# The Unsavoury Uses Of Technology...



## mosaix (Jul 14, 2016)

I know that there are far worse abuses of technology than this one but sometimes I read something that just baffles me and leaves me speechless.

Margate woman jailed for 'cruel' James Bulger tweets - BBC News

_A woman who admitted sending disturbing Twitter messages to the mother of murdered toddler, James Bulger, has been jailed for three years. 

Chloe Cowan, 20, from Margate in Kent, pleaded guilty to stalking involving serious alarm or distress at an earlier hearing at Canterbury Crown Court. 

She had posed as one of the toddler's killers and* as his ghost in the tweets.*

James was murdered in 1993 by schoolboys Jon Venables and Robert Thompson after they abducted him from a shopping centre in Bootle, on Merseyside.
_
Why would anyone do such a thing? Have they absolutely no empathy? What on earth was the purpose?


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## Overread (Jul 14, 2016)

Like children, adults always test the limits of their environment. Always look for ways to gain advantage of to try things to see if they really do work. The internet is a playground for this kind of behaviour and fosters it because you can do a LOT without anything happening to you. The worst is your account might be banned - a shock for some at first; but given a few days and a new email (free) and new account (free) and sometimes a random IP address (guess what - free too) and they can really push at the limits of their "cage".

Thus things like this start to happen; but also because of the way the net works people lose empathy. They are not people; they are just avatars; just faces made of pixels and given life with text like a story book.

Others do get kicks out of demeaning others; or playing on others "stupidity" or in some other way bullying. Internet bullying is often the perfect classic case of a weaker bully lashing out at others to overcome their own issues and to make themselves feel better. 


Cases like this are simply where someone takes it too far; they go that extra mile; they push the limits (sometimes not alone; often you can find them spurred on by a website or community that encourages htem - some of them not actually really expecting the person to do so).


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## J Riff (Jul 14, 2016)

The dark side of creative writing, for real. Probably projecting a whole different problem onto the net for some other reason, and in need of help in a nice ward with the other crazy ladies.


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## Ursa major (Jul 14, 2016)

From the story:





> In addition, she was banned for 10 years from using any device with internet capability without it being able to store the history of its use.


I would hope that the order would force her to use a device where:

her ability to delete the history of its use was removed;
a copy of the history of the device's use was automatically created (in real time) on a device to which she had no access (in case the device that she was using had an "accident").


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