So, a friend of mine is being harrassed online and I don't like where this is going. - General

I'll try to be as brief as possible, but I don't think I'll succeed... but I'll give it a go anyway. A couple months ago, I joined a fb page and after befriending a couple of admins and the page owner, they offered me an admin position. Back then when I first "liked" the page, it had only 6k followers, as of today we have 31k and growing, so we like to take pride in how much effort we put into it, interacting with fans, creating engaging content, etc. But of course, some smaller pages think we buy likes (all 31+k fans are legit, seriously) and like to hate on us for no damn reason at all. Particularly, they picked one of the admins, and started harrassing her. It's been 3 months since the shitposting started (one page in particular is very dedicated to talk smack about us constantly), and as much as we tried to calm down our harrassed admin, telling her to ignore the trolls (let's call her C), it's taking a toll on her health. We've reported every single hateful post from the other pages, but FB won't take them down, and of course, they just keep going and even though we never responded to their antics, the one who's affected the most about all this is C, since she's being targeted the most. What's worse, is that she drank herself to sleep 3 days ago, and scared the ever-loving-shit out of us, since the last thing she said before going offline was that she was tired of the attacks and that she wanted to put an end to it. I like to think I'm an internet veteran with a thick skin, so I couldn't give 2 shits if a bunch of neckbeards talk shit about me (I just block the fucker and move on, it's like he doesn't exist anymore), but this girl is a lot more sensitive (I guess they figured she's the weakest of the group) and she finds this situation extremely stressful, to the point she hardly goes online now. And since we don't know when those fuckwads are going to stop harrassing her--even though we keep reporting their posts on their pages, without addressing them--, the situation turns more and more stressful to C, specially because Fb won't take them down. As a result, she's in an almost constant state of paranoia and very stressed... plus, the drinking problem. My question is the following: have you ever experienced this kind of internet harrassment? If so, how did you handle it? I kept telling C to ignore the trolls, and not to feed them, but it's been 3 months already and they're not stopping, and I don't like it that it's taking a toll on her health. I also suggested her to get off the internet for a while, but that didn't last long. Is there anything else I can do to help her? And how in the blue FUCK is it possible that Fb won't take down posts reported for harrassment?! I've never had to deal with that before, it's SO infuriating. Just wanted to vent out, and ask for guidance on this matter, guys. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

If FB wont take it down, thats sad and kinda disgusting. She needs to leave FB or create a new account, if she cant handle anonymous idiots, then there is literally nothing that be done other then her "sucking it up" or creating a new account, not saying she deserves it or some shit, it's just that I don't think there is any other way.

Ignoring won't help, she'll still see the posts. You can try to convince her to stay of fb or the page till things calm down or the harassers think they won. Once it most likely shifted to someone else she can come back. Other than that keep reporting, maybe FB will do shit once in a while.

[QUOTE=zerothefallen;41744148]If FB wont take it down, thats sad and kinda disgusting.[/QUOTE] I KNOW! It's extremely frustrating, they are *clearly* hateful comments against her, and no matter how many times we report them, Fb just WON'T take them down. If those posts were promptly removed, it'd be a helluva lot easier for her to handle all this, but as it is right now, it fucking sucks, specially for her. I suggested her to get off the 'net, leave Fb for a while, and she actually had, only for a couple of days... she feels the need to see what they write about her (ya know, the usual name calling and stuff, elementary school kind of harrassment) and *that* is what's keeping her hooked and worries me the most. :/

I am of your line of thought and I really couldn't care less what random ass people online think about me, so I can't help you "fix" her way of thinking. All of everything you told her is pretty spot on when it comes to dealing with random people on the internet. Maybe there is some kinda professional you can have her talk to?

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;41744180]I KNOW! It's extremely frustrating, they are *clearly* hateful comments against her, and no matter how many times we report them, Fb just WON'T take them down. If those posts were promptly removed, it'd be a helluva lot easier for her to handle all this, but as it is right now, it fucking sucks, specially for her. I suggested her to get off the 'net, leave Fb for a while, and she actually had, only for a couple of days... she feels the need to see what they write about her (ya know, the usual name calling and stuff, elementary school kind of harrassment) and *that* is what's keeping her hooked and worries me the most. :/[/QUOTE] I don't know what to say, she expects it to stop and she takes them seriously and she's further letting it happen. Try contacting FB directly?

