Slashdot Mirror
Banned From Kickstarter For Being Cyberstalked
An anonymous reader writes "Rachel Marone has been a victim of cyberstalking for over 10 years. In 2011, she had a project on Kickstarter shut down because of the high volume of spam posted by the stalker in the comment section of the project. Recently, Marone's manager spoke to Kickstarter again to see how she could avoid having a new project banned if the cyberstalker showed up again. They replied, 'If there is any chance that Rachel will receive spam from a stalker on her project, she should not create one. We simply cannot allow a project to become a forum for rampant spam, as her past project became. If this happens again, we will need to discard the project and permanently suspend Rachel's account.' On her website, Marone sums up the situation thus: 'I am being told that I cannot crowdfund because I am a stalking victim. ... With so many women being stalking targets this does not seem reasonable to me.'"
While I hate to resort to tit-for-tat tactics, the obvious answer here is to spam all the founders' accounts.
Because, quite simply, that's 100% undiluted B.S.
The solution is clear, start posting high volumes of messages on all the other projects for supporting kickstarter, an organization that clearly supports 'cyber bullying'. I would imagine that after a significant amount of projects have been shut down, they'd turn around and actually fix the problem properly.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
the inability to comprehend the situation and the lack of enthusiasm in dealing with it in a forthright and efficient manner speaks volumes about kickstarters management culture. they sound like a bunch of incompetent buffoons.
"i represent an unbearable burden on some system and am upset that they won't accomidate me"
You're an idiot and should be kicked in the nuts.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your politician, and hitting them?"
Is this the feminist version of the "think of the children" cry?
Don't blame the website for not wanting to put up with your baggage. Blame the stalker. Take legal matters in your own hands and go after him/her.
People who avoid victims because they don't want to deal with the fallout are the worst kind of cowards. And in your hypothetical situation the answer is easy - just like in this situation with kickstarter.
What the people running the service have done is send a world wide message that anyone can control their service by destroying projects at will.
Of course they will back track very soon. They'll have to, but the mind reels trying to figure out how they did not see this correctly in the first place.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Now she got Slashdotted too.
Isn't that interesting?
Looking at her websites and everything, she looks like one of those artsy people that would benefit incredibly from exposure. Actually, anyone doing any sort of business on the net needs exposure to get noticed.
Over the last decade, I've become extremely cynical about things like this.
If she were really getting threats and people were posting illegal things like child pornography as she said, then the cops would be involved to go after this guy and take him out. But no. Things are continuing for some reason and here she is getting all this free publicity and hits on her website.
Read up on any of the "Gorilla Marketing" type of books out there and you too will become cynical of any sort of public exposure.
From her website:
In my How Facebook Deleted My Ass article I discussed how my account was deleted because I was accused of impersonating myself.
. I don't consider FB to be that credible either, but then again, I wonder what made them come to that conclusion?
And if she is in fact truly being stalked, I blame the marketing people of the World for making public exposure of any sort a cheap way to market products, services, people, art, etc ...
After all, we do live in a World where people actually burn themselves to death to bring attention to issues. What's a little cyber-stalking?
I could see allowing comments as a way of giving accountability to projects. If, for example, someone failed to deliver on a project, being able to comment would be very helpful.
While I think that Kickstarter could have handled it better; read the article on her website.
She got spam comments and she replied to them. She claims that she was being stalked and she recognised the stalker: why reply ? Just report them. You're not supposed to feed trolls.
It is clear the reason she got kicked off because she got interacted with the spammer and was part of the problem.
And WTF is a "transmedia artist" ? She uses various media, multimedia ?
I don't know how "typical"/common-to-type, but I too smell a whiner. 10 years of cyberstalking isn't harassment, it is symbiosis. "Co-dependency" in PC-speak. I find it beyond incredible that a computer-savvy person would be stalked that long without identification and intervention by law enforcement.
OTOH, any site that complains of spamming needs to require registration or grow a pair. The cost of allowing anon is some spam tolerence, or filters of some sort. Banning positive contributors (is she?) enters the death spiral -- rewarding bad behaviour.
Seriously, I don't see what Rachel has done wrong here. The world sucks when a person is punished for being the victim of someone's insanity, insecurity, and inability to cope with the real world. When I read about incidents like this I don't want to live in this world anymore.
I don't mean to be an ass, but that's a natural survival instinct. You don't get into the fight between people you don't know unless you see with absolute certainty that one is a victim. And even then, things are often not as they would seem from the first glance.
That's what police is for in modern society. If you can stop the immediate fight, do it, but get authorities involved. Not yourself. Which is what the site in question did, it stopped the immediate fight by banning the account and informed the known active party (note that she actively participated in those spam threads) that this behaviour will be stopped and that she should not engage in it again if she doesn't want that fight being stopped by banning again.
I honestly don't see anything done wrong. Sure, if it's really as bad as the woman says, it's terrible for her and she should go to the police and really file a complaint with copies of "child porn and infant rape fantasies" she claims she's being sent. But it's not other people's job to take significant commercial losses because she chooses to take the fight to their shop. They also have a right to conduct business without such fights
She makes claims that "police say he's too good for them and FBI won't investigate". Something I personally find very hard to believe considering she's claiming that he's systemically sending "her and hundreds of other victims child porn and infant rape fantasies".
Someone who doesn't fuck up when massively sending crap like that to hundreds of recipients for a decade? That's inhuman. And on top of the cake, her letters with the moderators clearly state that she actively talked to this stalker on their site.
Talking back to a genuine, real-life stalker is a very bad idea. Stalkers are generally certifiably mentally ill. They have a delusion that involves the victim. Any contact, any attention, feeds that delusion. That's one of the reasons you show never engage directly with a stalker.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
With an average death rate compared with other states, the Castle Doctrine doesn't appear to be making much of difference.
Nice law though - invite someone into your home, and blow their head off. Claim they had broken in. Profit!
Texas has a stand-your-ground law, like the one involving the Trayvon case.
No need to invite anyone into your house. Just follow them around while talking
to 911, then approach them, then realize you're getting your ass beat, then shoot
them and claim it was self-defense.
-AI
Btw, I am NOT against Castle or Stand your ground... but I am against dumb
asses causing so much politically charged news cause they couldn't mind their
own damn business, or at least couldn't bring themselves to act as a proxy and
eyes for law enforcement without taking physical actions.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
As previously pointed out, she has mental problems. My diagnosis: she's schitzophrenic, and stalking herself. Now go and read a proper story.