[Petition/Discussion] Harassment and Off-Site Evidence

[Berethene]

Trwce and finger the IP and Call the local cops. That is their job.

Look, I think yo ur intentions are good. There just are a lot of ramifications you are not considering. You are not a lawyer or law enforcement and neither is the moderation team. To expect them to act as one opens the site up to liability issues in jurisdictions all over the freaking world.

A more reasonable approach would be to ask the site to have his maxNess contact his legal team to suggest potential resolution to this issue

Oh, I know that there are issues involved that I don't fully understand. I'm not necessarily arguing for all of the above. I understand that the NS Mods understand their problems more than I do.

There are victims who have the RL names, IPs, phone numbers, addresses, and social media platforms of their harassers. This sounds optimistic, right? Surely that can accomplish something. However, again, the police still often can't do anything about it, because jurisdiction. Do you know how hard it is to prosecute someone in another country? Even another state is problematic. Just like on NS, where they can make a new nation and contact the victim, those harassers could fly right over and no-one would be the wiser until it was potentially too late.

My intentions stem from the frustration of seeing so many people victimized. I know that in one case this resulted in physical harm from harasser to victim.

In the end, the victim has to leave the game because he or she never knows what will happen next. He or she is aware that their harasser could be watching everything they say in public, whether it be on forum or RMB. Heck, they don't even need to have a nation to do that! As is often the case RL, ultimately the only one who walks away without problems or conscience is the harasser. And that's pretty much the end of that.

Ultimately the NS Mods/Admins are the only ones who can devise a workable solution, or decide they still can't do anything. All we can do is draw attention to the issue and ask them to help us. We can't make them do anything.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I believe you’re incorrect in regards to inccurring liability merely by removing someone from your service - it’s pretty standard TOS-speak that you can be removed from the service at any time for any reason the owner or those appointed by them to moderate it see fit.

I do think you tiptoe on that when asking them to publicly announce said ban and supposed reason, compared to just performing it - hence my stated quibble, with the line demanding such.

Staff agrees that these people exist and are a long-running problem. Agreement that they’re a safety issue should be enough for them to consider removal from the service, with a sufficient level of confirmation. Allowing the community in question to then speak on why they removed said player from their space, instead of gagging them via the current rule set, is a compromise that allows the site to still say at the end of the day that it never made any accusations themselves.

[Wesstmoorland]

I'd like to add my signature to this.

-Henry IX, Root Admin of the Kingdom of Great Britain, owner of the KoGB Discord Server.

[Malashaan Colony]

I believe you’re incorrect in regards to inccurring liability merely by removing someone from your service - it’s pretty standard TOS-speak that you can be removed from the service at any time for any reason the owner or those appointed by them to moderate it see fit.

Absolutely. This site belongs to NS, not the players. None of us have a legal right to play the game. Obviously there are PR problems if the site were to start removing people en mass for no apparent reason, but that's not what we are discussing here.

I do think you tiptoe on that when asking them to publicly announce said ban and supposed reason, compared to just performing it - hence my stated quibble, with the line demanding such.

This is also easily addressed with a modicum of care by the mods. As long as they say "person X was banned because we have evidence that led us to believe they Y and the risk to the community that represents is too great." As noted above, NS is free to deny service to anyone (unless they stray into very specific protected grounds, like banning based on race). As discussed in the thread on the defamation rule, there is a big distinction between explaining you did something because you believe X and stating that X is unquestionably true. It would be fairly simple to write a standard ban announcement that covered this and the mod issuing the ban just had to fill in a couple of blanks (user name, reason).

[The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp]

While the actions of both Derpibooru mod team and the NS mod team where amazingly helpful in dealing with my stalker situation, the fact that the mods of NS couldn't just DOS my stalker once the evidence from Derpibooru came in beacuse they can't use I saw as an unnecessary restriction on NS mod team.

So, I sign my name to this Petition.

- The Derpy Democratic Republic Of Herp, The South Pacific Legislator, World Baseball Classic Council Member, WBC 41 Semifinalists. Rudolph in NS Secret Santa, NS's sexyest user 2016 Male 18-29, NSG 2016 Award for Humour, Star Butterfly.

[The North Polish Union]

Where is the police matters need to be handled by police and not moderation, button?