They're probably calling her names because they hate her or anything, but just because she's an admin. It's like death threats towards the president. [QUOTE]According to Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures, "Hundreds of celebrity howlers threaten the President of the United States every year, sometimes because they disagree with his policies, but more often just because he is the President."[/QUOTE] She should learn to ignore it. That's all I can say.

[QUOTE=Tinter;41744230]She should learn to ignore it. That's all I can say.[/QUOTE] And that's what I've been trying to tell her so far --trust me, I'm trying really hard-- but it's not working... I asked her to get off the internet for a while, and she only had for a couple days, not even an entire week... and then she went and read those comments again, and we were back to square one. [editline]7th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=zerothefallen;41744200]Try contacting FB directly?[/QUOTE] Is there such a thing? I haven't found it yet

You could try getting more reports on the page as that will make it much more likely to be taken down. I would suggest posting a link to the page here, unless that will cause privacy issues.

I'm sorry, no offence, but how old is she? Seriously. I can understand that she is sensitive, but you're saying they're just calling her names and they're elementary school level insults. Just speak to her and explain to her how other people's opinions don't really matter if they're just hate.

Just a sample of how my support dashboard looks like so far... I pretty much gave up on it, as you can see. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/XsNs5oR.png[/IMG]

Wow, that's fucking gay. Jesus christ, so much for trying to get rid of bullying.

[QUOTE=Dr Ben Dover;41744332]I'm sorry, no offence, but how old is she? Seriously. I can understand that she is sensitive, but you're saying they're just calling her names and they're elementary school level insults. Just speak to her and explain to her how other people's opinions don't really matter if they're just hate.[/QUOTE] She's 26, and trust me, I told her time and time again that she shouldn't give a fuck about trolls shitposting on the internet--I'm actually introducing her in a "Internet trolling crash course", but so far it didn't work. [editline]7th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=>>oubliette<<;41744308]You could try getting more reports on the page as that will make it much more likely to be taken down. I would suggest posting a link to the page here, unless that will cause privacy issues.[/QUOTE] Hmm I'm not sure about that, I wouldn't want to bring in any more unwanted attention, as you can imagine. :/

You could try reporting this to a group related with stopping cyber bullying. Say, the National Crime Prevention Council. That's if it's really taking "a toll on her health", seriously. This could seriously be a scandal on facebook if they're saying it's not harassing at all, but then I'm not sure if your friend would want all the attention it would cause, considering it would probably be on the news too.

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;41744359]She's 26, and trust me, I told her time and time again that she shouldn't give a fuck about trolls shitposting on the internet--I'm actually introducing her in a "Internet trolling crash course", but so far it didn't work. [editline]7th August 2013[/editline] Hmm I'm not sure about that, I wouldn't want to bring in any more unwanted attention, as you can imagine. :/[/QUOTE] Would you like to pm it to me instead? I too have lost friends and still have friends that are depressed / self-harming and I know how frustrating and stressful it can be on your part. I would love to help you out.

[QUOTE=Dr Ben Dover;41744410]You could try reporting this to a group related with stopping cyber bullying. Say, the National Crime Prevention Council. That's if it's really taking "a toll on her health", seriously. This could seriously be a scandal on facebook if they're saying it's not harassing at all, but then I'm not sure if your friend would want all the attention it would cause, considering it would probably be on the news too.[/QUOTE] That's actually a pretty good idea, never really thought of it before! Hold on a sec--you mean [URL="http://www.ncpc.gov.sg/"]this one[/URL], or [URL="http://www.ncpc.org/"]this one[/URL]?

So why's she being harassed exactly?

[QUOTE=>>oubliette<<;41744434]Would you like to pm it to me instead? I too have lost friends and still have friends that are depressed / self-harming and I know how frustrating and stressful it can be on your part. I would love to help you out.[/QUOTE] Absolutely, I'd REALLY appreciate it, man! :) [editline]7th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Laferio;41744465]So why's she being harassed exactly?[/QUOTE] Because we're running a successful music page, racking lots of fans while creating content and being engaging with the fans, where other smaller (some WAY smaller) pages are just circlejerking around memes and trolling other pages. Like I said, we're 32k fans and growing steadily, while we're getting harrassed by pages with not even 1k likes... I mean, it's obvious they're butthurt because they're sucky admins and don't know how to get a fb page off the ground, but that doesn't mean you have to go on hating on successful pages because you're a failure as an admin. It's all very childish when you think of it... and of course, all this hate is coming from neckbeards and 30-year-old "adolescents", as you can imagine.

