Are You A Stalker?
It’s something I’ve been mulling over lately. With the Internet, where exactly does it become stalking?
Take Wil Wheaton, for example. I follow him on Twitter. I read his blog. If he is making an appearance on a tv show, I’ll tend to try to watch it. Every now and again when I’m bored, I’ll google him. I’m undoubtedly a fan, but does this mean I’m a stalker?
Wil is of course a public figure, so my behaviour could be written off as “fandom” without a second thought. What about non-celebrities though? There’s a lovely lady who I follow on Twitter and read her blog, and every now and again I have a peek at her Facebook page. I have contacted her a couple of times, but we’re certainly not “friends” (I doubt she’s even aware of my ongoing existence). She isn’t anyone famous or special, and I happened across her blog accidentally. So am I stalking her? My contacts with her have been brief and to the point, no attempts at the false intimacy and friendship that the internet is famous for fostering. No attempts to find out more about her than she publishes in her Twitter and blog. What do you classify my behaviour toward her as?
Then there’s people who put thing online they want to keep private. Sometimes when they start receiving unwanted attention, they alter the privacy settings on the post or page, but Google cache keeps it available to the general public. Sometimes it’s because they are so Internet-naive that they actually believe they know who exactly knows about and reads their blog, that because they don’t advertise its address that it’s safely hidden away from those who know them (despite being only a couple of mouse clicks from their web page that they give out the address for and freely identify as theirs). Sometimes I find these things through again, being bored and searching for names of people I know (yeah, it’s something I actually do a fair bit). Sometimes I find them after a game of follow-the-link (starting off at a known point, and just clicking subsequent links that come up). Sometimes I’m directed there by someone else. In most cases the person who put the information online would be somewhere between rather annoyed and utterly mortified to know I’d been reading that information, either because I’m a complete stranger or because they do actually know me. So in those cases, is it stalking? It’s information they’ve put out there for the world to see anyway. I haven’t hacked anything to gain access to it. I haven’t used the information to manipulate them. I haven’t made (any or additional, depending on the person) contact with them due to finding this information. But is it stalking?
I know when I’ve googled my own name (I told you I do it a lot!) there are posts from me as a bitter angsty teenager made to newsgroups in 1994. I wouldn’t know how to get them off there if I wanted to. There are people who have left slightly strange comments on my blog (which I haven’t necessarily made public) pointing interesting accusations at me whilst hypocritically hiding behind a false return email address (hi, Peter!!). I’m sure there are people reading my blog and Twitter who I would rather didn’t. But you know what? That’s all part of publishing information on the Internet. You put it up there, it’s there for the world to see and it’s there for ever. I don’t consider reading such information as stalkerish if it’s publically viewable. If someone starts emailing me or leaving blog comments that I don’t appreciate, chances are they’ll be permanently blocked and then the person forgotten very quickly.
I’m sure at least one person reading this is going to be rolling their eyes, thinking I’m full of shit because I don’t even know what it’s like to be stalked. I do. But that was intrusive and scary, behaviour designed to intimidate and control. What I’m talking about doesn’t involve direct contact, but can involve others learning more about you than you’re comfortable with.