Friday, May 18, 2012

A Blogging Saga of Harassment, and Consequences

I am by temperament and inclination  in sympathy with a more lady like version of the historic, mythic warrior queen Boudica more than the fragile and ineffective Blanche duBois of Tennessee Williams 'Streetcar Named Desire', ( relying on "the kindness of strangers").  But I also pride myself on having the patience to work gently when dealing with uncooperative animals, small children, difficult elderly people with dementia, but I have reached the limit of my patience in dealing with the chronically difficult when it comes to blogging.
Not for lack of effort, I would underline.  I have tried I really have; and I hate the idea of causing trouble for anyone with their employer, if at all possible. 
Sometimes it is not possible.
Here on Penigma we have too long tolerated a nuisance commenter who has been banned, but who persists in making offensive, stupid, and far too frequent comments that need to be deleted.  Or more recently, saved in a file, and forwarded to the IP provider security manager. 
We use a service that provides information similar to that provided by some blogging platforms and other similar companies; in our case we use Statcounter.com.  That documents who reads, in a general non-identifying way, where they are located, what pages or posts, etc.  It is incomplete information, but it can be a helpful indicator to know what topics or posts are popular, what previous sites might have directed a reader to your blog, and so on.  Total visits for example, reflect not the visits ever, but the visits in a short amount of time, a few days, tracked by statcounter for that IP address.
The entry looks like this:
7 (3 this visit)
Entry Page Time:
17 May 2012 10:04:22
Visit Length:
3 mins 6 secs
Browser:
IE 7.0
OS:
WinXP
Resolution:
1024x768
United States Flag
Total Visits:
9
Location:
Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States
IP Address:
Level 3 Communications (208.xx.xxx.xx)
Search Referral:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
and the 'magnify user' feature provides a map that supplements the location information, as well as information identifying the host source, the entity to whom the IP belongs or is leased:
Host Name:mailout.sxxxxxx.net

Obviously, I've redacted this information.  The corporation which owns the IP is able to check to confirm that it is their IP address that is leased, which is the reason for contacting them.
We have had brief problems in the past.  Earlier this year, a particularly offensive comment was left that contained an extremely violent message advocating sexual assault for example.  In that case, the commenter, Ser8d, was banned.  He was also unwise enough to make that comment from his employer.  We contacted the IP owner, and the host owner - the employer - and provided to them the copies of the message, along with another message, and the stat counter information.
The only reason I happen to know what the outcome of that incident was is that it turned out the host / employer had not one, but TWO people who were visiting our blog.  I was asked by the polite, non sexual assault comment individual, through an email, please to vouch that he had not been offensive (although I suspect he was still in at least a little trouble for net surfing and blog reading instead of working).  The 'good' blog reader asked me to vouch for him, so he wouldn't lose his job; it was also informative that although both readers worked for the same employer, neither had known the other, even though they had both commented on similar posts at around the same time.  So I'm well aware that even a single ill-advised comment, if it is bad enough, can result in some fairly serious consequences.  I don't know if the person who goes by Ser8d WAS fired, or if he persuaded his employer to give him a second chance; but I do know that he has not been a problem on this blog, and has been much more self-controlled and civil on other blogs where I have been either an author or commenter.  I'd bet he also isn't reading blogs on his employer's time anymore either.
The IP from which this unwise but persistent person continued to operate despite many warnings to cease and desist, both public and private was Level 3 Communications.  They provide the internet and phone service to the harassers employer.  Yes, this guy was careless and unwise enough to make at least some of those annoying and harassing visits from the internet access where he works, a company with a name that begins with an 'S' and ends with 'ions', from their St. Paul location.
One of our co-bloggers here on Penigma is also an attorney, who having both author and admin privileges, has had access to the unposted comments.  At his direction, both Penigma and I have contacted our appropriate law enforcement entities, to document the problem.  That was also a requirement of the IP owner for us and for them to proceed.  
Next week comes the official Cease and Desist letters demanding the employer and IP provider stop enabling this person to use their facilities for harassment.  And yes, the comments do appear to more than rise to the level of harassment, both in frequency and in content.  Because the problem, at least in this case, appears to involve more than one internet access source, the appropriate complaint personnel of those internet providers will be identified next, and similar letters sent, and more involvement with law enforcement.
After that, if the problem still continues --- and realistically, it might --- we can look forward to contacting law enforcement to make a call on the harasser, directing him to stop, and we can look forward to going to court for a formal restraining order (so we were advised by Law Enforcement).
I would have much preferred NOT to make a complaint to someone's employer; I believe it is important to act with kindness and forbearance whenever possible, but some people don't leave a lot of choices, when they make their choices to act outside acceptable conduct.
Being harassed, having people behave badly is not unique to one side or the other of the political spectrum; sadly, bad behavior can come from either side.  But in pushing back against that behavior, in condemning it, as we should regardless of the political or other views of anyone who behaves this way, we are also promoting the free and civil exchange of ideas.  There is room to be sharp, or even a little snarky towards concepts, towards the personas of public figures.  But there are limits, there are boundaries and that line is the same line that defines threats, that defines sexual harassment, that defines defamation, libel, and slander.  That line is the same line that defines the boundaries of hate speech as well.
I will post updates here as this incident of pursuing the consequences of harassment in the wonderful world of the blogosphere unfolds.  Hopefully my experience, and that of my co-bloggers, in dealing with this might prove helpful to any other readers or bloggers who encounter this problem.  I would encourage bloggers to be proactive to stop the conduct, rather than simply tolerate unacceptable behavior on your blogs -- WHATEVER positions you hold in the political spectrum, left, right, or center.  'Unacceptable' means precisely that; that we do not simply let it go, accept it as inevitable, or tolerate it as unavoidable.  It is how we make a more civilized world for ourselves and others.
Edmund Burke, sometimes described as the father of conservativism, is supposed to have made the statement that "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing.", but that is a disputed statement.  That it is disputed as coming from Burke does not make it less true.  What Burke DID say however, that was correctly attributed and particularly apt to this situation, were the following three quotations:
Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
It is important when we hold opinions, even strong opinions, that we try to reach out to the opposition; and it is then perhaps more important than other times to do onto others as you would have them do onto you.  But sometimes you have to stop that 'doing onto you', and are not given a lot of choice in how to proceed by the choices THEY make.  Wish us luck, as the Saga progresses.  I am perhaps overly optimistic, but I still hope for a less drastic resolution to this problem.

