Al Pacino in the Devil's Advocate

For most citizens, our personal character is an important part of our lives and we take offense when someone attempts to defame that character by spreading lies and rumors.¹

Greetings citizens – Holmes at your service ready to regale you with yet more tantalizing tidbits to raise your outrage and satisfy your sense of selfliness (yes I made up that term).

66 and 6:

And up above, the angels sing …

According to the Josephson Institute, there are six pillars of character. Those pillars are:

• Trustworthiness: Means the person has good integrity, is honest, is reliable and is loyal.
• Respect: Means the person treats others the way he or she wants to be treated, has a high level of tolerance and acceptance, is nonviolent and is courteous.
• Responsibility: Means they know what they are responsible for, are held accountable, pursue excellence and have high levels of self-control.
• Fairness: Means they are open-minded and are fair and just. They treat everyone the same, giving every person the same consideration when comparing the facts and coming to a decision.
• Caring: Means they have a high concern for others and are very charitable. They are well known in the community for their charitable work and donations.
• Good Citizenship: Means they do their share in the community, at home and at work. They also have a high respect for authority and the law.²

And down below, the devil howls …

Anyone with a personal vendetta, a high level of jealousy, a psychological need to disagree and/or is being emotionally undermined by a bad experience can become a defamer. And what are all of these things based in kiddies? Perhaps some displaced needs of Ego aka Easing God Out, Erasing Good Output, Evacuating Grimm’s Outhouse, etc, etc.  In the wide world of media and cyber space, statements will be made and continue to be publicized and printed even though the perpetrator knows them to be false because by golly, that person needs to be ruined, eradicated and wiped clean off the earth.  After all Pride and its offspring defamation, libel and slander are some of the devil’s favorite sins.

Nancy Willard with the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use (CSRIU) has developed this useful taxonomy of the various forms of cyber bullying. Low and behold there are six of these as well:

• Harassment: Repeatedly sending offensive, rude, and insulting messages
• Denigration: Distributing information about another that is derogatory and untrue through posting it on a Web page, sending it to others through email or instant messaging, or posting or sending digitally altered photos of someone
• Flaming: Online "fighting" using electronic messages with angry, vulgar language
• Impersonation: Breaking into an email or social networking account and using that person's online identity to send or post vicious or embarrassing material to/about others.
• Outing and Trickery: Sharing someone's secrets or embarrassing information, or tricking someone into revealing secrets or embarrassing information and forwarding it to others
• Cyber Stalking: Repeatedly sending messages that include threats of harm or are highly intimidating, or engaging in other online activities that make a person afraid for his or her safety (depending on the content of the message, it may be illegal).³

Busy fella that devil.

Now what gets really interesting with all of this is that a cyber defamer will actually believe that they embrace the six pillars of character and the other person, the recipient of their vindictive hatred is actually the bad guy. The devil gave them a quest you see, simply put, to destroy another human being. It’s all very convoluted. And, the more creative they get the better … falsehoods based on assumptions, fabricated evidence, bogus claims, contrived visuals, character assassination, you name it. The devil loves a bad boy/gal who just hates to be wrong and once the devil’s protégé is on a 'role' roll the more extended the attack gets. They are obsessed and possessed.

And here on Earth, the people rally …

Things to remember:

• The cyber defamer is out to destroy both the online and offline reputation and often they think they are safe via anonymity however, once they have been identified or feel there is a high risk of being identified they will become more concerned with getting their fat butt out of the fire rather than to continue harassment.
• You can hire an online crisis specialist (which is what I did with excellent results) who have many resources including connections with cyber investigators and defamation attorneys.
• Continue to build your good online relationships and connections. Cyber defamers hate success.
• Remain and maintain business mode and uphold pillar characteristics.
• Save and retain all emails and make a visit to local law enforcement and file a complaint that will remain on file as a record in case you need to take further legal action later.
• Report them and get the libelous material removed. All you need to do is find any place on the website where the author makes use of your name, personal information or any other “personal material,” without your permission.

666 …

There you have it folks. I was inspired to compose this opine because members on this site (including myself) and the site itself has, for over a year, been harassed and attacked by a cyber bully and defamer.

Yet, the times they are a changing …

The devil has him numbered. His forehead has been stamped.

Tipping my hat to you all …

Holmes

Resources:

^1,2  http://nobullying.com/defamation/

³ http://www.violencepreventionworks.org/public/cyber_bullying.page

Image credit: http://screenrant.com/best-movie-depictions-devil-satan/?view=all