In one of the instances that spawned this the harasser was initially only able to contact the harassee through NS-related offsite venues (although later the harassment branched out beyond that). Real-life law enforcement was contacted about the harassment and could do nothing about it. The harasser is still permitted to (and actively does) use this site.

That said, I have not supported this petition because I disagree with the idea that NS Moderators ought to punish offsite behavior (the Predator case was different because there offsite behavior was directly influencing onsite outcomes of the R/D game). What I think is more helpful is for communities to continue to self-moderate but for there not to be a blanket ban on discussion of offsite behavior like there is now. Hence the discussions of how the defamation rule ought to be applied.

[Ethel mermania]

Where is the police matters need to be handled by police and not moderation, button?

In one of the instances that spawned this the harasser was initially only able to contact the harassee through NS-related offsite venues (although later the harassment branched out beyond that). Real-life law enforcement was contacted about the harassment and could do nothing about it. The harasser is still permitted to (and actively does) use this site.

That said, I have not supported this petition because I disagree with the idea that NS Moderators ought to punish offsite behavior (the Predator case was different because there offsite behavior was directly influencing onsite outcomes of the R/D game). What I think is more helpful is for communities to continue to self-moderate but for there not to be a blanket ban on discussion of offsite behavior like there is now. Hence the discussions of how the defamation rule ought to be applied.

And how would action by moderation have stopped any of the contact after it spread to Facebook and RL? there are a lot more issues here than what the young lady described, and those issues are best dealt with by PD, and not the site.

[Berethene]

And how would action by moderation have stopped any of the contact after it spread to Facebook and RL? there are a lot more issues here than what the young lady described, and those issues are best dealt with by PD, and not the site.

Said harasser did contact said player a few times on the site. One of them was during the time where she had blocked him everywhere. The next year after that he used a random puppet to try and sneak an obsessive song into her region's Valentine's Day event. So he did use the site, but in ways that could not be considered actionable.

[Ethel mermania]

And how would action by moderation have stopped any of the contact after it spread to Facebook and RL? there are a lot more issues here than what the young lady described, and those issues are best dealt with by PD, and not the site.

Said harasser did contact said player a few times on the site. One of them was during the time where she had blocked him everywhere. The next year after that he used a random puppet to try and sneak an obsessive song into her region's Valentine's Day event. So he did use the site, but in ways that could not be considered actionable.

Again I don't see how that is not a natter for PD.

[Berethene]

Said harasser did contact said player a few times on the site. One of them was during the time where she had blocked him everywhere. The next year after that he used a random puppet to try and sneak an obsessive song into her region's Valentine's Day event. So he did use the site, but in ways that could not be considered actionable.

Again I don't see how that is not a natter for PD.

Said player did that, said harasser was untouchable by law because of jurisdiction, and said harasser flew in to her home city a few days after she reported it even though he knew that she had contacted the authorities, because he knew they couldn't do anything even about that given the legal limitations.

Basically, the second aforementioned message came after she tried the police. The site was a way to contact, even indirectly as in that case. These people know how to avoid Modly intervention, and the clever ones even are aware when police cannot act. That is why they are dangerous.

[Ethel mermania]

Again I don't see how that is not a natter for PD.

Said player did that, said harasser was untouchable by law because of jurisdiction, and said harasser flew in to her home city a few days after she reported it even though he knew that she had contacted the authorities, because he knew they couldn't do anything even about that given the legal limitations.

Basically, the second aforementioned message came after she tried the police. The site was a way to contact, even indirectly as in that case. These people know how to avoid Modly intervention, and the clever ones even are aware when police cannot act. That is why they are dangerous.

I will disagree as to what police can and cannot do, but let's put that aside for the moment.

What would you expect moderation to do? As you said it is fairly simple to make and hide a pjppet. What would have been your preferred outcome?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Said player did that, said harasser was untouchable by law because of jurisdiction, and said harasser flew in to her home city a few days after she reported it even though he knew that she had contacted the authorities, because he knew they couldn't do anything even about that given the legal limitations.

Basically, the second aforementioned message came after she tried the police. The site was a way to contact, even indirectly as in that case. These people know how to avoid Modly intervention, and the clever ones even are aware when police cannot act. That is why they are dangerous.

I will disagree as to what police can and cannot do, but let's put that aside for the moment.

