Originally posted by TKDRL
I don't see how there is even a crime called cyberstalking........ Seems stupid to me.

It is really, but I think it just goes to show how this "beast" called the internet has taken on a life of it's own that the people who made it can't even control anymore. And if they can't control it then lawmakers don't stand a snowballs chance in hell in legally regulating it.

Take Zuckerberg for example. He created Facebook for one purpose, but that one simple purpose has snowballed into something complicated that he doesn't seem to fully understand anymore. He's bitten off more then he can chew. I think back to that one time he said that's he's surprised that so many people are putting so many private bits of information on his site.

He found it amusing.

Sorry, but the man doesn't seem to know what he's doing and collecting billions in the meantime. A pretty sad state of affairs if you ask me.

I'm not. I don't have a facebook, myspace, twitter or any of that social networking crap. I so do not need a spotlight for my mediocrity, and I don't give a crap about anyone else's.

So basically: society tries to project an ideal that doesn't exist, or at least is constantly changing, and we're supposed to run around and chase it all damned day and night, and not go insane and become cyberstalkers??

Then we focus on the end result, and label each other as "stalkers" "psychos" and "narcissists" yet fail to see that it's our own willingness to agree to the T & C without thinking of the repercussions that's really made it all happen.

How about: All of our poo stinks, and we should all be able to find someone halfway decent if we just shut our traps, and lower our standards down to . . . oh I don't know REALITY

We're so damned insecure because of the gap between what society projects, and what we believe we can attain, that we try psycho-style, to remain with what we could previously secure. It's pathetic.

BTW: I did go "psycho" on my ex, and she went psycho on me. Played games to lead me on for months thinking we could get back together, and once I figured out she was messing with my head, I verbally blew up, and she filled a restraining order filled with a bunch of lies. Crazy pathetic on both ends, eh?

So I deleted FB, and disconnected all my google accts. Said screw society, and am now working on being real and not giving a $%^&

Originally posted by Malynn
I'm not. I don't have a facebook, myspace, twitter or any of that social networking crap. I so do not need a spotlight for my mediocrity, and I don't give a crap about anyone else's.

Nice pic.

You don't look mediocre to me.

I guess we're in the minority huh? Social outcasts.

Only in 2012 could people be considered social outcasts if they're not fully immersed online instead of fully immersed in real life social activities.

Thank you Mark Zuckerberg. Thank you for creating an American success story.

Is it considered stalking on ATS if you follow peoples post and see what topics they r on, etc.... ?

Originally posted by dayve
Is it considered stalking on ATS if you follow peoples post and see what topics they r on, etc.... ?

Yeah. You freak. Get help.

I do that a lot. Following people you have things in common with is just a smart way to go about it really. Especially here. Otherwise you're going to find yourself wading thru posts made by middle schoolers asking is that spot in the sky is a U.F.O.

I am a cyber stalker according to my former best friend who is the person that I'm stalking. We were friends for 10 years, met when we were like 12/13 on a website called habbohotel. We edated for maybe 6-7 months and became best friends. Even though we've never met we knew each other better than anyone else in our lives.. and shes the only person I've ever loved. It might sound crazy to most of you, but we talked about everything and told each other things that we'd never told anyone else. We spent so many years of our lives infront of a screen talking to each other, we kind of became part of one another. Then a year ago I was using drugs and made the idiotic decision to log into her email address and set it to forward her emails to an email account I made. We had a fight and she didn't know I was doing this, but she blocked me and I kept reading them and couldn't stop myself and came clean to her about it. I also had been logging into her AT&T account and seeing if she was ignoring my txts, and noticed that she had been talking to someone for hours.. so I told the father of her child about it and it turned out to be the guy that took her virginity when she was 14. I only told him because I was under the impression that he (the father of her child/boyfriend) was enlisting in the air force and I didn't think it was fair to him, but I didn't know who it was, I thought it was this other guy that she cheated on her boyfriend/father of her child with a year or two ago. I don't know what I was thinking doing all of this.. after a few months of me being blocked and us not talking I finally wrote a letter to her and explained everything going on in my head and why I did all of this and she unblocked me. Then a month or two later something happened and she drove all of the way to Florida to get her head straightened out, and the guy she was going to stay with got her high and tried to get her to have sex with him and someone else.. and she left and called me hysterical and crying. A while after that she went back home to MA and I tried talking to her because we hadn't really talked since she got back.. and she flipped out on me for making some comment on her facebook because it seemed to me that she was ignoring me. She blocked me, and we haven't talked for a year except for the times I've tried to email her, or made a new facebook account and messaged her.. and very recently, a week or two ago, I made a post on my facebook about how miserable I was and how I missed her and dream about her and felt like my life had no point to it because she wasn't in my life anymore.. well a mutual friend of ours who I've known just as long as her showed it to her, and she emailed me and basically told me that we'll never be friends again and that her family worries that I'll show up at her house and harm her, she worries that I'll show up at her work place or house 20 years from now.. thought I stalked her to find her address and phone number (because I wrote a letter to her 3 weeks ago.. which she didn't read.. the stalking part of that wasn't true, I had known her address since we were teenagers when she wrote a letter to me.. but I guess she forgot about it, and the phone number I found by googling her name, but I didn't plan on calling her.. I just happened to find it and told our mutual friend this). I mean I could go on and say everything she said in that email, but I won't. The bottom line is I've ruined the best friendship I've ever had and I don't know what to do now. She won't read anything I say. I never meant to do this, to betray her or to keep trying to contact her which has only pushed her away further. I care about her more than I've ever cared about myself and it kills me every day that things are the way they are. I never wanted to make her feel stalked. Just writing this is making me tear up because I really don't know what to do. I honestly thought we would always be friends. -.-

this is news to me i am shocked it is that high, i have never once cared what my ex's are doing.

how do they know who your ex is anyway, i don't totally believe the study, they are either exaggerating or coming to certain conclusions that are not necessarily the case.

if i wanted to catch up with an ex, are they saying i would not be allowed to do so as it is classed as stalking if i check for their Facebook page so i can catch up with them. what if we are on speaking terms and i am pals with her new boyfriend? would i not be allowed to check out their Facebook? what if people are not stalking but trying to break the ice and say sorry because they still love them but they can never bring themselves to break the ice, is that stalking?

there are many scenarios, they are making assumptions and criminalizing anybody who dares click on a ex's Facebook page when the intentions could well be not stalking.

I don't think it is really "stalking" when the purpose of the site is to publicly share all the information you put on it.

Those statistics blow me away, really... I know a few people who have fallen into this sort of behavior, and I can't say I would be immune to it either, if I were a Facebook user. Social media has really changed the way we live our lives, hasn't it?

It also seems to be the norm for so many couples to share (or downright hack) passwords or login info to these sites, and trust goes right down the tube. It's a recipe for disaster, relationship-wise.