Bullied – is the Internet to blame?

Gavin Dudeney, one of the two owners of The Consultants-E for whom I do some facilitating work, has just written a harrowing post about what he has been going through in the last year. In brief he has been bullied, blackmailed and defamed with the bully telling him on several occasions that they hope that Gavin dies a slow painful death. He has been stalked online and defamed. His post is an attempt to get the story out into the open in an effort to neutralise the power the bully thinks they have over him. The harrassment includes blackmail and defamation and it seems that he has enough evidence against this person to take the case to the police. Although stressful for him, going public about this can’t be half as stressful as what he has been going through this past year.

Although it hasn’t been said in this case, I guess it won’t be long before someone blames the Internet for this. However when you look at the facts of the case I think the perpetrator is obviously disturbed and Internet or no Internet I think they would have found a victim no matter what. Without Internet it may not have been Gavin but I am sure that it would have been someone.

So I think that this case highlights the importance of being careful (although I don’t think that Gavin has been wreckless) but I don’t think that it makes a case for staying offline.