not see any recent Abuse Reports filed by you at this time.

We recommend filing the Abuse Report under Harassment - Verbal Abuse (unless you feel any of the other report categories fits the situation), and provide as much detail about the situation as possible. Please be aware that you will not get a reply from Abuse Reports, and due to our Privacy Policy we cannot divulge any details of the investigation. If other members of your club are being harassed by this individual, please have them file Abuse Reports as well.

Edited May 18, 2017 by Kristin Linden
fixin' stuff & things

[Pamela Galli]

9 hours ago, Jinnywitha Cleanslate said:

The abuse in the convos I've seen - where the person politely also repeats requests that he leave them alone - is disgusting, and now he has also resorted to sending close up pictures of his er... well...use your imagine!....  It's not even nice looking - slightly deformed even - certai

If you blocked instead of politely requesting, you would not hear or see anything from him. Your feedback keeps him from getting bored with harassing you.

[Jinnywitha Cleanslate]

12 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

If you blocked instead of politely requesting, you would not hear or see anything from him. Your feedback keeps him from getting bored with harassing you.

We do block and mute and he get's sim banned, but he just creates an Alt every time.  The Sim owner has at least 12, if not more, of his Alts Sim Banned now.  All have ben AR-ed multiple times, by multiple people.  It's really surprising that he just keeps appearing.

[Jinnywitha Cleanslate]

17 hours ago, Kristin Linden said:

Hello Jinnywitha Cleanslate,

I'm sorry to hear about this issue you've been experiencing in-world.

If you have not already, we recommend that you try some of these tips to deal with any harassment you're encountering within Second Life:

• Consider using the Block/Mute feature. The Second Life viewer, as well as all Third Party Viewers, has the ability to block/mute other residents. This will not only prevent you from seeing what they are saying, both in public and private chat, but will also completely block their avatar so you will not see them at all. 
• If you are a land owner, adding their account to the ban list of your land will also prevent them from accessing your personal space. 
• If you feel that the person is following you from place-to-place, it may be that you are visiting your regular locations and the person knows this. 
• If you are using a Third Party Viewer, you may wish to make sure that RLV is not enabled, as this can allow a person to track your location as well (the location for turning that off is different depending upon the viewer, and you will need to access that specific viewer's documentation for further assistance in this regard). 

For more tips on how to deal with harassment, please visit our website: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-deal-with-abuse-and-harassment/ta-p/1339983

As with any harassment, if you fear this may have an impact on your real life, such as threats of personal harm or putting your actual safety at risk, we encourage you to also notify your local authorities so that they can assist you in taking the appropriate steps to ensure your real life safety. 

Additionally, we ask that you please file an Abuse Report if this person continues to go out of their way to harass you. We currently do not see any recent Abuse Reports filed by you at this time.

We recommend filing the Abuse Report under Harassment - Verbal Abuse (unless you feel any of the other report categories fits the situation), and provide as much detail about the situation as possible. Please be aware that you will not get a reply from Abuse Reports, and due to our Privacy Policy we cannot divulge any details of the investigation. If other members of your club are being harassed by this individual, please have them file Abuse Reports as well.

Hi Kristen,

 

Thank you for your response.

We have all done all you suggest several times (apart from the RL stuff as he hasn't found us there, yet), but he keeps coming back in alts.  Its ok to just mute and block offenders, but when the opening lines are pretty much from the off, abusive, and instantly sending private anatomy pictures of himself and in some cased that he has uploaded to the internet - so sending links too - after a few years of this, even without response from myself, it gets tiresome to say the least - especially when you know it's not just you enduring this idiot.  I think I am more saddened that his conduct stopped this other person from enjoying SL just because as soon as they come online - he would contact them again, with yet another Alt. 

 

It just seems dreadfully unfair, that this one person can blight so many users lives for years, and just be allowed to continue, where as a good friend, who I know well in both lives, was sent an email saying he had been banned for *****, when he could be accounted for at all times, and actually - it bugs me that he barely says boo  to a goose, because he is dreadfully insecure in both lives, and yet without warning, or chance to appeal, or defend himself, he was just banned.  He sent an email in, and some people sent supporting emails, and nothing happened.  He remains banned.    And the addition of that news, alongside this stalker, all really has dented my faith in LL as a company. 

