Bullying, and harassment is defined by being something that you can not readily escape. That doesn’t apply so easily online, since people are consenting to using the social media platforms where this takes place. They can block people. They can opt out of using that social media platform and talking to those people at anytime. Believe it or not, social media is optional. You don’t need to use it.
Ideally no one should bully, or harass anyone. But there will always be assholes. It’s an aspect of human nature. The only way to protect people from that kind of treatment online would be to take away the level of freedom that we enjoy on the internet. At first such an authoritative presence would remove the kinds of trolls and terrible people that some folks endlessly complain about.
But then the bar would raise overtime, because there will be people that will never be satisfied with the safety and peace of the platform. The standard would raise so high that you’d be having boring conversations with boring harmless people. No one would challenge you, or make you question your beliefs, because that would not be allowed. Such a move would kill social media and the internet as we know it.
The best way to handle this is to give people the choice as to whether or not they want to interact on these social media sites. Anything that happens to them after that, is done at their own peril.
If people in real life that you know in your town are abusing you online in tangible ways, then call the police. The internet has been used by people to commit actual crimes. Crimes like theft, rape, assault, and real life harassment. But does anything really need to be done about a couple of idiots online telling you that you are stupid or unattractive?
The problem online right now that we’re facing, is a generation of young people who can’t tell the difference between harassment and dissent. If we were to try and appease them, we’d find ourselves living in actual oppression.
If you’re being stalked or hacked, block them on every platform, and if it persists, call the police. There’s nothing more that can be done, and doing anymore than that would be disastrous in the long run.
