How to respond to and reverse Facebook cyberstalking followed by non-violent bullying using false allegations (conspiracies)
[Note: I put up this post on my spiritual blog as I have been bullied and been made a victim of false allegations/conspiracies on Facebook due to my posts exposing Muddenahalli group FALSE BELIEF.]
This post is based on my experiences from a recent Facebook cyberstalking followed by non-violent conspiracy of false allegations against me (and others) by a Facebook Fake ID bully, and a smaller act of bullying by a Facebook real person ID bully. Those who want to know about it may visit this very long blog post of mine, "Misrepresentation and fabrication by Parthi Resident/Venkatesh Babu against me; Beware of Arun Srinivas, alumnus of Muddenahalli school", http://ravisiyer.blogspot.in/2017/02/my-facebook-posts-related-to.html.
This help post of Facebook, What should I do if I'm being bullied, harassed or attacked by someone on Facebook?, https://www.facebook.com/help/116326365118751, gives the official stand of Facebook on bullying.
Essentially it suggests three responses to bullying: Unfriend the bully, block the bully and report the bully.
It further advises that one should not retaliate (as most bullies want a reaction), should not keep it a secret (share it with someone you trust), and that one should document the bullying (printout, screenshots) and save it in case one needs it in future.
It also says, "If you feel you're in immediate danger, contact your local authorities." This deals with violent threats by Facebook bullies. This post does not deal with such violent threats by bullies. Also, I have not really encountered violent threats on Facebook so far.
My experience on Facebook with non-violent bullying is that ordinary level of bullying like name-calling and writing illogical and abusive comments which come in the way of fruitful Facebook interaction, can be very effectively handled by blocking the bully, whether it is a real Facebook ID person or a fake Facebook ID person. This is in line with Facebook official advice as mentioned above.
With blocking, essentially the bully becomes invisible in one's Facebook world, and one becomes invisible to the bully (unless he/she uses another Facebook Id or something like that). Other Facebook friends may inform us at times of what the bully wrote about us elsewhere (the bully cannot comment on the Facebook posts of a person who has blocked him/her). But one learns quickly to ignore such bully comments passed on to us by others.
But there are times when the bully goes out of the way to cyberstalk a Facebook user, even when the Facebook user has blocked the bully (perhaps using some other Facebook ID), and captures screenshots of conversations on that Facebook user's wall which may have some sensitive stuff. The bully can then take these screenshots, doctor them, and use it in an out-of-context way, to make false charges against the targeted Facebook user, on another Facebook user's post/timeline who has many friends & followers, thereby giving the false charges the oxygen of publicity.
And these false charges may involve some important people in the place the Facebook user lives or works. Then these false charges could negatively and quite harshly impact, at least temporarily, the real life of the targeted Facebook user. This is what happened to me, when I was targeted by a fake Facebook ID bully, as covered in the post I mentioned and linked to at the top of this post.
What should one do then? How does such a Facebook user who is targeted by vicious and malicious fake Facebook ID bully (or real Facebook ID bully), with a non-violent conspiracy kind-of effort, react and respond to the bullying and conspiracy, and even try to reverse the bullying and conspiracy negative impact on the Facebook bully himself/herself? My suggestions on it, based on my experience, is given below.
1) Publicly document the (non-violent) bullying and conspiracy. Expose the false allegations made by the bully. Note that very sensitive parts of the matter can be blanked/snipped out to avoid embarrassment to other people. The effective bully may use a mix of truth and falsehood. So the exposure of the false part of the bully's Facebook posts and/or comments may require an easy-to-understand explanation of how the bully/conspirator added false stuff to some truth to make a deadly cocktail of malicious and false allegations. Such public exposure of the bully's false allegations clears the name of the Facebook user targeted by the Facebook bully & conspirator. This is what happened in my case.
2) Complain to Facebook using its report facility, and attempt to ask Facebook to remove the offending content. However, these complaints to Facebook may be rejected as Facebook seems to be very permissive in terms of false content users can write.
3) Try to reason with the bully to remove the content. But sometimes the bully may try BLACKMAIL in such interactions. My view is that it is better to reject such BLACKMAIL from bullies as accepting it may set one up for more BLACKMAIL in future by further Facebook bullying and conspiracies. In my case, the fake ID bully tried BLACKMAIL. I rejected it.