What would you expect moderation to do? As you said it is fairly simple to make and hide a pjppet. What would have been your preferred outcome?

The fact is, more often then not, nothing is done. I’ve dealt with multiple cases where the law was involved and laughed the idea of online harassment right out of the station, and I have *never once* seen reporting a user to skype result In any action occurring. The general level of response is atrocious.

I’d expect them to remove users who are a danger to other users, using the service as a medium for said danger, from the service. It’s “fairly simple to hide a puppet” from other users, but a lot more difficult do so from site staff - they’ve been dealing with many ban-evaders for many years, have access to backend info, and if all else fails, can instantly re-issue bans as the need pops up. Is it perfect? No, if they lay low enough, they can potentially ban evade, as long as they don’t slip up, but it’s progress, and important progress at that. If “bans are evadable” is the restricting logic, why issue bans at all? That’s silly. They still do a lot.

Edit: and to repeat myself once more, I’d at the very well least expect them to not gag-order the offiste communities they encourage to exist, self-police, and collaborate on self-policing within “their community” from speaking of their efforts to self-police.

[Ethel mermania]

I will disagree as to what police can and cannot do, but let's put that aside for the moment.

What would you expect moderation to do? As you said it is fairly simple to make and hide a pjppet. What would have been your preferred outcome?

The fact is, more often then not, nothing is done. I’ve dealt with multiple cases where the law was involved and laughed the idea of online harassment right out of the station, and I have *never once* seen reporting a user to skype result In any action occurring. The general level of response is atrocious.

I’d expect them to remove users who are a danger to other users, using the service as a medium for said danger, from the service. It’s “fairly simple to hide a puppet” from other users, but a lot more difficult do so from site staff - they’ve been dealing with many ban-evaders for many years, have access to backend info, and if all else fails, can instantly re-issue bans as the need pops up. Is it perfect? No, if they lay low enough, they can potentially ban evade, as long as they don’t slip up, but it’s progress, and important progress at that. If “bans are evadable” is the restricting logic, why issue bans at all? That’s silly. They still do a lot.

1. Police do need to take harrassment more seriously, agreed.

2. My personal experience (which has nothing to do with the site) the cops called the person and told them to back off.

3. We disagree as to how easy or hard it is to find a poster who doesn't want to be found.

[Berethene]

Said player did that, said harasser was untouchable by law because of jurisdiction, and said harasser flew in to her home city a few days after she reported it even though he knew that she had contacted the authorities, because he knew they couldn't do anything even about that given the legal limitations.

Basically, the second aforementioned message came after she tried the police. The site was a way to contact, even indirectly as in that case. These people know how to avoid Modly intervention, and the clever ones even are aware when police cannot act. That is why they are dangerous.

I will disagree as to what police can and cannot do, but let's put that aside for the moment.

What would you expect moderation to do? As you said it is fairly simple to make and hide a pjppet. What would have been your preferred outcome?

Said messages indicated that the obsession she was concerned about was legitimate. Perhaps if, instead of punishing them for offsite, they pay more attention to what can otherwise seem to be contact onsite that does not seem actionable if it confirms that there are problems between these players. It isn't punishing them for offsite, but it is displaying more awareness that in some cases, exploitation of the rules can still tie into or perhaps validate the offsite evidence.

If a player is being harassed via constant pressuring to enter a relationship, said evidence is provided, and then two instances onsite indicate that there is truth to the statement that the accused is definitely obsessed with the idea, I'm not sure that should still be entirely inadmissible.

An imperfect solution, as it has already been claimed that players are too untrustworthy, but being more attentive to what could seem innocuous in onsite conduct to compare to an extensive offsite-content report is viable, at least as an idea. It would validate that there is a potential problem. Innocuous is defined as, not regular conversation, but messages that do lend credence to the claims that there is a problem. Sometimes content that is not actionable on its own has an entirely different context and can seem far more sinister when you put into perspective what is going on elsewhere.

Not all harassers don't ever use the site, but those who do use it to contact the victim will send messages that are, if weird, not actionable on their own.

Offsite evidence could actually put some context into otherwise out-of-the-blue correspondence.

[USS Monitor]

Allowing the community in question to then speak on why they removed said player from their space, instead of gagging them via the current rule set, is a compromise that allows the site to still say at the end of the day that it never made any accusations themselves.

