8 Awesome Cases of Internet Vigilantism
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#4.
Zhang Ya Pisses Off China
Have you ever experienced a large scale national disaster and thought to yourself "goddamn death and destruction, why aren't people paying attention to me?" and then gone on to post a video with similar sentiments on the Internet? Did you also express joy at the deaths of some of the victims and wish they had died sooner, while claiming some of the survivors were too unattractive to be on TV and lamenting that the news coverage was preventing your favorite shows from airing? Do people often call you a douchebag? You may be Zhang Ya, a Chinese girl with apparently nothing even remotely close to common sense or decency.
It was after the Siuchan earthquake in 2008, when Zhang made what amounts to a YouTube video bitching about how the earthquake and all its victims were really ruining her day. This in turn lead to an epic scale shitstorm of angry fallout with the video being posted and reposted across the Internet and angry responses jammed with what was probably some extremely creative Chinese cursing. The girl was eventually arrested and held in custody for three days after personal information was posted online (and in such detail that people even knew her blood type). Some websites say she was brought in for protection from the massive mob of angry Chinese bloggers, while other sites claim she was arrested for what she posted, citing some Chinese laws about defamation and endangering public stability. So, that kind of adds another dimension to the whole Internet flame war thing, doesn't it? Piss enough people off in a video blog and suddenly you're in some forced labor camp making lead-painted toys.
#3.
Alan Ralsky: Spamming the Spam King
If you love email spam, you can thank Alan Ralsky. He started spamming back before anyone knew what spam was, in the late 90s. By 2001, he managed to push so much shit through the Verizon servers he shut them down, leading to a lawsuit from Verizon. That lawsuit was settled and by 2002, Ralsky was rolling in enough dick enlargement cream cash to buy a $750,000 mansion. He continued spamming, using a database of 250 million names, charging companies to send out their shit e-mails for them. Up to 70 million a day, by his own admission.
As with all great assholes, the taint of arrogance was right around the corner, under the ballsack of stupidity. Ralsky, smug and potentially borderline retarded, did an interview with the Detroit News in which he seemed quite pleased with himself and the legal way he was doing business. Readers didn't find things as amusing as he did and when the interview was posted on Slashdot, some people went out of their way to find the address to his new home, which they then posted. The result was Ralsky being signed up to every hardcopy mailing campaign people could find.
Snail mail, as the kids call it, started arriving at Ralsky's mansion by the truckload. Literally by the truckload, as tons of it was delivered to his house each and every day. Ralsky's reaction was to complain that he was being harassed and was going to sue. This lead to massive bouts of laughter and an unprecedented level of not giving a shit. But at least the man won't have to leave home to do his Christmas shopping. #2.
The Youtube Cat Abusers
For some reason, the information age tends to make assholes want to go global. By, for instance, abusing a cat on camera and posting it on YouTube.
When a 14-year-old kid decided he'd post his own cat torture video, he probably didn't foresee the massive response he'd get once it spread across the Internet, leaving YouTube and heading to places like 4chan and other corners of Hell where the foolish are punished for their glaring webcam indiscretions. There, the denizens that some call "Internet detectives" and that we call "tentacle child porn enthusiasts" tracked the abuser down through his Facebook and MySpace accounts, because assholes are also generally not bright enough to not wallpaper the Internet with their own photos and personal information. The result of Anonymous's detective work is that there appeared an entire website devoted to the teen, including his picture, links to the videos he made, the names of his parents, their addresses, phone number (as well as work addresses and numbers) and the website address of his father's business, which is now strangely absent from the Internet. In a curious twist, the use of gay fan fiction also came into play, on websites that review the father's business, featuring such charming passages as "Tito was naked, standing in front of him with a big Hawaii boner staring him in the face. 'As the ancient Hawaiians used to say... it's time for a dicking!'"
The news media caught wind of the story, and then local police started getting inundated with calls from all around the world. Businesses in town got the same treatment including a number that weren't involved in any way due to the wrong information being spread online. Oddly, the police response to this was to politely ask people to stop as they might "stalk the wrong person." The cat was taken out of the home. The abuser and his brother (also in the video) were charged by the local cops. Debate rages to this day as to whether Anonymous went too far, since they tend to not apply this much righteous rage or sympathy to actual human beings. But then there is the case of Chris Forcand... #1.