4) Make a cyber police complaint threat to the bully. This police complaint can be made online in the Andhra Pradesh, India state that I live in. Here's the link for it: http://www.cidap.gov.in/cid/complaint. It may be similar elsewhere in India, and in some other countries in the world.
Making only a threat of filing a cyber police complaint (not really filing one) may work wonders when the bully uses a real person Facebook ID, and is in the same country as the person being bullied. The mention of cyber police criminal complaint of cyberstalking and harassment, may make the real Facebook ID person get scared of police action against him/her and so delete the offending content, and perhaps even apologize. That's what seems to have happened with one Facebook bully in my case (including a public apology from the Facebook bully).
But a fake Facebook ID bully, especially if the person is operating from/living in a different country from that of the Facebook user being bullied, may not get scared so easily. In my case, the fake Facebook ID bully seems to have got somewhat scared but as he seems to live outside India, perhaps in a Western country, he seemed to think that he could not be touched by Indian cyber police for his malicious and false allegations (defamation) against me. So he did not remove the offending content though it seemed to me that he got the message that he may land in some trouble if I really filed the cyber police complaint.
5) If the bully is a fake Facebook ID bully, threaten him/her with using cyber detective services to identify his real person identity and location. The bully may get scared. An extreme opposite reaction may be the bully daring the target to use cyber detective services to locate him/her. In my case, the bully did not get scared but neither did he get into any provocative talk of daring me to use cyber detective services.
6) Make the cyber police complaint. I don't have any experience of this as in my case there was concern about the publicity it may give to some nasty comments attributed to somebody else that was a central part of the Facebook conspiracy against me, if I made a cyber police complaint. So I did not make the cyber police complaint.
I believe that a cyber police complaint in such cases, if explained properly to the cyber police with good and easy-to-understand documentation of the case, could lead to the cyber police asking Facebook company to provide I.P. address and location details of the Facebook bully (real person or fake ID), which may then lead to positive identification of real person in the case of fake ID persons as well as the place and country he/she lives in.
If the person is in the same country as where the cyber police complaint was made, then I think the person would then have to answer the police and become accountable for his bullying and harassment actions. That would surely scare a normal person. I think the police would let the complainant (the target of the bully) know about the identification of the real person who did the bullying, which then gives the options to the complainant (Facebook user target of the bully) to file more serious charges in a police station or in a court of law (e.g. Criminal and/or civil defamation charges) against the Facebook bully.
Further, in case of fake ID bully, the targeted person gets the opportunity to 'out' the fake ID Facebook bully and expose him on social media. That can be a powerful name-and-shame embarrassment way of delivering social media justice to the fake ID Facebook bully. If the fake ID Facebook bully is holding a regular job in private sector or public sector, a complaint could be made to his/her employers.
Note that cyber police complaint getting info. about fake Facebook ID bully, followed by 'outing' of bully on social media, and complaint to employer of Facebook bully (if he/she is an employee), are serious steps which can cause a lot of problems for the Facebook bully in the short-term as well as in the long-term. Therefore they should be considered only in cases where the Facebook bully refuses to be reasonable and insists on bullying and spreading false and malicious charges.
7) Use private cyber detectives to 'out' fake Facebook bully. In this option, expenses will be involved. The track record of the private cyber detective company should be examined and found satisfactory. To avoid cost overrun, a fixed price contract should be worked out with the cyber detective company, perhaps with phased payments based on incremental results.
Once the fake Facebook ID bully is 'outed' by the private cyber detectives then some of what I have given in point 6) above will come into play.
--------
That completes the steps that I can suggest to respond to and reverse serious but non-violent Facebook bullying and conspiracies. In my case of being a target of vicious and malicious but non-violent conspiracy by a fake Facebook ID bully against me, I was able to respond by clearing my name and reverse it against the Facebook bully by exposing him as a malicious conspirator on social media. But as I could not take steps 6) and 7) above to identify the real person behind the fake Facebook ID bully, I could not reverse it fully and remove the offensive and false comments against me by the bully, on somebody else's Facebook post.
But I think I have been able to give a clear message to the fake Facebook ID bully that if he repeats such vicious and malicious conspiracies against me in future, I will, in all probability, make a cyber police complaint (step 6 above) and/or use private cyber detectives to 'out' him (step 7 above). That, I think, reduces the possibility of this bully trying such stunts on me again.
