Civilised society?

As a relative newbie to the blogosphere, I was horrified to see this post from Kathy Sierra, via a link from the BBC.

OK, so it’s not exactly unusual to see some really stupid things posted in anger in response to articles or blog posts individuals may consider offensive for personal, political or religious reasons. Most of us are guilty of such behaviour in the heat of the moment – and we often regret posting so hastily.

Bullying – offline or online, is bad enough. I was picked on at school, for no other reason than being a bit of an “odd” kid with hair a different colour than most of the other kids at school, but a lot of redheads tend to have similar experiences (which can sometimes contrast with experience as an adult: a stranger once stopped me when I was out shopping in Bradford city centre one lunchtime and asked where I got my hair coloured, as it looked so natural – and was amazed when I laughed and asked why she thought it wasn’t my natural colour?). And as an adult, one of my employers was a serial bully to anyone who worked in my position (and she wondered why no-one lasted more than six months in that job…)

But posting death threats? That isn’t crossing the line, that’s taking a run up and taking a world record-breaking long jump over it. ‘Anonymous’ or not, death threats are simply never acceptable, no matter how insulted you feel. Kathy, my thoughts are with you. I hope the thoughtless idiots who subjected you to such abusive behaviour are quickly apprehended and prosecuted to whatever extent your state or federal law allows. If they try to use a “freedom of speech” defence, I hope the prosecutor – and the presiding judge – exposes such an attempt as nothing more than bullshit – which it is. And I hope a successful prosecution makes that point crystal clear.

~ by me on 27 March 2007.