Net Develops Some Troublesome Rips

While not common, harassment is a fact of life on the Internet. Rarely, however, does it spill over into offline life.

Most of it consists of “flame wars,” the bombardment of a user with hostile, abusive language in public postings or via private e-mail. More elaborate tricks such as “mail bombing” (arranging a flood of junk mail that will crash a user’s computer) happen very rarely and are considered extremely unethical by most “netizens.”

One-on-one flame wars are usually a testosterone-laden all-male affair. But stalking and harassing on the Internet is predominantly men harassing women, according to WHOA (Women Halting Online Abuse), a group that has adopted Jayne Hitchcock as something of a poster child. The group’s Web page [https://whoa.femail.com] provides support for victims of harassment and works to make the Internet “a harassment-free environment.”

Hitchcock’s case is especially unusual in that the harassment went outside the cyberworld and invited people to call or visit her home. What’s even more unusual is the fact that she decided to take the matter to court. While threats of lawsuits are a common cliche tossed about during flame wars, they almost never lead to litigation, says Hitchcock’s attorney, John Young of New York.

“Jayne’s case is much worse than most online harassment,” Young says. “The defendants willfully and maliciously have caused her acute emotional distress and placed her in fear of sexual and physical assault, and even of her very life.

“I think this case will establish that, while the Internet is a frontier, it is not a lawless frontier.”