 

I fill continue to file AR's and just keep hoping that one day hope, LL will boot this guy from the Grid forever.  

 

Thanks for the reply anyway..    It is very much appreciated.

[Pamela Galli]

42 minutes ago, Jinnywitha Cleanslate said:

We do block and mute and he get's sim banned, but he just creates an Alt every time.  The Sim owner has at least 12, if not more, of his Alts Sim Banned now.  All have ben AR-ed multiple times, by multiple people.  It's really surprising that he just keeps appearing.

All I know is what you said -- that you or others "politely request". You need to maintain absolute silence. Give him no response at all, polite or not.

[Talligurl]

Yeah I would block him immediately upon the first contact he tries to make with a new alt, plus if you and your friends who all hear from him agree to it, the first one to figure it out could IM the rest and they could block him even before he contacts, or before he reveals his true nature. I think you can change a setting so you cannot even be IMed by someone not already on your friends list, this would keep him out as well.

 

[Nikolai Warden]

If this person is making alt after alt and there is no keeping him away from the sim ... well is he doing anything other than obnoxious and vile IMs?  As soon as it is apparent that it is the same person, if you do not reply, mute, and ban him immediately, he may lose interest. It seems obvious that he derives pleasure from being offensive, so if you do not give him the chance, he may tire of this. As far as keeping him off the sim you call home, unless the sim closes to the public and uses a white list for access, there seems little chance of that happening, unless his alts do not have payment information on file typically, in which case the sim could be set to allow only those with payment information there. Of course, that might have a negative impact on your club. As for there being a club on the land ... some time back, a popular club was suffering serious griefing attacks and the sim was closed to the public, with group access only. That is another option. If this person is using offensive HUDs to push or rez obnoxious things, then setting the sim to group only for rezzing, object creation, and scripts, while a tad extreme, would put a stop to that. If he is IMing people and saying offensive, obnoxious things, that is not necessarily against TOS or community standards, it depends on what he is saying in the IMs. If he is violating nothing but good manners, there is nothing LL will do to put a stop to that, as you have the tools to stop it yourself. If that is the case, ignoring him via muting is the best option and booting him when he comes around ... keep in mind, the amount of people that can be on a sim's ban list is limited to 500 and banning his alts will only go so far.

I have found that people who are stalked in SL cannot seem to help but respond to obnoxious messages and efforts the stalker takes to disrupt the person's SL. Every time you respond with anything other than muting without saying a word, you will add fuel to the fire. In one case I know, harassing a fellow has seemingly become another person's SL reason for being, and getting upset and outraged over this has become the first fellow's entire SL. It goes on for years because the one doing  the harassing knows it upsets his victim. At this point, it has gone on so long that it is doubtful the stalker would believe it were his victim to pretend to ignore him, as he knows if he continues to push, eventually he will get a verbal response.

It is only a serious issue if you make it a serious issue. Someone saying vile things is merely someone saying vile things, until you react. If there is no ridding yourself of this person, perhaps a change in perspective could help. Why get worked up over someone being obnoxious over and over? Why not see it for the pathetic buffoonery it is?

[Pamela Galli]

1 hour ago, Nikolai Warden said:

. In one case I know, harassing a fellow has seemingly become another person's SL reason for being, and getting upset and outraged over this has become the first fellow's entire SL

People come to the forums often and describe this symbiotic relationship. They will complain, for example, about things someone says about them in their profile, which they just cannot stop checking. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

16 hours ago, Pamela Galli said:

All I know is what you said -- that you or others "politely request". You need to maintain absolute silence. Give him no response at all, polite or not.

I agree Pamela. A polite request is still a request. The harasser has forced you to ask and that's a victory. You're not in control. If you can't ignore, then block/mute/derender. This is harder to do with groups of people that are being harassed, because the harasser can easily feed off the weakest member. This is where it's important to support each other, which isn't a bad thing to do under any circumstance. We can't guarantee this'll work, but it seems many of us have had success with it.