I still find that idea problematic. If the comments are something that would open you up to legal liability for defamation, and we make a decision to allow such discussion, that would also open us up to liability. Even if we're not the authors of a defamatory comment, we'd still be the publishers.

[Kylia Quilor]

Allowing the community in question to then speak on why they removed said player from their space, instead of gagging them via the current rule set, is a compromise that allows the site to still say at the end of the day that it never made any accusations themselves.

I still find that idea problematic. If the comments are something that would open you up to legal liability for defamation, and we make a decision to allow such discussion, that would also open us up to liability. Even if we're not the authors of a defamatory comment, we'd still be the publishers.

Hardly if we're attaching the accusations to people's usernames. It's not like I know the RL names of most of these people. (same with most of us).

[Astarial]

What counts as (non-sexual) harassment? Are you using the same standard as the OSRS?

The OSRS does not define harassment, except to say that "repeated instances of flaming directed at the same player can be considered harassment, a more serious offense".

So, no, that is not the definition we are using, though repeated instances of flaming could be a part of non-sexual harassment. This is not an exhaustive list, but non-sexual harassment would include things like tracking down players' RL info in order to extort or blackmail them in-game - TNP had to deal with an instance of that against our delegate a couple years ago. Someone sent him a telegram with his RL name and address and told him to resign if he didn't want it released to the public. It would also include following someone around from region to region and refusing to leave them alone, sending constant messages, and otherwise making them unable to get away from you without leaving the game entirely. It could definitely include repeated flaming, showing up wherever they post to attack them.

As an admin of an off-site forum, I would treat these things differently - not every offense is immediately deserving of a permanent ban, and we're not arguing that NS moderation should insta-DoS everyone who does something that falls under harassment, stalking, etc. There are a range of options open to them, and we want them to use that range.

[USS Monitor]

I still find that idea problematic. If the comments are something that would open you up to legal liability for defamation, and we make a decision to allow such discussion, that would also open us up to liability. Even if we're not the authors of a defamatory comment, we'd still be the publishers.

Hardly if we're attaching the accusations to people's usernames. It's not like I know the RL names of most of these people. (same with most of us).

Using someone's user name still makes it clear who you are referring to. If I've told people that I post on NS under the name USS Monitor, and they see a post on the forums saying, "USS Monitor is a violent maniac that goes around threatening Confederate apologists with her guns," they would know you're talking about me, even though you didn't use my RL name.

[Ethel mermania]

Hardly if we're attaching the accusations to people's usernames. It's not like I know the RL names of most of these people. (same with most of us).

Using someone's user name still makes it clear who you are referring to. If I've told people that I post on NS under the name USS Monitor, and they see a post on the forums saying, "USS Monitor is a violent maniac that goes around threatening Confederate apologists with her guns," they would know you're talking about me, even though you didn't use my RL name.

In this country, The truth is a defense against a libel su8t. Just sayin.

[USS Monitor]

Using someone's user name still makes it clear who you are referring to. If I've told people that I post on NS under the name USS Monitor, and they see a post on the forums saying, "USS Monitor is a violent maniac that goes around threatening Confederate apologists with her guns," they would know you're talking about me, even though you didn't use my RL name.

In this country, The truth is a defense against a libel su8t. Just sayin.

While that might be relevant to established historical facts like my role in the Civil War, it can't be applied to accusations made on offsite forums unless we get into the business of vetting offsite evidence to check its accuracy.

[The United Providences of Perland]

This is a very complex issue. Honestly, it seems best to contact some lawyers on the matter. However, I see the only sure fire way to solve this problem without creating another one is to just spread awareness. Make a forum sticky, notice in the FAQ, etc. about how to spot, and defend yourself from online predators. Put in some stories of events like these (names changed or parties just referred to as like User A and User B), and ways to attempt to stop it; be it offsite or onsite mods, law enforcement, or whatever.

[Helaw]

I have not read into a large portion of this thread, but I was told that it would be a good idea to voice the first thoughts (originally posted elsewhere) that I had when I saw this petition.