This post is based on my experiences from a recent Facebook cyberstalking followed by non-violent conspiracy of false allegations against me (and others) by a Facebook Fake ID bully, and a smaller act of bullying by a Facebook real person ID bully. Those who want to know about it may visit this very long blog post of mine, "Misrepresentation and fabrication by Parthi Resident/Venkatesh Babu against me; Beware of Arun Srinivas, alumnus of Muddenahalli school", http://ravisiyer.blogspot.in/2017/02/my-facebook-posts-related-to.html.
This help post of Facebook, What should I do if I'm being bullied, harassed or attacked by someone on Facebook?, https://www.facebook.com/help/116326365118751, gives the official stand of Facebook on bullying.
Essentially it suggests three responses to bullying: Unfriend the bully, block the bully and report the bully.
It further advises that one should not retaliate (as most bullies want a reaction), should not keep it a secret (share it with someone you trust), and that one should document the bullying (printout, screenshots) and save it in case one needs it in future.
It also says, "If you feel you're in immediate danger, contact your local authorities." This deals with violent threats by Facebook bullies. This post does not deal with such violent threats by bullies. Also, I have not really encountered violent threats on Facebook so far.
My experience on Facebook with non-violent bullying is that ordinary level of bullying like name-calling and writing illogical and abusive comments which come in the way of fruitful Facebook interaction, can be very effectively handled by blocking the bully, whether it is a real Facebook ID person or a fake Facebook ID person. This is in line with Facebook official advice as mentioned above.
With blocking, essentially the bully becomes invisible in one's Facebook world, and one becomes invisible to the bully (unless he/she uses another Facebook Id or something like that). Other Facebook friends may inform us at times of what the bully wrote about us elsewhere (the bully cannot comment on the Facebook posts of a person who has blocked him/her). But one learns quickly to ignore such bully comments passed on to us by others.
But there are times when the bully goes out of the way to cyberstalk a Facebook user, even when the Facebook user has blocked the bully (perhaps using some other Facebook ID), and captures screenshots of conversations on that Facebook user's wall which may have some sensitive stuff. The bully can then take these screenshots, doctor them, and use it in an out-of-context way, to make false charges against the targeted Facebook user, on another Facebook user's post/timeline who has many friends & followers, thereby giving the false charges the oxygen of publicity.
And these false charges may involve some important people in the place the Facebook user lives or works. Then these false charges could negatively and quite harshly impact, at least temporarily, the real life of the targeted Facebook user. This is what happened to me, when I was targeted by a fake Facebook ID bully, as covered in the post I mentioned and linked to at the top of this post.
What should one do then? How does such a Facebook user who is targeted by vicious and malicious fake Facebook ID bully (or real Facebook ID bully), with a non-violent conspiracy kind-of effort, react and respond to the bullying and conspiracy, and even try to reverse the bullying and conspiracy negative impact on the Facebook bully himself/herself? My suggestions on it, based on my experience, is given below.
1) Publicly document the (non-violent) bullying and conspiracy. Expose the false allegations made by the bully. Note that very sensitive parts of the matter can be blanked/snipped out to avoid embarrassment to other people. The effective bully may use a mix of truth and falsehood. So the exposure of the false part of the bully's Facebook posts and/or comments may require an easy-to-understand explanation of how the bully/conspirator added false stuff to some truth to make a deadly cocktail of malicious and false allegations. Such public exposure of the bully's false allegations clears the name of the Facebook user targeted by the Facebook bully & conspirator. This is what happened in my case.
2) Complain to Facebook using its report facility, and attempt to ask Facebook to remove the offending content. However, these complaints to Facebook may be rejected as Facebook seems to be very permissive in terms of false content users can write.
3) Try to reason with the bully to remove the content. But sometimes the bully may try BLACKMAIL in such interactions. My view is that it is better to reject such BLACKMAIL from bullies as accepting it may set one up for more BLACKMAIL in future by further Facebook bullying and conspiracies. In my case, the fake ID bully tried BLACKMAIL. I rejected it.
