Sexual harassment

[Rogatum]

How does this detract from the seriousness of those? It's entirely possible for the two situations, of online and RL abuse, to both stand on their own, as serious issues, especially since online abuse can and frequently DOES spill into RL. Also, I don't realize if someone's told you this, but people make friends and form relationships with people online very, very frequently these days and it doesn't make those relationships any less legitimate. Have you every been friends with someone that turned out to be not who you thought they were? That's what happening, and that can happen in RL too, just like online, because - shocker - there's an actual person talking to you.

I will repeat it again - yes, take steps to protect yourself, don't give out your info to any random person that asks, but if someone starts threatening you, cyberstalking you, harassing you, it wasn't your fault. If you've been talking to and playing with someone for a really long time it only makes sense that you'd eventually learn things about their life outside the internet. People are curious about each other, and there's nothing wrong with saying to someone "Wow, the weather in [where I live] is so bad right now" or something like that. The vast majority of people online are still normal people who won't hurt you because, of course, the vast majority of people in the world are normal people who won't hurt you. The role of the internet in our lives has changed and it's about time people realize that.

Please stop with the hyperbole.

Saying that the only person that can actively protect themselves from such behavior is the "you" is not wrong. While it is tough to hear and may sound harsh the reality is it is your fault for not seeing the signs for whatever reason. We are human mistakes happen, all we can do is learn from them and take steps to ensure the same mistake does not happen again.

[Elamys]

Saying that the only person that can actively protect themselves from such behavior is the "you" is not wrong. While it is tough to hear and may sound harsh the reality is it is your fault for not seeing the signs for whatever reason. We are human mistakes happen, all we can do is learn from them and take steps to ensure the same mistake does not happen again.

Let me phrase this in a different way.

If your house isn't locked, and someone comes in and robs it, is it your fault for being robbed? Or is it the fault of the person who robbed you?

The law has made it clear that regardless of door locked vs. unlocked, it is still the fault of the person who robbed you and you are not at fault for the crime, and the robber will still face criminal charges. While you should lock your door to avoid being robbed, you don't abdicate your right to legal recourse when you are robbed because your door was unlocked. He still faces charges, because you weren't asking to be robbed. Just like someone wasn't asking to be abused because they may have told the wrong person the wrong information online. The person who does the abuse is still an abuser, and it's THEIR FAULT ONLY for abusing the person.

You don't have to abuse someone just because you have the information to do so.

[QT_Melon]

Reading this thread is kind of sad, especially with the "block and move on" "don't send pics in the first place"

I mean yeah, that's great if you giving advice to people this hasn't happened to yet, but this advice is like watching Jerry Springer give his "Final Thoughts" after watching people beat each other on stage

Or telling a person who got pregnant, or hit with an STI "well shouldn't have had sex to begin with" it's pretty useless information and does nothing after the fact.

What I think people are asking for in discussing this topic is "okay some reason or another plan A has failed, what do we do for plan B" some cases it may be a plan C.

Here is the thing, notice this isn't one "X said, Y said" issue? It tends to be in numbers, that is a pattern. The fact is, with the "you did something stupid so you should face harsher consequences than the offender" is why this keeps happening and why the people who do this keeps doing it till it's a multitude of victims.

I agree that there does need to be some caution in stringing out those to dry before all the facts are out, but at the same time what should be done? Encourage people to still hang around abusive people?

I think a good solution would be a special task force on SE's part to handle this, not just some GM who probably doesn't have the kind of training to help in a situation like this. That probably means costing money on their part, but that kind of step to at least look into it would go a long way.

[Rogatum]

Let me phrase this in a different way.

If your house isn't locked, and someone comes in and robs it, is it your fault for being robbed? Or is it the fault of the person who robbed you?

The law has made it clear that regardless of door locked vs. unlocked, it is still the fault of the person who robbed you and you are not at fault for the crime, and the robber will still face criminal charges. While you should lock your door to avoid being robbed, you don't abdicate your right to legal recourse when you are robbed because your door was unlocked. He still faces charges, because you weren't asking to be robbed. Just like someone wasn't asking to be abused because they may have told the wrong person the wrong information online. The person who does the abuse is still an abuser, and it's THEIR FAULT ONLY for abusing the person.

I am a strong believer that their are degrees of fault, and personal responsibility. If someone broke into my house they are most at fault, but it would be wrong to say that I am not immune of fault because I left my doors open. I was mugged once went to am ATM in some deli so I had cash on me for a cab. It was my fault for using that ATM instead of just paying a little extra and having the cab stop at at the nearest bank. Might just be me, just because we have laws in place does not mean I view myself as immune from actively trying to protect myself, or leaving from my past mistakes. Hope that makes sense, please do not think each party shares the same amount of blame.

[QT_Melon]

I am a strong believer that their are degrees of fault, and personal responsibility.

Ok then, so does that mean the perp gets a lesser punishment because you made the crime easier for them to commit? I think that's really what's being asked here. There's already the sense of shame and fear when you are a victim of a crime, even more so if you knew you did something ignorant or stupid to help with that crime. So what is blame going to do here? I'm curious.

