In what I can only call a moment of remarkable stupidity, I opened a Twitter account. I knew it was a cesspool, rivaled only by Gab, Reddit, 4 chan and 8 chan, but I did it anyway. There is a reason I don't do any social media but here, and the last few days have reminded me why I was right to avoid them.
I saw a tweet about an article on Christopher Cleary, the man who posted on his Facebook page his intention of going to a public place and killing as many girls as he could. He was living in Provo, Utah at the time. Local police were alerted by the Colorado probation office because he was in violation of the terms of probation for threatening multiple women, which a Colorado probation officer called a pattern for him. Among those threats was a text stating he had several guns and the recipient could be dead in seconds. Colorado regards it as a low level felony, and he got probation and mandatory counseling, which appears to have done no good.
This was in January, and there were women's marches planned in the Provo area. The police took the comments seriously and, with the help of the F.B.I., located him.and arrested him. He admitted to having written the post, blaming women for rejecting him and for his being a virgin at 27. A Utah judge sentenced him to a maximum of 5 years in prison. Colorado plans to extradite him for re-sentencing and asking for incarceration because he is a threat to the community. He was originally given probation and counseling. My personal is that, while he is a danger,he should be committed to get the help.he so desperately needs. Jail will only make him angrier, and he is likely to emerge with more rage against women than he went in with and more determined to get his revenge. Folks, this what incels are like, and why they are a problem.
I responded to a tweet supporting him and stating he had done nothing wrong and had a first amendment right to say whatever he wanted. The tweeter (what a stupid word) said he hadn't targeted a specific person, something his defense attorney pushed, so he did nothing wrong. It went downhill from there. He then launched into an incoherent rant about Free Market Capitalism (his caps, not mine), against equal pay ( let the market decide), equal.rights for women ( we already have them and women are mean and horrible and false ly accuse and lie and are just Blue Meanies) Ayn Rand (he's a fan), my hatred of men (I don't hate men, in case you wondered), how women should be forced to be under the protection of a man, and how marriages should be arranged for them. In other words, your basic incel ravings.
Then he wished that I would be raped by Brett Kavanaugh. Yes, you read that correctly. He told me he wanted me to.be raped.
I reported him. Because I had argued with him in strongly worded but never directly insulting or threatening terms, Twitter decided it didn't violate their standards.
What the bloody hell does someone have to do to on Twitter before it is considered a violation of standards? Where does freedom of speech end and abuse begin? This guy could be the next James Holmes or Jared Lee Loughner. I have no desire to be someone's victim. He scared me. He scared me a lot.
It takes a lot to scare me.
When Mr. Witch was in Saudi in Desert Storm, I had an obscene phone caller. I didnt have caller I.D. so I did what the phone company told me to.do, and kept a log ( they needed at least 2 weeks of ongoing harassment before they'd do anything to identify him,and the police weren't interested). I got fed up, finally. Next time he called, I criticized his technique, told him he needed to at least learn how to pronounce big words before he used them, and suggested he get a tape recorder and practice. He never called back.
While I was writing for Erotica Readers Association online, I rather stupidly posted a picture on their website of myself in my bellydancing costume. Trust me, it covers a lot more ground than a bikini. I got some admiring e-mails, telling me how good I looked and they were very politely worded. And then one man got obsessed and demanded more pictures, telling me he was in love with me, threatening harm to my husband. I found that.... disconcerting.
What to do next?
Years ago, I had run up against a 15 year-old boy who took being rejected from a writing list I co-ran, and we had a pal hack the e-mails he bombed us with (20-40 a day for a week!) and got the name of his ISP. We told him we would report him to the ISP for harassment and his mother would find out when they cut off her internet service. It stopped. I think he was afraid his Mom would take away his computer.
I did the same thing to the stalker. I wasn't too worried because (1) he didn't know my name since I intelligently posted under a user I.D., and (2) I was living in Japan on a base. Even if he somehow learned where I lived, he'd never have gotten on base without a pass requested by someone on base (this was after the Cole and embassy bombings; security was heightened and they searched every car). This time I actually reported him to the ISP, and he got cut off once they saw the threatening e-mails. ( Oh,yeah, and the stories got published and I got paid for them)
Twitter is less responsive. And yes, I let one scary incel chase me off because, frankly, social media is something I can live without. This dude clearly has mental health problems, just like Christopher Cleary. Most people with mental health problems are far more likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators. I had a bout of clinical.depression in the 90s, so I know what it is like to be miserable but I didn't threaten anyone. This man, though, I strongly feel, is potentially dangerous and I didn't want to wait around for him to escalate. That kind of threat is something I take seriously when the threatener is obviously unhinged.
I am gone, girl, gone, never to return.
But it does raise some interesting questions. When will threatening women be taken seriously on social media? Where do you draw the line between freedom of speech, bad behavior that while obnoxious is still not reprehensible, and actual threats that cross a line? Who gets to decide? How should a woman or a man for that matter, handle a situation of this sort?
It isn't completely unreasonable to be unnerved by something. We have seen examples where some one like this has become dangerous. Here are a few.
* Elliott Rodgers, who has been christened the "Supreme Gentleman" by incel admirers after his rampage.
* George Sodini, a failed pickup artist who targeted women at a gym.
* Alek Minassian, the Canadian man who drove his car onto.a sidewalk to.kill people,preferably women, i order to start an incel revolution.
These are men who believe that women aren't actually human beings and men should be allowed to rape them because rape only takes a few minutes and doesn't really bother us because we have sex with other men. Women are right to fear them.because we never know who is just a loud-mouthed misogynist asshole, and who will.be the next mass shooter. Or maybe just our shooter.
I let him drive me away, which is perhaps cowardly, but he wasn't going to go away. I wasn't entirely certain he wouldn't open an account under a different name an e-mail account, and I had had enough. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor