Chat Culture When does fun turn into harassment

[Paige 0]

Firstly, I must admit that it took me a while to find a site that discusses chat room culture. I recently created a site after spending months in a specific room and then being betrayed in the most horrid way. It got me thinking... when and why do people overstep the line. Surely, most people go to chat rooms to meet people with similar interests... whether that be adult, quiz, kids, general etc rooms. I have however found that some people can take things very seriously to the point of intense harassment. How free is freedom of speech in chat rooms when when does funny turn hurtful?than you.

[anwiii 17]

welcome to Xisto, paige. you bring up a good point and question. i've been communicating with people on the internet for 25 years now. i see the same problems today as i did 20 years ago. in some ways it's getting better, but in other ways it's getting worse because more and more people are coming online and haven't learned chat etiquette and respect for others online.now for the most part, the reason things turn in to harrassment is because some people who come online to chat don't view the internet as "real life".also, everyone has different personalities and it's hard to judge those personalities online when you don't see any feelings or emotions or expressions or tone of voice, etc. which makes it hard to communicate appropriately. so what i tell people is you have to take the good WITH the bad. if it gets really bad, you can always leave for a while until the abuser or harasser is gone and come back. that is the alternative. it's not good to engage anyone who harasses people in the chat room. you don't know who they are and they can be capable of getting a lot worse. you can do more harm than good if you engage people who are abusive. sometimes people come online to vent and the first person who doesn't like what they have to say become targets for those people. it's best to ignore them 100% or leave the room.some people will be so absusive to lower other peoples self esteem and make it look like they have problems if they take anything seriously when it is the person who isn't taking anything seriously that has a MAJOR problem. it's easy for some people to vent like this online because in person, they know they wouldn't get away with it. on the flip side here, those people who are hurtfull online are human beings like you and i. again, they do what they do because they are hurting themselves or outcasts in some ways in real life. what they really need is a friend. people don't try to understand them because they are hurtfull. but if a person can take a step back and ask themselves why some people act the way they do online, they will notice that these people need attention and probably feel misunderstood. so if you were to meet someone like that in real life, most likely, you would try to make them feel better rather than ignore them. the problem is, people can be whoever they want to be online and it's hard to get to those types of people online because they have a lot of barriers and walls up for anyone to get through to them so it's almost pointless trying.i hope this helps you understand better. i haven't covered everything but most of the more important stuff....

Edited October 22, 2010 by anwiii (see edit history)

[Parubilla 0]

I think that people are mean, that?s it. I totally agree with the post before, because on the internet you are not seeing each other faces, not listening to any tone voices, so you can basically say whatever you want without being "discovered", without caring about other people feelings, all you are seeing it?s a silly nickname and that?s it, you tend to forget that you are talking to another human being that could be your cousin or whatever, and people also use chat rooms to take it all the feelings and anger and things that in "real life" you would not say to other people. I remember that I used to enter chat rooms a lot when I was younger, and at the beginning people were nice, but little by little people started to get mean, and you know, nobody would treat you like that outside that chat room so I just stopped like life is already full of drama you don?t need to add some more to your daily by chatting with mean people.

[iGuest 3]

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate your insight. I have a fundemental problem with people not taking into account that behind every nic, behind every IP, there's another person, some who, like me, only have the internet as a means to connect with the outside world. I'm disabled, and quite scarred after a terrible accident some years ago. My self esteem took such a knock and I went from social butterfly to hermit. So, I found comfort, companionship and in some cases, good friends in chat. However, after being betrayed by someone, then having an online friend suffer at the hands of her cyber cheating hubby, eventually having to flee to a safe house (on the other side of the world), I realised that it's not 'just chat'. It's life. Virtual reality, yes, but reality nevertheless. I stood my ground and have subsequently become the 'counsellor' for other ppl who suffered similar experiences at the fast fingers of a particular person. Camps formed, people rallied for or against and the person subsequently left the chat after "11 years of being there". I felt justified in taking a stand and reporting not only written abuse, but severe harassment via mobile phone and emails. It baffles me that people would go to a seemingly anonymous place and still feel the need to pick on the meek, it's high school all over again! I have no regret in following procedure and helping other people who were also subject to harassment and abuse, and reporting the individual to the site admins. It's just not right. Behind every keystroke is a person... forgets sticks and stones.. keystrokes can and do hurt... I guess I'm just not good at saying "c'est la vie" and walking away... admins are there to maintain a standard.. and people who abuse that space should be brought to task. That's just my belief.

