From Senator Jim Perchard.
WE live in an internet age. Communicating to people around the world is a matter of a few clicks of the mouse.
However, if you look at this internet age from a different point of view, you will realise that it has in fact bred some illegal and unethical practices.
While some use the internet for gaining information, others use it for destruction of sensitive data, or for demeaning and abusing individuals or organisations. While some use the web as a communication platform, others use it for and derive pleasure from intruding in the internet privacy of individuals and seek enjoyment from cyber-bullying.
Cyber-bullying and internet abuse is a growing and serious concern. The remoteness, even anonymity, provided by the internet encourages many users to behave with a boldness they would not otherwise display in any face-to-face encounters.
It is widely claimed that adult bullies are unable to cope with their own lives and problems and that they are easily intimidated and have strong feelings of jealousy and inadequacy.
They are thought to be desperate to receive attention, which they probably don’t receive at home or in relationships. I have noticed that they continually seek to discredit those in authority, particularly those who are influential, knowledgeable, capable and successful.
Even though many of them will understand when they have behaved wrongly, they still wish to appear as though they are morally superior. Strangely, they insist that others have attacked them and that they are the victims. It seems to me that they seek to lead and manipulate an unsuspecting group of their virtual friends to bandwagon, or gang up on, a target and try to gain attention for themselves by any means possible, usually through humiliating their target.
It is true that occasionally they can appear plausible, by introducing a cocktail of fact and fiction, but I am convinced that cyber-bullies are always vindictive and manipulative liars. They often, in an attempt to justify their behaviour, threaten their target with referral to a higher authority, eg the law, the UK Ministry of Justice, even the European courts, imagining that such authorities would be interested in the detail behind their vindictive tirade of abuse and bullying.
It seems that they are unable to internalise their own behaviours and become angry and unreasonable if someone attempts to point out how they were wrong or how their behaviour was unacceptable.
Cyber-bullies, like all bullies, will eventually prey on those closest to them in order to resist entering into permanent and lasting friendships. This is because they are mentally disturbed people who are incapable of having meaningful relationships. It is symptomatic that they find solace and power alone in their virtual world in front of their computer screens.
We as a society are learning about cyber-bullying at great personal and emotional cost to the many victims and their families. I hope that it will not be long before we establish acceptable boundaries in respect of the rights to freedom of expression, balanced against the rights to security and privacy of the individual.
I have given very careful consideration to the content of this letter, as I know it will provoke a hostile reaction in my direction, from cyber-bullies and internet abusers, those who believe it is their right to publish on the internet defamatory and hostile untruths about others. I for one am prepared to stand up to these bullies. I shall not be intimidated by them.
Le Perchoir,
Rue de la Vignette,
St Martin.
