Trolling / Stalking a Christian forum

[TheEgoist]

Parson, I went to your board. I went and registered with the intention of talking to Bex on the thread that was linked on this site by GreedyCapitalist. When I realized it was against forum rules to participate in that thread or sub-forum, I thought of starting a thread in one of the designated forums for non-Christians. Then I realized that that as well was probably against the rules of the forum, so then I decided to send Bex a message. This message contained no threats, no anger or harsh words. I simply responded to her questions and concerns with my own perspective as a former Christian, who went through the same thing. After forming the message, I was made aware that THAT as well was against forum rules, so I left. You can hardly call that stalking. You can hardly call what the some of us did stalking. Facebook is made for looking up people. Bex made no plea for us to cease looking for her, and while I did not take the next step, there is nothing legally or morally wrong with taking it.

I appreciate that you have been respectful, more or less, but I suggest you not come swinging legal threats on the internet, whether you be a cop or not. I would be on your side if Brian or someone else were involved in illegal and immoral behavior, but no one is involved in anything like that.

And as David pointed out, you likewise could be sued for defamation. We have our share of lawyers here, Parson.

Finally, I don't think you should be worried about anyone here breaking the law. We may be able to unite in this; many atheists on the internet are nothing more than vile, nihilistic trolls. Unfortunately for your case against OO.net, I've met very few atheists on this forum who were a part of the internet tough guy arena, or worse, the internet nihilist guy arena. That is because we unite in our support of Objectivism. Non-belief in god isn't a primary, but a response to our philosophic beliefs.

Edited December 31, 2008 by TheEgoist

[K-Mac]

Say a prayer for the trolls and forgive the stalker. It's God's way.

[FrolicsomeQuipster]

Pretty well said. And yes, outside of the forums domain we don't have a beef. It is a place for other Christians to come and nail out differences and share. But with the internet being so open, many don't seem to understand the idea of a private domain because the majority of the internet is so wide open.

The real problem is that many people don't understand that there is no such thing as ''private censorship''.

[AndrewRyan]

Pretty well said. And yes, outside of the forums domain we don't have a beef. It is a place for other Christians to come and nail out differences and share. But with the internet being so open, many don't seem to understand the idea of a private domain because the majority of the internet is so wide open.

Now to clarify our perception of what transpired, there are times when non believers do some pretty intensive trolling on our board. Most of them are obnoxious but one or two have actually been criminal in the "stalking" sense of the word, where I had to get directly involved with another PD to attempt to nail their hides. In this case it was a young female member who had a perv chase her all over the internet. When the heat got on him, he disappeared. Knowing that you may be able to understand somewhat why we guard Bible Forums so well.

I really appreciate your understanding in this.

Right, any non-christian coming to your forum to discuss differences is a stalker. That makes perfect sense and the use of threats seems perfectly reasonable.

[LiberTodd]

The word "stalker" gets thrown around a lot these days

Merriam-Webster defines it as such:

1: to pursue by stalking - Well since "Stalking" means "approaching or following stealthily" we can rule this one out since nobody from this forum who contacted Bex did so anonymously and with their intentions concealed.

2: to go through (an area) in search of prey or quarry <stalk the woods for deer> - Nope, can't be this one. Though I do not personally know every member of this forum, I can say with confidence that nobody here is interested in hunting and eating Christians.

3: to pursue obsessively and to the point of harassment Though we DID pursue her, that is finding a way to contact her online, I doubt anyone sent multiple messages despite not getting replies or anything else which would be considered "obsession." As for harassment, if she truly felt harassed and had demanded that we cease all contact with her, I can assure you that we would. Tell an Objectivist whose rights you are not violating to leave you alone, he will. That's how we roll. Since nobody has received such an order from Bex, we can determine that she is not feeling harassed.

If you have no evidence to the contrary then you must drop your accusation that we are "stalking" Bex, as that is clearly not the case.

[Akin]

I'm just putting in my two cents. I see censorship which I believe is the immoral action of intellectual cowards. However, I don't see, legally, anything wrong with the admins wanting you guys to stop posting on their forum. It is a private forum, and they have the express right to preach whatever bullshit they want and even to censor their forums if they want. In my mind I compare it to privatized education. A school may teach whatever values, ideas, and "knowledge" it so pleases and has the right to do so. I don't think this dogmatic cowardly behavior is right, but I, for one, think that the forum owners/administrators are within their right to ask you to stop posting on their forums.