I was speaking about ncpc.org I'm not sure how they operate exactly but you should look it up further. You can also speak with a representive of say, an anti cyber bullying campaign. They'd probably help you and your friend out.

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;41744359] Hmm I'm not sure about that, I wouldn't want to bring in any more unwanted attention, as you can imagine. :/[/QUOTE] FPers are generally pretty nice and helpful with stuff like this honestly, if there's an "aw" factor Post a link, a fair few people will probably join in reporting No one's gonna join in on the trolls' side if that's what you're concerned about :v: Hell you're a vet compared to me you should know all this

Problem with that is, if the word got out around to the public a reporter would probably hear of it and it'd get on the news. You gotta make sure your friend is fine with that happening if it does. That's if you report it to a group or something. And yeah, I'd be more than happy to report.

[QUOTE=Dr Ben Dover;41744556]Problem with that is, if the word got out around to the public a reporter would probably hear of it and it'd get on the news. You gotta make sure your friend is fine with that happening if it does. That's if you report it to a group or something. And yeah, I'd be more than happy to report.[/QUOTE] Well I've done a bit of research and these fuckers are all from the US, and she's from Australia... they're not even in the same continent, I don't know how that'd work (IF that ever happens).

[QUOTE=Laferio;41744465]So why's she being harassed exactly?[/QUOTE] Success or reputation in any form just spontaneously attracts hate from some place or another. Admins of any successful website will always be hated by somebody regardless of what they do or what they're involved in.

If she keeps paying attention to people talking shit about her maybe she has to step down as an admin if it takes its toll on her health. But then again, I don't understand how people are affected by what strangers say about them on the internet.

[QUOTE=MakoSkyDub;41744553]FPers are generally pretty nice and helpful with stuff like this honestly, if there's an "aw" factor Post a link, a fair few people will probably join in reporting No one's gonna join in on the trolls' side if that's what you're concerned about :v: Hell you're a vet compared to me you should know all this[/QUOTE] Well I dunno... you'll understand if I'm a bit wary of doing such a thing. :/ [QUOTE=Im Crimson;41744640]Success or reputation in any form just spontaneously attracts hate from some place or another. Admins of any successful website will always be hated by somebody regardless of what they do or what they're involved in.[/QUOTE] This, pretty much. Plus, trolls are trolls... they really don't need a reason to hate on somebody/something. [editline]7th August 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=MrFlashcat;41744666]If she keeps paying attention to people talking shit about her maybe she has to step down as an admin if it takes its toll on her health. But then again, I don't understand how people are affected by what strangers say about them on the internet.[/QUOTE] Yeah she already gave up almost entirely her admining duties, she posts only when she feels like posting. But again, I suggested her to get off the internet for a short while, since I believe it'd be highly beneficial to her, but it doesn't last long... she relapsed, along with her drinking problem--but that's another thing entirely that I believe exacerbates her anxiety... and she's not very keen on quitting. :/

Ah, the folly of youth. They could be playing outside, read a book, play videogames, but what do they do? Show us the kind of degeneration today's society can decay into.

Just tell her to get off the internet, or drag her out yourself at all costs. Do remind her its a waste of one's patience to care about trolls on the internet. But whatever you do, don't feed the trolls in any way possible.

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;41744671]Well I dunno... you'll understand if I'm a bit wary of doing such a thing. :/[/QUOTE] I don't understand tbh What are you worried about? [QUOTE=Pretiacruento;41744671]but that's another thing entirely that I believe exacerbates her anxiety... and she's not very keen on quitting. :/[/QUOTE] Is this your friend in real life or do you just chat on facebook? Actually either way it might help if you played hard-ball to some degree Maybe I'm mistaken but from what I've gathered of your personality from this thread, you might be coddling her with your advice/comfort People need strong words and ultimatums and so on sometimes :v:

All you can do is motivate her to not take it personally. E-Bullies are easy to deal with because...well...you don't have to deal with them. It's as simple as getting off the computer or removing yourself from that situation. It's not like out in the real world where you would have to encounter that person due to work or school.

[QUOTE=Pretiacruento;41744462]That's actually a pretty good idea, never really thought of it before! Hold on a sec--you mean [URL="http://www.ncpc.gov.sg/"]this one[/URL], or [URL="http://www.ncpc.org/"]this one[/URL]?[/QUOTE] well the first one is for Singapore (look in the top right corner), And the second one is U.S.