Paula Todd - Extreme Mean: Ending Cyberabuse at Work, School, and Home

Finding Karla: How I Tracked Down an Elusive Serial Child Killer and Discovered a Mother of Three

A Quiet Courage: Inspiring Stories from All of Us

Copyright 2014 by Paula Todd

Signal is an imprint of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company

Signal and colophon are registered trademarks of McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency is an infringement of the copyright law.

The author, Paula Todd, has no relation to Amanda Todd or her family, and did not meet Carol Todd until she began her research for this book.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Todd, Paula, author
Extreme mean : trolls, bullies and predators online / Paula Todd.
Includes bibliographical references.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-0-7710-8403-4 (bound).ISBN 978-0-7710-8404-1(html)

1. Cyberbullying. 2. Internet and children. 3. Internet
Social aspects. I. Title.

HV6773.15.C92T63 2014 302.34302854678 C2013-902922-2
C2013-902923-0

Published simultaneously in the United States of America by
McClelland & Stewart, a division of Random House of Canada Limited

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013952122

ISBN: 9780771084034
ebook ISBN: 9780771084041

McClelland & Stewart,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited,
a Penguin Random House Company
www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

FOR NETIZENS EVERYWHERE RISE UP

T his book is not for the faint of heart or easily offended. Mind you, neither is the Internet these days. Youll meet people there and here that youll scarcely believe live in the same world as you do. You will be exposed to cyberbullying, death and rape threats, and the profanity-filled spew of a wide range of cyberabusers. You will meet frightened adults who have been stalked, and learn about vengeful men and women who post photographs of their ex-partners in sexually intimate positions for the world to see. You will hear from parents whove lost their children, in part, they believe, because of vicious cyberabuse and the youthful fragility that preceded it. You will learn how predators and sexual extortionists operate, and see how web cameras and chat rooms can turn from fun to folly. Many of the people who provided research and commentary for this book have chosen to use pseudonyms, fearing revenge attacks for what theyve revealed. As do I. In warranted cases, Ive included the uncensored communication of cyberabusers, a term that I use to avoid the current confusion over competing definitions of cyberbullying and trolls. Tormentors, bullies, harassers, blackmailers, sexual extortionists, and predators are in general cyberabusers when they use the Internet and electronic devices to wreak havoc on those of us just trying to use interconnectivity to make life more fascinating and work more dimensional. You will notice I did not say trolls, and theres a good reason for that. Weve stretched that word so far it is now useless and dangerously misleading.

To retake the Internet, netizens have to call a spade a spade, or, in this case, stop describing online pranksters and predators as one and the same.

Hopefully, along the way, well find some answers to other questions, too: Where do the rest of us fall in the spectrum that arcs from Internet sadists who use great technology to cause pain to others for their own pleasure, devious predators and criminals, jealous harassers, racists, misogynists, difference deniers, and the intoxicated, to the jokesters, the exaggerators, accidental meanies, social rabble-rousers, and those struggling with mental illness?

Why are some of us (whether children, young people, or adults) so extremely mean online? Why, when offered the freedom of Internet anonymity, do so many of us use it as a weapon rather than for liberation? And what can we do, beyond the strong anti-cyberbullying work already underway, to curb the abuse while avoiding censorship laws that undermine our right to free expression and information-sharing online?

These are not idle questions: some 1.5 billion people use the Internet everyday, and of those who do, most are using social media, from which much of the negativity flows.

According to the website Internet World Stats, as of 2012, almost 80 per cent of North America is online, followed by nearly 70 per cent of Australia and Oceania, and more than 60 per cent of Europeans. Emerging and developing nations are on track to catch up. Between 2000 and 2012, growth in Internet use increased by roughly 3,600 per cent in Africa, 2,640 per cent in the Middle East, and more than 1,300 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean. That means our communities, schools, hospitals, employers, artists, religious groups, friends, foes, and governments are all doing business online, too. Regardless of whether you own a computer or only use Facebook or Twitter accounts, the Internet and the people who use it are in your life, big time.

Cyberabuse can be random or directed, rapid and easily shared, and come from friends and strangers alike. It can pop up anywhere, anytime, to interfere with our lives, our communications, and harm our mental health.

But while digital technology has laid bare some of the worst of human behaviour, it also provides the information we need to understand it. And that insight gives us the radical possibility of using cyberabuse to catapult us into cyber civility and compassion.

J ust watching actress Ellen Page up onstage as her hands begin to shake nervously and her dark eyes mist, you know something big is coming.

I am here today because I am gay Im tired of hiding. And Im tired of lying by omission. I suffered for years because I was scared to be out. My spirit suffered, my mental health suffered, and my relationships suffered, she says.

The Valentines Day crowd at the 2014 Human Rights Campaign Foundations Time to THRIVE Conference in Las Vegas goes wild, clapping and cheering her on.

Im inspired to be in this room because every single one of you is here for the same reason: youre here because youve adopted, as a core motivation, the simple fact that this world would be a whole lot better if we just made an effort to be less horrible to one another.