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So someone who's got ADHD and depression should effectively be stopped from using the internet in case they get bullied?

Asking you to fill out a survey is not harassment, neither is trying to tell you stuff. This person was the victim of a vicious and malicious campaign against her, and you really have the guts to compare it to someone trying to sell you stuff on the street?

Online bullying is real bullying. Would you say that if someone sends you a text message you should ignore it because it 'could be a bot'.

Yes- people should be educated that people online may not be who they say there are, or may not exist. But I think this is orthogonal to the proposal, which is that if someone harasses and bullies you online, you should be able to find out who they are and stop them. Just the same way you'd expect the police to help you out if someone started making abusive phone calls to your house.

> So someone who's got ADHD and depression should effectively be stopped from using the internet in case they get bullied?

No, as long as people caring for them know the potential risks and impact. It's up to parents to ensure their children are aware of how to view/use the internet.

If your child has epilepsy, then you have to be careful with strobe lights etc. It's just basic risk assessment.

> Would you say that if someone sends you a text message you should ignore it because it 'could be a bot'.

Every so often I get an automated bot SMS messages from vodafone. If someone/something sends you a message that you don't care about, delete it. Move on. If you're getting lots, then maybe you need a technological solution to filter out the spam/bots. The point is, don't start waging a war against the noise, just ignore it.

> "Just the same way you'd expect the police to help you out if someone started making abusive phone calls to your house."

I doubt the police would care unless there were specific threats to your life, or stalking etc. More likely you'd just be told to block their number.

It's a very slippery slope from this, toward "I find this joke offensive, the joke teller should be prosecuted".

I think it is more of a case of our civil laws starting to catch back up to how far technology has been pushed.

Unfortunately, it seems there will always be some humans out of the whole who will abuse/take advantage of/mess it up for the rest for whatever reason. In many of our civilizations, we attempt to codify what is acceptable behavior and what is damaging behavior, and what recourses we have for harm inflicted.

> Online "bullying" isn't really bullying though. It's your computer telling you that some human being apparently said something.

What? Compare to:

> "bullying" on paper isn't really bullying though. It's marks on paper telling you that some human being apparently said something.

> "bullying" on your voicemail isn't really bullying though. It's recorded sounds telling you that some human being apparently said something.

The medium is irrelevant; the content is what's relevant.

I always thought bullying doesn't count unless there is a real threat of being beaten up behind the school on a regular basis. Apparently mainstream definitions are much broader...

My point is that your first response when getting a message, through any medium, is "Did this message come from who I think it did". Is it from someone I care about.

If it's from someone/something you don't care about, discard it, block it. Setup filters etc.

> The medium is irrelevant; the content is what's relevant.

The content is only relevant if it's from someone you care about. If it's from a bot, or some anonymous internet troll, the content is irrelevant. Discard it.

I could go through my "spam" folder and start getting offended/repulsed/scared by everything it contains. But what would be the point?

It's a lot easier for a bot/human to make out they're someone else online, than it is leaving a voicemail. (Until you can say to a speech changer "Make me sound like my targets girlfriend").

> The content is only relevant if it's from someone you care about. If it's from a bot, or some anonymous internet troll, the content is irrelevant. Discard it.

I don't think that's true. There are lots of cases of disturbing content containing specific knowledge of and threats to the recipient where the source is an anonymous internet troll. The latest case is here: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/laurie-pen...

> People need to grow far thicker skin when it comes to words.

I prefer this viewpoint: "a culture where the only people able to contribute to the national conversation are thick-skinned, insensitive, white, straight males who can repel or ignore this ugly trench of abuse is not a culture any thinking person should want to live in." http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/laurie-pen...

I also suspect that turning this into a conversation about spam and how this happens to everyone would be classed as "derailing"

People need to grow far thicker skin when it comes to words.

Sometimes these cases seem to be coming from people who just bought their first internet machine and become deeply offended that arguing on the internet works by different rules than their dinner table conversations. I would even go so far and argue that trolling can lead to a higher level of tolerance, as it pushes the believes of those being trolled over the top. In an ideal scenario this could lead to realization that their opinions, views, and in the end reality, are not as black and white as they think - i.e. a Steven Colbert effect.

Could you perhaps back up your assertion that "trolling can lead to a higher level of tolerance" as it specifically applies to this case?

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/internet/2012/06/dear-inte...

> Online "bullying" isn't really bullying though. It's your computer telling you that some human being apparently said something. You should take that with a huge grain of salt. It could as likely be a bot

Let me just take a second to call bullshit on that.