Source: http://www.bubblews.com/news/609041-cyber-bullying-harassment

Cyber Bullying - Harassment 

Internet Harassment or Cyber bullying. I used to work as a moderator at about.com's depression chat room in year 2000. From that experience I learned how harassment can be as simple as refusing to drop a topic another is uncomfortable to discuss... I learned how hackers can get your personal information and trace your computer address to find out who you are and not only harass and threaten you online and via messages and emails.. but also start calling you and find out other ways to get personal information.

Just Breaking the chat room rules or guidelines is enough to be considered harassment.... Posting indecent or adult only material information is harassment towards minors and can get you banned off the internet..

Many people underestimate internet harassment as at times its hard to tell the difference if the person is joking or serious....

With my other experiences in Yahoo chats.. which is unmoderated I ran into a lot of harassment... You have people who go onto yahoo voice, and Put frequency sounds or obnoxious noises.. or even flood the room with fonts and symbols... Which trigger Seizures in epileptics.. We had to ban fonts in the depression chat because it was making some of our regular chatters very sick as it triggered seizures...

There has been serious cases of people going onto epileptic forums and posting graphics to purposely trigger seizures... in the same way.. through sounds, or sight visuals.

Then there are people who do internet hypnosis or guided meditation, earn peoples trust and lure them into their group or cult.. I have witnessed people going so far with this as talking people out of taking meds for their mental health disorders and getting very ill and going into the hospital....

I have seen the peer pressure harassment issue if you do not do this we will ignore you.. .. then the other way around getting harassed and called a wimp for using the ignore button on someone who is harassing you, or annoying you.

There are people who chat or cyber stalk they follow people from chat to chat or forum to forum slandering with false information or informing everyone about their criminal past, true or not... That is also harassment...

People posting videos on youtube or other internet sites that the people claimed they were taping for something else, or they did not realism they were being recorded.. posted publicly to humiliate them too this is also a bad harassment.

The most common one I see over on yahoo is people Stealing Yahoo accounts, user ids or chat names.... or locking their account out.. or booting them repetitively because they are jealous of something. When I was in the Free Psychic Readings Yahoo user room under religion the Community when I first went there was great... But then the boot gangs started and hackers stealing peoples ids, and booting non stop the psychics in the middle of a free reading.. or just having a conversation about their experiences trying to help a new psychic whose abilities are just opening... There is a lot of boot abuse on yahoo. The reason booting itself was not banned is to keep suspected minors out of the adult only rooms.. or harassers who are spamming or posting links to pictures claiming it is something else, and instead its an porn or indecent picture.

What to do if you see cyber harassment?
First step record transcripts and the time you saw it..
Email the transcripts and the time you saw it to the Host.. and point out it's against their TOS.. or guidelines.. if they ignore it as yahoo often has done..
Then if its death threats, admitting to illegal activity, or illegal hacking. (keep in mind all a hacker is is just a program not all of them are illegal or out to steal your identity or chat name, or cyber harass you)

You can then report it to crime stoppers if you want to report it anonymously
www.tipsubmit.org

If it has happened before make sure you have a good friend go in with you next time you visit the chat or forum so you have a witness...

www.tipsubmit.com/

Cyber bullying has a few examples
www.cyberbullying.org/

For normal Internet Crime reporting you can either call your local police..
Or you can report it here...

Internet Crime Complaint Center
www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

If you run into an FBI most wanted, or a sex offender with minors, or Terrorists online.. Report them to the FBI gov site.

tips.fbi.gov/

It is really easy to accidentally step into the wrong chat, or forum, and find yourself surrounded by some serious cyber harassment...
I recommend only using web mails for internet registrations and sites, Using disposable phone numbers if you think you met someone you can trust.. then you can discontinue the number.. k7.net or inumbr has them... google voice also has a phone number system but I think it costs 10$ to change the number.. but it allows you to block people.

If you ever go to meet anyone you met online offline always meet at a public place where there are law enforcement and many people around who you know who will help you if an issue arrives.

I have seen both good and bad come out of internet communities.Be careful of what you discuss, if you have money do not let on to people you have a lot of money... We had serious break ins in the area after someone who ran an internet business out our way told to much information... she was robbed 4 times.. it lead to everyone out our way getting robbed but us they tried.. it was my family who lead to their arrest..

If you state your town state a really big next big general town as where you are from. Do not give out a school name, or work name or address.. to anyone until you know for sure they are safe...

Internet is fun, but it also can be a very terrifying place I ran into good people and I ended up learning how easily it was to be friends with the wrong kind of people. I was shocked when I saw Internet harassment push my friends over the edge... Eric, Dylan, and Cho ... All ended up later doing school shootings... I do not remember the name of the exact chat we used to all hang out.. at oddly also the ones who kills themselves in Heavens Gate was also regulars of this room. We also had leaders of very successful internet companies come from this community.. In the end everyone ended up doing something really big good or bad. Good one as Nurse, the major site operators I do not want to list their company names to draw bad attention to them.... It was a Spiritual/religious chat room we all studied all beliefs good and bad and even Atheist and Agnostic were welcome in an un moderated teen room... But we constantly had people invading and harassing the room... One thing that was misunderstood about us is at night we had fun writing horror stories... or thriller stories we all used to hope to be better than Stephen King at it... Some of them were really good.. I was saddened to see when people found my friends stories they start to harass them and call them a psychopaths, and all kinds of other things. I also was getting into trouble over my stories.. and dark poems as people took them seriously.... My friends and I were harassed horribly over our stories.. The only thing we should have done with our talent.. was.. to put it on hold till we were over 18 years old.. But eventually the community snapped and lost it the shootings happened then we had the press and media harassing us pretending to be our other friends or relatives trying to get information on our friends.. Then we had feds, and others.. We split up... and to my knowledge only 5 out of 40 of us are still living...

So cyber harassment is very very serious and underestimated.. and what stinks is many do not realize how badly it is going on, and if the chat does not record transcripts or no one is notified it ever went on.. The person who snapped is automatically labled as psychopath because there is no proof on record that they were indeed harassed through the internet.. as my friends were.. from booters, and hackers...and others trying to "save our souls" or convert or revert us to their religion...

Anyhow.. I went off topic a little there. I stand out as different, I am open and will speak about many things.. So I tend to attract unwanted attention and plenty of harassment from time to time...

Sometimes we even harass others not deliberately knowing it.. Just purely by making a person you are talking to online becomes harassment after they notify you that they are uncomfortable with the conversation and you insist on going on...

With certain exception like talking the suicidal or depressed.. or other person with mental issues you think may harm themselves or others.. into getting professional help.. but even then you have to be careful of your approach... so you are not badgering or harassing with it.

Hope that is enough info,
- DNatureofDTrain