10 comments:

  1. You're probably right democommie; but other people won't find it funny, not what was written, not the wording, and not that this person persisted when requested not to do so.

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  2. oh dear. I hope you are okay over there in Penigma land. Sounds not fun

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  3. We are just fine, but when we have uncivil behavior, it requires a firm response. A discussion secondary to political and economic argument has been whether or not moderation is effective in improving discussion -- does removing the really poor quality responses, the endless, mindless repetition of stupid or ill-infomred bumper sticker slogans, improve the resulting discussions, along with the offensive content. We believe it does. Too often imho, people simply tolerate it instead of acting to put a stop to it. I think it is nothing more than a form of bullying, a variation on the Gish Gallop. Not enough people in the center or on the left are familiar with the Gish Gallop or other versions of the behavior.

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  4. Good evening, dog gone:

    Ed Brayton over at Dispatches from the culture wars/Free Thought Blogs doesn't moderate comments as a rule. He does shitcan complete asshats without compunction when they annoy him enough. The conversations there are are often impolite but the parties having them generally know what they are talking about--those who don't are hectored and ridiculed. It seems to work for Mr. Brayton. Of course he has dozens of daily commenters and hundreds of occassional commenters unlike a lot of other blogs, expeshly mine! {;>)

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    Replies
    1. I'm not in his category either, but I try to do it like that. I'm allowing comments without moderation and deleting the ones that need deleting.

      If history means anything this will only last for a while. When the offensive commenters get too active, I'll put the moderation back on for a while.

      Throughout all these changes, I pretty-much ignore them and avoid engagement.

      That's my way.

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  5. I'm not familiar with Mr. Brayton's blog, but blogs of different sizes and styles all have to find what works for them. As you yourself wised me up about the Gish Gallop, there are discussions, but then there can be discussion that really just intends to shut down any opposing view. Sometimes that is done with the volume of the comments; and other times it is done with the tone of them.

    Clearly I have no problem with the comments being a bit raucus and substantive. These comments did not fit that description, especially the not substantive.

    I do swing by to comment on your blog periodically DemoC, and it seems to me that to be sure I don't miss any of your new posts, I should add you to our blog roll, to spread the joy.

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  6. dog gone:

    I was probably a bit unclear in my last comment. What I meant to say was that the situation at Ed Brayton's place is that commenters who are trolling or simply attempting to jack the threads tend to get their asses handed to them, Ed intervenes in the cases where people are doing something like making a personal threat or posting under another commenter's name. He does have a small group of permanently 86'd commenters--all of whom are major league assholes.

    Thanks for blogrolling me or even just mentioning my blog. I think blogging is done for a lot of reasons, my primary reason is so that I can say what's on my mind--if others find it interesting, so much the better.

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  7. Count me among those who find you intereting - and entertaining too, democommie!

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  8. Yes MikeB, but the result is that you have gone for days allowing comments to exist on your blog that should never have seen the light of day, including ones that identify personal information about individuals contrary to your terms of service. You are losing your authors, while not gaining any substantive comments on topic -- quite the opposite, the substance has declined.

    It doesn't matter. I'm no longer willing to have to sift through one or eight or twelve comments that are garbage, or that have gone off the rail entirely. This particular individual who is the problem has in the past made defamatory accusations of pedophilia to one of our earlier co-bloggers, and made other similar statements that are simply beyond that pale of acceptable content. How long was it that you missed one of your commenters calling me a cunt? The pattern is that we start with one or two a day, and then both the content and the frequency become increasingly unacceptable and harassing.

    I don't wish to have to wade through and delete someone accusing a person of child rape, or accusing a co-blogger of brutally anal raping his children to get to the substantive material. I'm no longer even willing to wade through an individual repeating a line or two of offensive, factually inaccurate, offensive bumper sticker rhetoric as if it deserved acknowledgment over and over and over, and calling it a view.

    Free speech means we are free to believe what we wnat and say what we want versus the government. It does not mean that one individual can interfere with another individual. Blogs are not required to give anyone or everyone access, nor does free speech mean you can intrude or force yourself or your views where they are not welcome.

    If you want to allow harassing or offensive content, that is your way. Some people just quit, after any pleasure in blogging is ruined for them. I don't; as one of the officers I had to speak with in the course of pursuing put it, the only way to stop this is to push back, to stand up to people like this. Otherwise it will continue, and it may get worse.

    There is a level of persistence that eventually becomes stalking, that becomes obstructive. The blogosphere has its share of cowardly bullies; I don't like bullies, I don't tolerate bullies, I don't see any value in tolerating people who devote this amount of effort to making my life difficult, for no apparent reason OTHER than doing so.

    I have prided myself on 'digging' - looking for fact. Now, it is time perhaps for a different canine behavior, involving teeth and a little bit of being the territorial guard dog.

    More people who have contacted me privately - including those who write almost exclusively gun related blogs - have been supportive, have had similar harassing activity, and responded to it, ending it, and improving the traffic and legitimate comments on their blog.

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  9. consider this post my warning growl.

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