It is now a federal crime to annoy someone over the Internet. Anonymously, I mean. I'm still in the clear.
Packaged in with the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act signed last week, the law states that anyone who uses the Internet 'without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten" will be fined or tossed in the pokey for a couple of years, or both. Goodbye, LiveJournal. We hardly knew ye.
The intention was to reduce cyberstalking, but the law is worded vaguely enough to use against the Web's most reviled inhabitants: shady, skulking people whose sworn duty is to annoy others. People whose only goal is to disrupt and infuriate, who pride themselves on ruining any chances of civilized discourse. I'm talking, of course, about radio talk show hosts.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's tough to do, but it's the only method I've ever found that was effective even some of the time.
One self-proclaimed troll at the Serenity boards was ravaging the place and I got him, eventually, into a discussion of the movie. After a few exchanges he even commented on it. "Wow, if I were you I'd have yelled at me by now. Do you have kids?"
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's worded vaguely enough to use against spammers. While they may claim a different intent, they also know that what they do is considered to be annoying by the vastly overwhelming majority of folks who receive their missives.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
