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Women are more often the target of online harassment.
What options do they have when it comes to online harassment?
Everyday women are stalked and or threatened online. Just a few examples include being sent unwanted sexual photos or video or harassed through social media. Online harassment is a behavior that causes the victims to feel distress and fear for their lives.
Do they have any recourse? What does the law say? How can we fight online harassment?
There aren’t a lot of ways to deal with online harassers, but there are a few. In the legal system, victims can go after harassers or attackers criminally and civilly.
Victims can sue their harassers in civil court under tort law claiming defamation, harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, copyright infringement, and public disclosure of private facts.
- They can sue for cyber attacks, which includes cyber stalking, threats of violence, spreading online lies, posting sensitive data such as nude images or private information, or attacking their online presence.
Most states have also made it online harassment and online stalking a crime so victims can press charges against attackers.
- Many states, however, have not updated and reformed their laws to reflect the issues associated with the internet such as cyber harassment and stalking.
Additionally, there are two downsides to filing such lawsuits. One, they’re emotionally draining, and two, they can be very expensive. One major recent case that was in the news was Jennifer Lawrence’s. She fortunately, had a legal team and the money to fight against her attacker who leaked nude photos online from her cloud. But that’s not a reality for many people and that’s why the laws must change to reflect reality.
Check your state laws to see if online harassment and stalking are criminal offenses. If not, hopefully in the near future laws will be reformed to reflect more recent technology.
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