Chris Forcand vs. Anonymous
The Internet gets a bad rap for being the refuge of the socially maladjusted and sexually deviant (wait, can something still be considered a "bad rap" if it's true?). But when you get cases like that of Chris Forcand, you realize that sometimes one type of deviant can rise up to fight another. Forcand, a Canadian who resembles George the Animal Steele, was on MSN trying to solicit sex, panties and dirty pictures from what he believed was a teenage girl.
Instead, he was flirting with our friends Anonymous. This in turn lead to not only an amusing Encylopedia Dramatica page, but actual real world consequences. Forcand's life was picked apart. Transcripts and photos from his conversations were forwarded to his church and posted on his Christian blog along with his contact info. Finally the police got involved, setting up their own sting operation, ironically using the same technique as Anonymous. The result was Forcand being arrested in what was described as the first time an Internet predator was ever brought to justice through Internet vigilantism, at the hands of a group that only approves of child molestation when it's being done by an anime tentacle monster, and in other special circumstances where they find it amusing.
More Fortey can be found at ScenicAnemia.com. If you'd like to become a victim of the Internet yourself, then say any of the words mentioned in 7 Words You Can’t Say On The Internet (Without Starting A Flame War). And check out some people who should've been targeted themselves, in Where Are They Now: 6 "Stars" of Embarrassing Viral Videos. And visit Cracked.com's Top Picks or we'll sick the Internet on your asses. |
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Ugh, Anonymous... They never seize to make me sick with their IRL mask of theirs. They wear meaningless symbols, chanting meaningless words.
But at least when they're not "changing the world," they can still do good deeds that the rest of the egoistic Internet can't do.
Even so, they try to run the world...
Heh heh, this is so totally awesome. The creeps got their just reward. Anyone who decides to behave immorally should be discouraged in the most powerful way possible, so that IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AGAIN.
Nah nah nah, the point is, the idiots that get attacked by Annon should pull their heads out of their asses as early on as their myspace profile being invaded, turn whatever they stole back in, and say, "I'm sorry," but instead they're too proud to do so until the MEDIA is involved. Plus, publicly humiliating punishment is an excellent way to prevent crimes. You think she's ever going to steal anything ever again ever? I bet a bunch of other potential thieves were thwarted by this because they feel like the internet is always watching. Which it is.
The first case, the one with Sasha Gomez, showcases the 3 faults with Internet vigilantism.
First, it's misguided. I bet there's at least one incident every day where someone steals something like a wallet or an XBox, and sometimes, it can be something as big as a car or money from a store. Yet it takes one story of a girl stealing one phone to set the Internet on f*****g fire. A vigilante can't only chase the obscure.
Second, it's extremely harsh. Some people, like Child Forcand, Kenny Glenn, and Patrick Pogan, deserve the harassment, but there are others like Sasha Gomez who get harassed when they don't really deserve it. Don't locate the guy's house and send every death threat in the book if he hasn't even committed a crime, let alone one severe enough to justify that level of harassment. It just makes you look like the cop who uses tear gas on a civilian.
Third, as stated by someone before, it spreads like a disease. Now, it's not just the victim of the harassment getting the death threats; the victims family and friends are now involved just for knowing him/her. Don't get a person involved if he/she wasn't involved to begin with.
Internet vigilantism is like a gun; you can only justify its use if you use it right.
/snicker
The Internet: Helping hypocrites spread the same hate that they cowardly decry, from behind computers, since 1989!
@Taekwandogirl
You should read the news article that cracked links to in the diarrhea article. All of the information that HamatoKameko is included there.
It's entirely possible, and probably likely, that all that talk about the franchise violating company policy was just a lie told by the CEO to mitigate any further PR damage. The internet hate machine doesn't really care that most stores just honestly don't have public bathrooms in them.
Moral of the story is that corporations should in general be more compassionate to individual circumstances, and that franchise owners should be given some leeway. The moral is certainly NOT that the store owners are spiteful assholes who should be mocked and scorned.
HamatoKameko, you fail at reading. There is no mention of a nearby public restroom in that section of the article, and was stated by the CEO that what the employees did was, in fact, against company policy. On top of that it was against the law.