I agree with altering policy on this in principle, but in reality, it would be a highly demanding change that would be very open to abuse. NS moderation cannot reliably verify any offsite cases, as much as this petition may claim otherwise. On Discord, identities and IPs are protected, and so the best course of action is to report perpetrators to Discord directly. Facebook screenshots and such are easily faked (Inspect Element, etc), and even real ones would require one side or the other to provide login details for the moderation team to verify, with any amount of certainty, whether or not any wrongdoing occurred - I am sure it is obvious why it would be easier to use the report function that exists on Facebook. The falsification of screenshots cannot be overcome without absurd requirements for the submission of evidence, perhaps taking a video of the evidence on one's phone following a certain movement path while repeatedly refreshing the page. How demeaning would something like that be to a victim, do you think?

It is not a case of effort. NS simply cannot acquire the relevant information, due to limited capabilities and privacy policies. There is nothing they can do when things happen offsite, just like I wouldn't be able to justifiably blame a dating site for matching me with someone that later harassed me via text. Assuming it was a case of effort, the effort would be immense. It would undoubtedly require a vast expansion of the moderation team, with new members pouring in to facilitate this new endeavour, with more-stringent-than-usual recruitment criteria that would drive the total number of eligible candidates into the ground. I have no experience within the mod team, but I believe it is obvious that the logistics of setting up something like this would be very difficult, perhaps impossible.

The only evidence that would be acceptable and reliable would be direct communication with any social media that was involved in the case. This would obviously be reliable verification, as they would be the ones that own and control the platform used in any given case. In terms of texts or similar things? Tough luck, unless you can somehow contact the provider for verification. In both cases, privacy policy and simple etiquette would prevent any information that the mod team could use from being divulged.

The moderation team is not at fault. There is nothing they can do to stop offsite activities, and they cannot ban people without evidence from reliable outside sources showing that they would be damaging influences on the NS community. Perhaps this line of thought has been echoed by others in this thread and beyond.

[The North Polish Union]

In one of the instances that spawned this the harasser was initially only able to contact the harassee through NS-related offsite venues (although later the harassment branched out beyond that). Real-life law enforcement was contacted about the harassment and could do nothing about it. The harasser is still permitted to (and actively does) use this site.

That said, I have not supported this petition because I disagree with the idea that NS Moderators ought to punish offsite behavior (the Predator case was different because there offsite behavior was directly influencing onsite outcomes of the R/D game). What I think is more helpful is for communities to continue to self-moderate but for there not to be a blanket ban on discussion of offsite behavior like there is now. Hence the discussions of how the defamation rule ought to be applied.

And how would action by moderation have stopped any of the contact after it spread to Facebook and RL? there are a lot more issues here than what the young lady described, and those issues are best dealt with by PD, and not the site.

Oh I absolutely agree. Hence why I don't agree with the petition in this thread.

On the other hand, where there are instances of harassment that for whatever reason are not illegal and therefore outside of the police's control but are still causing significant psychological damage the least NS could do is not silence the victims of harassment in the way that they currently do..

[East Malaysia]

And how would action by moderation have stopped any of the contact after it spread to Facebook and RL? there are a lot more issues here than what the young lady described, and those issues are best dealt with by PD, and not the site.

Oh I absolutely agree. Hence why I don't agree with the petition in this thread.

On the other hand, where there are instances of harassment that for whatever reason are not illegal and therefore outside of the police's control but are still causing significant psychological damage the least NS could do is not silence the victims of harassment in the way that they currently do..

Perhaps part of it could be addressed by NS being more proactive on an educational/informative level. Maybe newly created nations need to have an auto-TG that goes over the dangers of sharing RL information over the Internet. I joined NS when I was like 15 and from doing regional polls of age groups, a lot of them are young but when I was younger I was smart to not sharing information but in the social media world now... it's just different in the way young people think. NS needs to at minimum be proactive on that front.

NS also can't keep turning a blind eye to the victims. Good players leave who are positive for the community and we're left with the garbage to do it all over again to someone else.

[Ethel mermania]

In this country, The truth is a defense against a libel su8t. Just sayin.

While that might be relevant to established historical facts like my role in the Civil War, it can't be applied to accusations made on offsite forums unless we get into the business of vetting offsite evidence to check its accuracy.

The truth is the truth, where the truth comes from is immaterial. You get to a part of your problem, how do you verify what is true or not, and what is the consequences of being wrong , which can have unintended consequences for the site.

Now I would normally make a snarky comment here but I have promised to refrain from mentioning your Dahlgrens