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People try to paint these types of things as being a problem unique and newly introduced with the advent of the Internet. In truth, there have always been ways to slander and defame someone just because you don't like them. You can always post an anonymous editorial in the paper about someone, or make an anonymous phone call to DHR or child services slandering someone. It's not just 'cyberstalking'. There has never been much recourse for victims of slander.

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But surely it is very different when you can post an endless river of vicious comments in thousands of different places, have those comments searchable by anyone, and then have the world's most trusted search engines compile those comments in a way that suggests that they are the most relevant for a persons name.

And I don't think that anyone could ever have posted an "anonymous editorial" in a paper. Newspaper content is written by staff (or wire services) and letters to the editor are curated.

You can submit an editorial to any newspaper in the world anonymously, whether they choose to publish any of the material contained therein would be up to the newspaper and whether they though there was any validity (or more likely, public interest) in the editorial.

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