I don't see anything wrong with trying to contact this person on Facebook,...unless she asks you to stop, which to my knowledge she has not yet done.

I don't agree with the charge of stalking leveled against some of this forum's members, if the person feels threatened SHE should be the one complaining and I've not yet heard of a complaint, if anything the parson should be threatening legal action (if any) against the members for not respecting his (if it is his) right to property ( that is to own and run his forum the way he pleases without being harassed).

I understand that the members of this board might experience a feeling of desperation to help this girl, that is a reflection of their own great sense of life. However, I question whether this type of "activism" is succeeding at all as opposed to further tarnishing the name of Objectivism.

Although I MORALLY and wholeheartedly side with my fellow students of Objectivism on the matter, I sense a great deal of hostility being thrown back and fourth here. I consider myself intellectually hostile to Christianity, however, if you are trying to rationally appeal to the admins to stop this censorship, you are not going to convince them with hostility, most likely you'll not convince them anyway. It has been my own experience in activism that you only close people to reason and open them to the further acceptance from emotion/authority by using hostility.

[AndrewRyan]

I'm just putting in my two cents. I see censorship which I believe is the immoral action of intellectual cowards. However, I don't see, legally, anything wrong with the admins wanting you guys to stop posting on their forum. It is a private forum, and they have the express right to preach whatever bullshit they want and even to censor their forums if they want. In my mind I compare it to privatized education. A school may teach whatever values, ideas, and "knowledge" it so pleases and has the right to do so. I don't think this dogmatic cowardly behavior is right, but I, for one, think that the forum owners/administrators are within their right to ask you to stop posting on their forums.

I don't see anything wrong with trying to contact this person on Facebook,...unless she asks you to stop, which to my knowledge she has not yet done.

I don't agree with the charge of stalking leveled against some of this forum's members, if the person feels threatened SHE should be the one complaining and I've not yet heard of a complaint, if anything the parson should be threatening legal action (if any) against the members for not respecting his (if it is his) right to property ( that is to own and run his forum the way he pleases without being harassed).

I understand that the members of this board might experience a feeling of desperation to help this girl, that is a reflection of their own great sense of life. However, I question whether this type of "activism" is succeeding at all as opposed to further tarnishing the name of Objectivism.

Although I MORALLY and wholeheartedly side with my fellow students of Objectivism on the matter, I sense a great deal of hostility being thrown back and fourth here. I consider myself intellectually hostile to Christianity, however, if you are trying to rationally appeal to the admins to stop this censorship, you are not going to convince them with hostility, most likely you'll not convince them anyway. It has been my own experience in activism that you only close people to reason and open them to the further acceptance from emotion/authority by using hostility.

I think the hostility is less from the censorship/irrationality and more from the threatening in someone else's name.

[Maximus]

I could care less what they do on thier forum. I just happened to be the first one to read and respond to the "The Parson" when I detected an attempt at a threat through intimidation. That he seemingly directed his threat toward me was ludicrous, as all I had done was to read the thread through the link provided, and had not tried to sign up for his forum, or contact the girl in question. I saw no real need to do so, as she exhibited the glimmerings of a rational questioning of the apparent contradictions of her religion, which, if she will follow to it's logical conclusion, will lead her to the truth. It is up to her to use her mind to it's potential.

The Parson I consider to be a sanctimonious bully, whom it is not worth the effort to get bent out of shape over. It would be interesting to see an attempt on his part to debate the metaphysical impossibility of his sky spook on this forum. Entertaining, in fact.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Maximus

[Greebo]

I believe that the accusation of censorship is not appropriate. I appreciate the feeling behind it, but as someone who has administered computer message boards since the mid 80's (I almost said 1984 but I'm not sure it was exactly that year), I'm confident in my expertise here.

The site is privately owned. As such, the owners have every right to determine what content they will or will not allow.

If this were the action of Government or some quasi-Government agency, calling it censorship would be appropriate.

In this case, however, its simply willful evasion of reality.