4) Make a cyber police complaint threat to the bully. This police complaint can be made online in the Andhra Pradesh, India state that I live in. Here's the link for it: http://www.cidap.gov.in/cid/complaint. It may be similar elsewhere in India, and in some other countries in the world.
Making only a threat of filing a cyber police complaint (not really filing one) may work wonders when the bully uses a real person Facebook ID, and is in the same country as the person being bullied. The mention of cyber police criminal complaint of cyberstalking and harassment, may make the real Facebook ID person get scared of police action against him/her and so delete the offending content, and perhaps even apologize. That's what seems to have happened with one Facebook bully in my case (including a public apology from the Facebook bully).
But a fake Facebook ID bully, especially if the person is operating from/living in a different country from that of the Facebook user being bullied, may not get scared so easily. In my case, the fake Facebook ID bully seems to have got somewhat scared but as he seems to live outside India, perhaps in a Western country, he seemed to think that he could not be touched by Indian cyber police for his malicious and false allegations (defamation) against me. So he did not remove the offending content though it seemed to me that he got the message that he may land in some trouble if I really filed the cyber police complaint.
5) If the bully is a fake Facebook ID bully, threaten him/her with using cyber detective services to identify his real person identity and location. The bully may get scared. An extreme opposite reaction may be the bully daring the target to use cyber detective services to locate him/her. In my case, the bully did not get scared but neither did he get into any provocative talk of daring me to use cyber detective services.
6) Make the cyber police complaint. I don't have any experience of this as in my case there was concern about the publicity it may give to some nasty comments attributed to somebody else that was a central part of the Facebook conspiracy against me, if I made a cyber police complaint. So I did not make the cyber police complaint.
I believe that a cyber police complaint in such cases, if explained properly to the cyber police with good and easy-to-understand documentation of the case, could lead to the cyber police asking Facebook company to provide I.P. address and location details of the Facebook bully (real person or fake ID), which may then lead to positive identification of real person in the case of fake ID persons as well as the place and country he/she lives in.
If the person is in the same country as where the cyber police complaint was made, then I think the person would then have to answer the police and become accountable for his bullying and harassment actions. That would surely scare a normal person. I think the police would let the complainant (the target of the bully) know about the identification of the real person who did the bullying, which then gives the options to the complainant (Facebook user target of the bully) to file more serious charges in a police station or in a court of law (e.g. Criminal and/or civil defamation charges) against the Facebook bully.
Further, in case of fake ID bully, the targeted person gets the opportunity to 'out' the fake ID Facebook bully and expose him on social media. That can be a powerful name-and-shame embarrassment way of delivering social media justice to the fake ID Facebook bully. If the fake ID Facebook bully is holding a regular job in private sector or public sector, a complaint could be made to his/her employers.
Note that cyber police complaint getting info. about fake Facebook ID bully, followed by 'outing' of bully on social media, and complaint to employer of Facebook bully (if he/she is an employee), are serious steps which can cause a lot of problems for the Facebook bully in the short-term as well as in the long-term. Therefore they should be considered only in cases where the Facebook bully refuses to be reasonable and insists on bullying and spreading false and malicious charges.
7) Use private cyber detectives to 'out' fake Facebook bully. In this option, expenses will be involved. The track record of the private cyber detective company should be examined and found satisfactory. To avoid cost overrun, a fixed price contract should be worked out with the cyber detective company, perhaps with phased payments based on incremental results.
Once the fake Facebook ID bully is 'outed' by the private cyber detectives then some of what I have given in point 6) above will come into play.
--------
That completes the steps that I can suggest to respond to and reverse serious but non-violent Facebook bullying and conspiracies. In my case of being a target of vicious and malicious but non-violent conspiracy by a fake Facebook ID bully against me, I was able to respond by clearing my name and reverse it against the Facebook bully by exposing him as a malicious conspirator on social media. But as I could not take steps 6) and 7) above to identify the real person behind the fake Facebook ID bully, I could not reverse it fully and remove the offensive and false comments against me by the bully, on somebody else's Facebook post.
But I think I have been able to give a clear message to the fake Facebook ID bully that if he repeats such vicious and malicious conspiracies against me in future, I will, in all probability, make a cyber police complaint (step 6 above) and/or use private cyber detectives to 'out' him (step 7 above). That, I think, reduces the possibility of this bully trying such stunts on me again.
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