[Rogatum]

Ok then, so does that mean the perp gets a lesser punishment because you made the crime easier for them to commit? I think that's really what's being asked here. There's already the sense of shame and fear when you are a victim of a crime, even more so if you knew you did something ignorant or stupid to help with that crime. So what is blame going to do here? I'm curious.

They will get whatever sentence the law seems is just. Not sure what you are asking I never said that they should get lesser sentence. All I am saying is I feel as if their are degrees of fault, and people should actively try to protect themselves. If ignorance leads to something negative happening after the appropriate authorities are contacted, the next step is to make sure you learn from what happened and take steps to do what you can to prevent it from happening again. I am extremely confused as to why it seems as if you feel I feel they should get lesser time for the crime because I did not do what I could to protect myself. The only way we can learn from our mistakes is if someone points out the mistake, even if it is in hindsight.

Again, what does that mean. It still in the end means that the person who committed the crime get the same sentence because there's no distinguishing factor in law that "oh well victim is somewhat to blame" It also does absolutely nothing to even talk about blame when what happened, already happened. So you wonder why I'm asking. I'm asking while you're worried about the symptoms (in the sense of next steps to take course), you're not looking at the cause in the end.

"Don't want the possibility of pregnancy or STI" don't have sex, even birth control has a possibility of failure. Ok. Great. Still happened. Now what. We just work backwards or forwards here?

So you are saying that we should not point out what people can do after the fact the prevent it from happening again? How is a person supposed to learn from the event if they are unwilling to admit that some of the fault is on them? As I mentioned before what can we reasonably do to prevent such issues from happening? Sadly the only way to prevent such issues is for people to learn and protect themselves in the most practicable way. If you want to have sex just do what is most practicable to protect yourself from getting pregnant or an STD but you do so knowing that their is a still a chance something might happen, so is it better to do nothing? Educating yourself as to what and how it happened is moving forward since that really is the only way to protect yourself from it happening again. I mentioned in another post sure we can educate people before the fact but often times people are blind to what is happening or do not see the risk until it happens or a scare happens. Not sure what preemptive thing anyone can do to combat such a thing, since sadly this is one of those things that a lot of people feel oh it can never happen to me until it does. Hope that makes sense.

Sorry going to hit my post limit soon so going to edit this post with my comment.

[Sebazy]

How does this detract from the seriousness of those?

Because both the twitter post and this thread quickly degraded into a mush of victim blaming, he said/she said and borderline trolling. To the outsider, it just looks like petty fluff.

None of that helps anyone, nor does it achieve anything.

I don't care who's at fault, what I care about is that people take the necessary steps to protect themselves from getting into these kind of situations in the first place. At the end of the day, this is the only thing that really matters looking forward. I totally agree about the role our net footprint reflects on us and my point is that this needs to be at the very forefront of the discussion here.

[QT_Melon]

They will get whatever sentence the law seems is just. Not sure what you are asking I never said that they should get lesser sentence. All I am saying is I feel as if their are degrees of fault, and people should actively try to protect themselves.

Again, what does that mean. It still in the end means that the person who committed the crime get the same sentence because there's no distinguishing factor in law that "oh well victim is somewhat to blame" It also does absolutely nothing to even talk about blame when what happened, already happened. So you wonder why I'm asking. I'm asking while you're worried about the symptoms (in the sense of next steps to take course), you're not looking at the cause in the end.

"Don't want the possibility of pregnancy or STI" don't have sex, even birth control has a possibility of failure. Ok. Great. Still happened. Now what. We just work backwards or forwards here?

[SomeRandomHuman]

How to deal with sexual harassment in an MMO:
1. Block and Report the offender
2. Move on with your life. If it bothers you so badly, then seek proper mental/emotional assistance on top of it.
3. If the offender tries to reach out again via alt or third party repeat step 1.
4. If you go through steps 1-3 several times and the GM team does nothing about it, then its time to head to SE's customer service and share your experiences or skip to step 5.
5. Repeat step 1 one final time and stop playing for a while or permanently depending on your level of faith left by this point.

Sexual harassment sucks anywhere. There's only so much one can do on their own. You do what you can since that's all you can do.

[Rubiss]

Again, what does that mean. It still in the end means that the person who committed the crime get the same sentence because there's no distinguishing factor in law that "oh well victim is somewhat to blame" It also does absolutely nothing to even talk about blame when what happened, already happened. So you wonder why I'm asking. I'm asking while you're worried about the symptoms (in the sense of next steps to take course), you're not looking at the cause in the end.

"Don't want the possibility of pregnancy or STI" don't have sex, even birth control has a possibility of failure. Ok. Great. Still happened. Now what. We just work backwards or forwards here?

Block and move on? It's the internet. Do you want the police involved? If so, do it. Do you want the "abuser" banned or punished? Contact GMs. Do you want to complain about it? This is a MMORPG.