The personal attacks people have made on me during the time I have been posting on this site are bewildering and too numerous to recite, but I've had people imagine they know who I am and embellish the details using their vivid imaginations. I've been a 'little old woman,' 'a middle-aged lady' and a man; I've been told I'm a business failure, I've been castigated for encouraging people to speed and blamed for being a terrible mother, encouraging my son to worm out of traffic fines (my son isn’t old enough to drive). I've been told I'm 'desperate to sell my properties,' and that they're of 'poor quality'... People don't even read what I've written, before jumping in to accuse me of all sorts. This kind of cyber-bullying would be pathetic if it wasn't also dangerous.
And it's made me wonder about what's behind all this nastiness. One thing I've observed is that the cyber bully has to always be right and always have the last word. Often, that last word will be in the form of a personal attack; the equivalent of shouting into someone's face/or going on and on about the issue, until everyone else has walked away. In my experience it is usually, though not exclusively, a male phenomenon and as the bully is usually, again not always, intellectually-challenged, he will add a sexist element; hence the 'accusation' of me being old and a woman - the worst thing a person can be in his small-minded, sexist and ageist world-view.
I have also noticed that the cyber bully can never give up or he will lose face. The victim of his vitriol then has a choice; to lower her or himself to his level or to rise above it. The problem is that if we do not answer every stupid point, bully boy thinks he's won. The only way in which he has really won is by showing himself to be a fool and by driving people away. Sometimes he gets banned from the site if he actually calls a person a name, but quite often he is able to remain by using a more veiled language - for example: 'you don't seem cut out for x,y,z’ [I'm telling you you have a serious failing, which I don't have], or 'you're a very bitter woman' and, today, I had ‘you odd little woman.’
I believe these abusive people may be suffering from a superiority complex; I get told by other landlords, for example, that I am a rubbish one, but they're brilliant at it, and have never had a day's bother. Why this need to portray oneself as infallible? If the person is male, does he have short man syndrome? Was he bullied at school for something in his appearance or personality? Sometimes, women too show this belief in their superiority; I've got no idea why they do it. Whatever the sex, their anonymity protects them from a reliable psychological analysis.
On the Eye on Spain Forum, a common pattern is that someone (often a new person to the site) asks an innocent question, asking for help and receives a couple of useful suggestions. Then others start to comment and pretty soon the thread 'turns.' It is quite easy to identify the moments when this happens - it's when someone writes something with an edge to it or launches an outright attack on the original poster's character; then other cowards jump in to agree with the bully. The original poster often doesn't know what's hit them. It's a chance for this group of insecure people to attack someone else in order to feel better about themselves.
Unfortunately, this behaviour is not harmless and the pen can be mightier than the sword. I recently read about a University Facebook page being used to 'rate' people students have slept with. When I read the example of what one girl had written about a boy, saying that he thought he was good in bed, but he didn't know what he was doing, I thought, 'What if that was my son when he's older?' He could kill himself over something like that. There have also been many cases of children as young as 12 committing suicide unable to cope with the shame of what others have said about them. Children and young people are particularly vulnerable. So, when adults in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, behave in a thoroughly distasteful manner on the internet, what hope is there for our young? The irony is that these adults are very often the ones to berate the younger generation for their 'failings.'
Luckily, I'm old enough and wise enough to be able to process this nonsense and not let it affect me for more than an hour or so, if at all. For others it will have a greater impact. People whom you don't know, whom you'll never meet and who are anonymous can lay into you. And they think they have the right. If no-one challenges them, they carry on, just as the eternal bully does. Little dictators, tapping away in their living rooms or studies, relishing their power to insult and lord it over others.
I have thought for some time about writing on this theme and would like the decent people on the site to make a stand and join together in condemning these personal attacks when they happen. If one person is having a nasty go at someone, then we should report it. The bullies often gang up like a pack of wolves coming in for the kill; so it would be good if the decent members can work together too to eradicate this menace. I suggest that the rule of thumb should be that no-one should address other posters in any way that would not be acceptable in a face-to-face encounter. Some people are like pieces of wood, however, and incapable of empathy, so maybe they talk to people like this in the flesh... That may be so, but it should not be tolerated on a public forum.
Whatever the future holds, it is depressing to witness and/or be on the receiving end and others have retreated from the Forum because of the behaviour of the unruly, 'I'm always right,'' I'll insult you personally if I can't beat you in an argument' brigade. I recently withdrew from the site for a while because of this and have observed others do so. Maybe they could come back (you know who you are) and refuse to be cowed into submission by the ugly element on the internet. If decent people regularly leave the site in this way, the wolves will be left to take control...