Edited May 19, 2017 by Madelaine McMasters

[Madelaine McMasters]

35 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

People come to the forums often and describe this symbiotic relationship. They will complain, for example, about things someone says about them in their profile, which they just cannot stop checking. 

Yep, we all know people who've been harassed who find it hard to take the advice we give. They're the vulnerable ones and it can be difficult to help them, probably because we're doing it wrong.

[Pamela Galli]

26 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Yep, we all know people who've been harassed who find it hard to take the advice we give. They're the vulnerable ones and it can be difficult to help them, probably because we're doing it wrong.

There is no way to say it right. The victims have likely received the same advice from others in the past, probably since third grade. What they want is for the evildoer to be punished and themselves to be vindicated. 

I used to tell students that it was like they were wearing an invisible button that others know they can push and get a reaction, over and over. I told them to TAKE THE BUTTON OFF: stop giving them the reaction they want. But they rarely did. This is the same thing. There is no way this would go on for six years if the evildoer was not getting a reaction.

Edited May 19, 2017 by Pamela Galli

[Bree Giffen]

What everyone says above is good advice. Follow the Linden. AR every violation and name of every alt used. Keep your own records of your ARs and build up a case to get the harasser ip banned or something. While doing all of this ignore them and dont respond. 

[Madelaine McMasters]

12 minutes ago, Pamela Galli said:

There is no way to say it right. The victims have likely received the same advice from others in the past, probably since third grade. What they want is for the evildoer to be punished and themselves to be vindicated. 

I used to tell students that it was like they were wearing an invisible button that others know they can push and get a reaction, over and over. I told them to TAKE THE BUTTON OFF: stop giving them the reaction they want. But they rarely did. This is the same thing. There is no way this would go on for six years if the evildoer was not getting a reaction.

Well, the buttons are invisible to us. It's hard to remove what you can't see. I can imagine the frustration you felt when pointing to a student's button, saying "there it is, see it?", only to have them reply, "that's not a button, that's my best feature!"

[Ivanova Shostakovich]

What effective measures does LL have to protect its customers when it comes down to an individual who repeatedly circumvents muting/blocking with a ceaseless series of alt accounts? Are even IP bans effective against a determined social parasite?

[Madelaine McMasters]

53 minutes ago, Ivanova Shostakovich said:

What effective measures does LL have to protect its customers when it comes down to an individual who repeatedly circumvents muting/blocking with a ceaseless series of alt accounts? Are even IP bans effective against a determined social parasite?

It's easy to use proxy servers to spoof IP, and there tools for spoofing MAC address. I don't think are are any effective measures against highly motivated jackasses.

[Jinnywitha Cleanslate]

Thanks for all the replies. 

I just want to make it clear that I see this vermin's words and within 2 lines to me, or upon realisation it's him, he's blocked and muted by me. I haven't personally responded to him (beyond one line "hi", maybe 8 months ago) in 5years+ myself, because he's not at all versitile in his grammar structure, so is easily spotted, and yet he continues to IM me.  He obviously thinks I'm gonna give in one day. lol.

Sadly, others don't do this and he continues to plague them with more and more vile comments. They have shown me their convos and he clearly gets his jollies from upsetting people with vile language, perverted suggestions of sexual acts, and sending pictures of areas of himself, that probably need medical attention, rather than public inspection.   

[Jinnywitha Cleanslate]

3 hours ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

It's easy to use proxy servers to spoof IP, and there tools for spoofing MAC address. I don't think are are any effective measures against highly motivated jackasses.

Thank you for this information. Not being tech savvy,  I was just assuming that LL weren't bothering to attempt to resolve bigger residential issues.   Thank you. 

[Alwin Alcott]

6 hours ago, Jinnywitha Cleanslate said:

Sadly, others don't do this and he continues to plague them with more and more vile comments.

and this is your real problem, you can file a million of AR's but if your  "others" don't stop, he will not stop.