"It didn't end until the CEO of the entire company stepped in, personally issuing an apology to the mother and pointing out that the franchise in question was not acting in accordance with company policy, or even state law; apparently it's required that any business serving the public make a restroom facility available."
Maybe it's just me but any kind of item/stock going to be sold should NEVER be in the same room people use to get excrement out of their system. Ask yourself which would be worse: someone potentially stealing things while using the bathroom, or because they were turned away deciding to take a s**t on your floor which you then get to pick up because you're a dick.
Yeeeah, I've worked retail, and I have to tell you, our private bathrooms are usually full of stock as well, and there is a chance that the kid or parent could steal. As well, the bathrooms (which you have to go to the stockroom to reach), can pose a genuine hazard to anyone who isn't extremely familiar with the rooms, when you factor in stacked heavy boxes, over-stacked shelves, buckets of merchandise all over the floor. Don't forget all the hardware and empty displays there are to pull down on oneself. And this is all to say nothing of expensive merchandise typically within easy reach. It's hard enough keeping an eye on possible shoplifters to begin with without them going out-of-sight in the back room.
Store employees are covered by the company's insurance should an incident take place involving them. Customers in places where they aren't allowed to be are not.
So there's good reason why we can't let customers into the staff bathrooms. No one who is not an employee is allowed into the stockrooms, period--not even employee's spouses or children. It's a company policy for most any retail business. In fact, it's a fantastic way to get fired on the spot, especially if the person asking is, god forbid, a company "secret shopper."
The employees of that store did nothing wrong; they were, in fact, following company rules. Not only that, but the article states that there were plenty of public bathrooms available very nearby. Instead of wasting time bitching at good employees, she could have walked to the nearest public bathroom. And I highly doubt that they stood there laughing at the kid. More than likely, it was nervous laughter from being unable to help, and trying to figure out who was going to clean up the mess.
http://ihatelara.com?id=MTI1LjIzOC45Ni4xNjc=
I also forgot to mention one case in which a 5 years old boy died when robbers stole his mom's car. The mom and the sister managed to get out, but the boy got stuck to the door. The robbers ran for miles and the boy's death was unavoidable.
Some days later, some random p***k went to the sister's scrapbook and said some pretty stupid things like "Your brother died, so what? It's him before me" and stuff. That same p***k was cursed by loads and loads of people. The number of threats he received was impossible to count.
Actually, s**t like this happens all the time in Orkut.
Last case I'm aware of, a 14 years old boy had sex with a 11 years old girl with 2 other boys in the room, one of them filming everything. Thinking it was fun to send the movie to their friends, these friends sent it to other friends, who sent to other friends... Until it ended up on the Internet.
It was a matter of seconds until people found the boy and the girl's profiles in Orkut. Also in a matter of seconds, their scrapbooks were filled with people laughing at how the boy's dong was so incredibly small and he looked like to be proud of the small thing and calling the girl a whore, a s**t and a lot of other nasty names.
The family of the girl, ashamed with all that story, moved to another town. I don't know exactly what happened to the boy and his family, though.
And this was not the first case of underage amateur porn videos ended up on the Internet. It happened once some years ago. Only different things were, there were only the boy and the girl on the bedroom, they were a little older (but still underage) and the girl did not know she was being filmed. At the end of the story, people were making fun of the boy for having a small AND dirty penis (the girl had to clean the guy's penis before going for a b*****b), and the girl's family sued the boy's family and won, although I'm not sure how much she won.
And lastly, if you know portuguese, you can check Orkut fake profiles and you'll see that a LOT of them are actively monitoring their friend's profiles. If somebody comes up and says s**t to that friend, the fake gathers other fakes and floods the offender's scrapbook.
I wish they could have mentioned supershadow on this, but unfortunately he hasn't been brought down yet...DAMN YOU SUPERSHADOW!
nice one!
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please take the video off with the cat being hit .. I didnt know it would show him howling and being hurt and it really bothered me. Sorry to be Major Buzzkill but I think you should atleast put some sort of warning that the video will show the kitty being hurt.. =(
Chris Forcand got fourchan'd HA gettit
dog s**t girl must actually be French at heart.
http://www.davidgorcey.com
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No mention of P-P-P-Powerbook?
http://www.zug.com/pranks/powerbook/
Strange. Still, some funny stories there.
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In the case of #5, at least they asked.