Have you ever been bullied online before?

[Ezra]

I've been bullied here and there. Some seemed to think they could push me around or off a sub-forum because of my age. They were wrong. I don't get intimidated, I get aggressive.

 

[tlc]

I have been occassionally. More often it's just a disagreement that I just let go. Who cares, I'm online. Some forums are nice places, some are not. Usually the well moderated ones are much nicer, and have strict rules against personal attacks, so that's what I use. But in any case, no forum is worth being miserable over. And I don't have a huge online presence. I'm here and at a few other forums and that's it. I don't blog, youtube, facebook or any social media.

 

[Otenba]

I have. I've tried running meetups through forums for people in same fandoms as me and, well, when people decide you're their target, you can only do so much about it if you have no support behind you. I have had to walk away from a lot of stuff because I have so much in common with my bullies; found better people through other hobbies they're not involved with that happened to have more mature people in the mix. I will never ever run a meetup again because of these bad experiences. People are so rude, entitled, and ungrateful, it's not worth the stress. Anime fans, and gamers, are the particularly bad groups from my experiences, and had a lot nicer time with board gamer groups (not including card gamers because again, can be just as bad as the other problematic groups I've stated). I know good people are there in all these groups, it's just finding them (I still identify as these things despite others' spite). I suspect the better quality people are the ones that don't try to join the fan groups looking to get their egos stroked...

 

[Mr Allen]

A good few years ago my original Gmail account got hacked by online trolls from Sheffield Forum, who signed me up to a plethora of gay forums (they think I'm gay because I watch wrestling, which according to uneducated plebs is all sweaty men in tights hugging each other).

They also hacked my Blog on livejournal.com and wrote some horrible stuff on there about me.

I now have a Blog on Wordpress.com, which I link to on here and nowhere else, and the only reason I link to it in my signature on here is because this forum is Autism specific so in theory you lot understand me.

 

[pjcnet]

A good few years ago my original Gmail account got hacked by online trolls from Sheffield Forum, who signed me up to a plethora of gay forums (they think I'm gay because I watch wrestling, which according to uneducated plebs is all sweaty men in tights hugging each other).

They also hacked my Blog on livejournal.com and wrote some horrible stuff on there about me.

They sound incredibly immature, but I doubt they truly believed you're gay because being called gay only usually upsets some people who aren't and it sounds like they just tried to find something that winds you up and have a "good" laugh at your expense which is of course a type of bullying, but hacking into your online accounts is a criminal offence in most countries including the UK, not to mention the bullying side of it.

 

[GrownupGirl]

One time on YouTube someone used autism as an insult and I told them I have Asperger's and I didn't appreciate them doing that. And then they replied "Oh great, an autistic furry tranny". They assumed I'm a furry and a transsexual because I had a female sounding username and a female cartoon wolf that I drew myself for an avatar. I told them I've always been female and they had an animal-sounding username as well, but I was so miserable and upset that soon afterwards I changed my username and avatar. I never really got over it. Most of the time I don't even read other people's comments or replies to anything I've posted on YT or Facebook because I know it's going to be horrible.

 

[Theta.G]

Stalking...Entrapment...doxing...extortion...death threats... mind ****ing... stealing identity...

Do those count as bullying?

Some online environments were much, much more toxic than others. If you're a good player in competitive online games you'll naturally acquire envious haters. They can't beat you so they must attack you in other ways outside of the game...

As screwed up as that era was... through countering their actions over the years i've learned plenty about online security and such. Learn from your enemies.

 

[Mr Allen]

One thing I noticed on some sites similar to the one I was a sysop for is that some staff seemed to let the power of their authority go to their heads and they themselves were known to bully members, this happened even more because they were providing a service that was quite exclusive and they knew many members were frightened of being banned and would even fear them (you needed an invite to join and invites were often limited as the sites could only accommodate a set number of members because the demand was often much higher). I made sure I was different and gave my best to offer a quality service by treating and respecting members as customers and I eventually got a good reputation by doing this, but even on many open forums and communities some staff can be very unprofessional. Remember that a large proportion of online staff are volunteers and don't get paid, they're often not trained or have much experience when they start working as staff and they're not always the nicest or maturest of people. In other words they don't always act like they're professionals offering customer service as part of a good quality business, it can be a different thing altogether, but many people expect the same type of professional treatment from these volunteer staff as they would from for instance customer service staff for a decent utility company, sometimes members may be dealt with professionally and fairly, but other times they unfortunately won't be and this can sometimes surprise people.

PS: From what I've seen so far on ASPIESCentral the staff here seem very professional and friendly which is very good to see and that greatly helps keep the entire community friendly. In my opinion it's very important for staff to set a good example, the staff here also get involved in the community and come across as approachable.

Indeed, over on Sheffield Forum, their Mods have been greatly criticised for being TOO heavy handed at times, and enforcing the rules very tightly, there's been some good threads on there closed because the Mods don't like how the threads are ending up, especially anything Political, but that's probably because there's a LOT of people on there with VERY right wing views, lots of racism etc.

Like if I posted anything anti-Brexit as I have in the Politics section on here, I would've got banned definitely.

 

[xDominiel]

Not exactly, but every time someone uses "autistic" as an insult or a description for something unwanted,
which seems to be pretty popular in recent times, it does feel like an attack on my entire identity.
I've had my share of random hostility, which is to be expected online. I'm sure we all have.

 

[xDominiel]

I don't express myself properly and I tend to offend without meaning to

Yeah, this has been a problem of mine, too.
I'm pretty sure there have been times on this forum where I've done that.
I try to look for my flaws and improve when possible, though.

 

[Voltaic]

yeah. when @Major Tom leaves the chat roon to take his kid to school, leaving me all alone.