LL can't do a lot for you if that keeps going.

 

It's like a alcohol addict who says not to drink beer anymore... but switched to bourbon... he'll still get drunk.

[Pussycat Catnap]

I have a very long block list.

I freely block people with no comment whatsoever. I just block, and move on with my life / SLlife. I do this in all forms of social media. In RL - when I was young, I learned to just open the door and walk out of a bad relationship.

My sister has dealt with two bad ex-husbands for 20 years now... one of them she more or less moved on from but the other one seems to have an unusual habit of ending up in her bed again... She also wanted to help that nice gentleman from Nigeria with his banking problem, she wanted to be the 'bud' of the guy offering to be your 'bud' on Haight street decades ago... she had a guru who somehow ended up in the bed of all his women clients (he ONLY had women clients), and when she was a teenager her father had to rescue her from a cult...

Some people just don't figure this out, others figure it out too easily.

After all, my sister is very active in her community, hobbies, and her church, has dozens of friends, ex-lovers, current-lovers, contacts, bounces up and down in mood from happy to depressed, and so on... and I am basically a quiet person with about a handful of friends, not too out there, and just fine with that.

So I get it that... if you're very social, you're likely hardwired against taking my advice.

 

I have noticed that in some cases where I have blocked someone... one of my friends would end up in drama with them... I'd suggest the block button, and it might take weeks of more drama or they might just block on the spot... Sometimes the WORST thing that can happen to you is you get a hero that wants to be your champion and fight the war for you...

Everything is a lot easier if you just block and move on, no drama. Sometimes for both sides. Some of these blokes don't start out as bad as they end up... If you enable someone down a dark path, many are those who will walk it. Better to just shut the door and walk out.

Every so many months... I do review my block list, and if I cannot remember why a name is there, or if the reason was something temporary (I've blocked people because they had an annoying chat script going for example) I remove them from the list. If I remember them... and the reason is something I suspect won't change, I leave them. That is actually something I had to TRAIN myself to do... because my instinct is not to look back, ever.

If a guy has made 12+ alts to keep up the fight, it is probably because someone is giving him just enough feedback that he knows he is having an impact... One of the smoothest things I've done is block someone without banning them... they had no idea they were out of my world... and eventually they must have just assumed I was AFK or I didn't care... and they moved on.

 

Edited May 20, 2017 by Pussycat Catnap

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 5/19/2017 at 9:25 AM, Pamela Galli said:

What they want is for the evildoer to be punished and themselves to be vindicated. 

This.  People need to remember that life is not fair and the bad guy does not necessarily get his due when you want it. I have found however, eventually Karma often does happen.

[Deltango Vale]

I generally bore them to death with idle conversation. I can prattle on a mile a minute about the most inane things when I have a mind to, which after 12-14 column inches in their chat window usually elicits a "Gee, great talking with you, I need to feed the dog, see ya."

[Pamela Galli]

Oh that's brilliant, I would make it clear I had some loose screws, too -- and then start IMing him all the time. 

Edited May 21, 2017 by Pamela Galli

[Marianne Little]

On ‎20‎.‎05‎.‎2017 at 1:11 AM, Jinnywitha Cleanslate said:

Thanks for all the replies. 

I just want to make it clear that I see this vermin's words and within 2 lines to me, or upon realisation it's him, he's blocked and muted by me. I haven't personally responded to him (beyond one line "hi", maybe 8 months ago) in 5years+ myself, because he's not at all versitile in his grammar structure, so is easily spotted, and yet he continues to IM me.  He obviously thinks I'm gonna give in one day. lol.

Sadly, others don't do this and he continues to plague them with more and more vile comments. They have shown me their convos and he clearly gets his jollies from upsetting people with vile language, perverted suggestions of sexual acts, and sending pictures of areas of himself, that probably need medical attention, rather than public inspection.   

Here is your problem. You care too much about other people who should be adults and handle this themselves.

Do I sound harsh. Maybe I am. It is a human reaction. to be upset and angry, to reply back....