Internet abuse
Jun. 29th, 2004 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swehNo, this isn't an article about abuse of the internet. No rants about spam and viruses and hackers and wannabeleet dudes. No, this is a rant about people abusing others on the internet.
The internet is a great way of keeping in touch with people; email for personal stuff, newsgroups and forums and interactive systems (eg IRC) for chatting in groups, livejournal and blogs for "publishing". People you know about and care about could be thousands of miles away, yet you can keep up with their lives and keep in contact with them just by pressing a few buttons. Amazing stuff! Unfortunately the technology has it's limitations; the data "bandwidth" is extremely low. There is no body language, for example. All the context is provided by the text and pictures.
What does this mean?
It means that if you post crazy stuff, it might make people who care about you become very concerned. They will keep checking your entries regularly and keep track of how you are doing. They may not say anything to you, thinking you have the problems in hand and are working them out OK, but they may talk about it amongst themselves and spend some fair amount of emotional energy on the issue.
If you then turn around later and say "oh it was all a joke" or "I'm doing internet performance art" or "I did it to get at group XYZ" then you may well find those people who cared about you get pissed off. Big time. They may feel that they have been non-consensually used; that their concerns and emotional energy have been abused.
I have no time for people who will use and abuse me in this manner. Have fun with the rest of your life; I don't care any more.
End of rant.
The internet is a great way of keeping in touch with people; email for personal stuff, newsgroups and forums and interactive systems (eg IRC) for chatting in groups, livejournal and blogs for "publishing". People you know about and care about could be thousands of miles away, yet you can keep up with their lives and keep in contact with them just by pressing a few buttons. Amazing stuff! Unfortunately the technology has it's limitations; the data "bandwidth" is extremely low. There is no body language, for example. All the context is provided by the text and pictures.
What does this mean?
It means that if you post crazy stuff, it might make people who care about you become very concerned. They will keep checking your entries regularly and keep track of how you are doing. They may not say anything to you, thinking you have the problems in hand and are working them out OK, but they may talk about it amongst themselves and spend some fair amount of emotional energy on the issue.
If you then turn around later and say "oh it was all a joke" or "I'm doing internet performance art" or "I did it to get at group XYZ" then you may well find those people who cared about you get pissed off. Big time. They may feel that they have been non-consensually used; that their concerns and emotional energy have been abused.
I have no time for people who will use and abuse me in this manner. Have fun with the rest of your life; I don't care any more.
End of rant.