[Harlot 2]

I have been chatting on the internet for the few years and what I learned is that you should never treat the internet as real life. That is what predators want you to do. They want you to be emotionally stressed out about what they say, feel, or think about you. If you have low self esteem in the real world, don't bring that low self esteem online. There are people who prey on those with low self esteem, and build up an emotionally driven relationship with that individual just to abuse them later. The best advice I can give is that if you wish to have a friendship with someone online, look for hypocrisy within them. If its a forum, always follow their post and look into the previous post that they have made. Don't look for their opinions, political views, or religious views, but rather look to see if they have initiated any arguments or wrongfully insulted another user. A wrongful insult is an insult made without first being insulted in my opinion. If you find someone making wrongful insults, especially insults on those who they disagree with on social or political issues, then you know if your friend is presenting a false image of his or herself to you. I have not found a single predator who is not a hypocrite, and who doesn't play as a victim of the same acts that he or she commit. So if you friend denounce people who unjust insult, and you find your friend unjustly insulting others, cut off contact with that online friend.

 

You how people right on this forum who will denounce "mean" people right in front of you in this thread, and you will find post where they continuously and repetitiously insult other members who disagree with them on the slightest issue. They will put themselves in the shoes of a victim in front of you, and then you will later find that they are the oppressor, not the victim. So remember to watch out for the people who try to make themselves seem moral and above bigotry. In regards to dealing with people are throw throw around insults, I think that everyone has their own way of dealing with them. Some people tend to just leave the community. My approach is to attack back. That is just my cup of tea. If someone unjustly insults me, and I see that its ongoing harassment, and respond with at least twice as many insults, and I do it in a way that intellectually exposes that individual as the antagonizing party. It also depends on the forum or community. In some cases you will have to leave or insult back, but in cases where the administrators and moderators do their job, I would hold back responding and attacking back, and just report the individual. In this community however, I recommend attacking back. That is not to insult the jobs of the moderators here, but it appears that freedom of speech here extends to insults. Either that, or admin/mods are almost non-existent.

[sheepdog 10]

I'm sorry you had a bad experience in a chat room, but in all honesty, everyone who ever hangs out much in one sooner or later is going to run into a trouble maker. People are just mean. Some people anyway. And it seems sitting behind a screen and being rather annonomous brings out the worst in many people who otherwise might not be such @$$ holes. Petty, spineless people who wouldn't have the nerve to speak to you in person the way they think they can get away with it from behind the safty of their computer screens. Sad, but oh so true. These folks may cause you to wonder about freedom of speech, but you have to realize what a precious gift this freedom is, and in order for all of us to be able to enjoy it, we have to occasionally put up with some dip stick who would like to abuse the rights of free speech.

[Iniyila 2]

i try to do not chat until the person who i want to chat with, has a webcam and mic because i want to talk to him/her like i talk to other peoples in street. when i type a text for a "username" i have the feeling of wasting my time, because i don't know anything. i can not understand she is laughing at me or crying when she types something. the most bad part is that you should trust to your chat partner when you have not the ability to see or hear her and sometimes you will discover you have wasted your time on a virtual character which doesn't exist at all. there is even a dangerous problem which forbids me from chatting even with voice or video and it is the-man-in-the-middle attack system which is very to implement and can steal all of your data which you have sent or received during your chat.

[contactskn 2]

Dear friend its very true when you say that sometimes chat rooms become horrifying. The reason is here the person who is online is mostly one whom we don?t even know before and don?t even know their real name even so the problem arises how to trust them due to which no one present their real ones and play wrongfully. More over the normal tendency of human is to have fun of others even if it becomes torturous to others they don?t even take it seriously and think from the other side. By the if every body starts thinking of making a clean internet then such situations can be resolved but its round about impossible. Isn?t it. But lets hope for a cleaner internet.