How does cyber technology impact interactions between offenders and victims?
Cyber technology impacts interactions between offenders and victims because there are many states that lack rules for cyber interaction and don’t count cyber harassment as harassment at all or don’t have rules to enforce a “do not contact.” Cyber harassment is also hard to prove because you can hide your location and identity in a cyber environment. Many states still don’t recognize enough how traumatic it can be to be cyber stalked or harassed. Not many people, especially younger people are aware just how much information they share on social media. A picture of their vacation can tell a stalker exactly where you are even if you don’t have your location enabled or posted on social media. This cyber society makes it very easy to get cyber harassed or stalked. I’ve been cyber harassed and actually called the police because of it. The police didn’t know what to do so they transferred me to the court to talk to someone who could read off the rules for cyber harassment and they said that Virginia really couldn’t do anything. If I wanted something to be done I’d have to go to court and that would be long and expensive and all the court could do was give them a warning and if it happened again just a small fine and it probably wouldn’t fix the harassment. There’s only a very minor offense for cyber harassers. Cyber stalking and harassment is very scary because their main goal is to control you with fear. My Harasser was originally a student who I’d tried to help at my previous college but when he talked about urges to stab people I reported him and distanced myself. He then started to harass me virtually. He got a hold of my phone number and my personal, work, and college email and sent threatening messages from different emails so I couldn’t block him. He used some software to copy my voice from my videos on social media and called people pretending to be me saying outrageous stuff to affect my reputation. It was a long process to get rid of him and the VA law system could do nothing but recommend I “Call them right away if he steps foot on your property then they could give him a do not contact order which will actually be affective vs taking him to court for cyber harassing.” We need stronger laws and for this to be taken more seriously.