Trolling and harassment in online communities seem to have become more and more prevalent in society with the coming of the digital age. As we have developed so much technology in such a short span of time, we are now finding it difficult to regulate laws pertaining to internet and technology overall, and now we are just figuring out online etiquette. It was only 18 years ago in 2002 when 47-year-old David Fuller posed as a teenager online to kidnap and then murder the 13-year-old Kacie Woody (Perry, 2002). In that time, many more people, from young children to the elderly have been fooled by the anonymity and power that the internet gives you. In the span of two decades we, as a society, have had to endure the growing pains of figuring out the dangers put forth by the internet, and how to combat them.

The thing that I am most interested in is at what point is internet activity considered a crime? What lines do you have to cross to commit a genuine felony online? For example, in the real world it is illegal to call 911 for anything less than an emergency. So, if you call the police to SWAT a house under false pretenses, a practice that has only recently become commonly known, does that count as an actual felony? Are there laws being placed against swatting, or are there laws being introduced specifically for swatting? If, in the process of a swatting incident taking place, a person is killed by the SWAT team, is the death of the innocent person placed on the officer who actually shot the victim, or the person who made the false call? Since trolling in online communities has become more and more prevalent, at what point does that trolling become legitimate hate speech? If you engage in hate speech or sending death or rape threats online, are you breaking the law by doing so?

I did find an article online from 2018 abound federal charges being placed against three men for swatting a stranger, an incident that resulted in the death of 28-year-old Andrew Finch. According to the article, the three men were being charged for “making false or hoax report to emergency services, cyberstalking, making interstate threats, and wire fraud” (Chokshi, 2018). So far I have found nothing pertaining specifically to swatting, only that it has been grouped into making a false report to emergency services. What I find particularly interesting about that statement is that you can be charged for the crime of cyberstalking. So for example, Florida has a law called HB 479 introduced in 2003 to ban cyberstalking (Florida Computer Crime Center).

Personally, I feel that thin veneer of anonymity given by the internet allows people to feel security in harming other people. Maybe people feel like since it is the internet, the words and actions they put into it aren’t really serious. When you talk to someone online, you’re probably going to take that at face value and assume that they are telling the truth, especially when you aren’t knowledgeable about online culture. In that lane, false information is so easily spread online, and harassment can rise to obscene levels, like what we have seen with gamergate, and the only way we can really counteract this is with knowledge, educating yourself, and making sure to be at least somewhat skeptical of what you see online so you can fact check it.

Works Cited

Chokshi, Niraj. “3 Men Face Federal Charges in Fatal ‘Swatting’ Prank.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 May 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/us/gamers-swatting-charges.html.

“Florida Computer Crime Center.” Florida Computer Crime Center – Cyberstalking, web.archive.org/web/20070205233057/www.fdle.state.fl.us/Fc3/cyberstalking.html.

Perry, Tony. “Kidnap Suspect Kills Girl, 13, Self.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 7 Dec. 2002, http://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-dec-07-na-slay7-story.html.