During the past few days I've read several articles on the Wales Online website about men who have got in trouble for propositioning young women [some have been under age] either online on Facebook or by mobile phone text.
Each one of these men were in positions of responsibility. Yet, they chose to lower their professional boundaries by sending explicit messages to the young women. One even sent a photograph of a certain part of his anatomy.
And it's not just men who do this either, I also read on the Daily Mail website of a nurse who sent explicit texts to a diabetic patient.
Whether they had said these things in person or by text, social media or email, they were still wrong and left behind damning evidence that helped convict them. It's not just people who are teachers and in professional positions who do this, but sometimes people who bombard their exes with hundreds of text messages, in a form of stalking.
See articles here:
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/driving-instructor-who-begged-young-7832005
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/teacher-guilty-gross-misconduct-after-7834646
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2770188/You-yummy-sexy-married-nurse-sent-diabetic-patient-torrent-flirty-texts-treatment-GP-practice.html
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/stalker-husband-jailed-bombarding-estranged-7781592
When I was on Facebook I noticed there was a tendency for some members of the opposite sex to contact me sometimes leaving lewd comments in my inbox. These were often men I knew in the real world who I feel would have been unlikely to say these things to my face had I not been on that social network. More often than not, if they didn't stop after a warning, I'd have to block them.
So what is it that makes people think it's permissible to do this kind of thing especially as they leave a trail of evidence behind? Is it drink fuelled? Is it the fact that social media, mobile phone messages, emails etc are so rapid getting to the other person, that they send that kind of message on impulse and later regret it? Yet, that can't always be so as most of the people who get convicted appear to have sent a series of messages over a number of days.
I found a good way to cope with those pests online, I've started copying and pasting their 'private messages' to me and posting them back on their own walls for everyone to see. I never did it on Facebook [I now wish I had!] but now have left but I'm doing it on the Interpals site. It's supposed to be a pen pal site but some people have other ideas. I did it to someone the other day and he was shocked and said, "Why did you do that?" This man was 25 years old. I replied, "Because you wouldn't like it if a young man of your age sent a message like that to your mother!"
I think it taught him a lesson and I've had no trouble from him since. I might try it again sometime. The thing that fuels these people is the fact they are being explicit in private to you, or maybe they THINK they're being private but as those court cases prove in those news paper articles, in the end their messages end up being very public indeed.
5 comments:
I think your idea of copying and pasting such things is a good one. There seem to be different standards (or maybe no standards at all) when it comes to the behaviour of some people on social media x
A mayor of our city was caught when he had someone fix a problem on his computer. Even after being charged with the crime, he continued. A sting trapped him meeting an under aged girl.
jim
Great strategy for dealing with such people.
Rajeev
Yes it seems to be a good strategy for dealing with that sort of person. They'd hate to think that their wives, family members, bosses, etc could see what they'd written. :)
That Mayor sounded like a loose cannon, Jim. Really audacious to carry on too after he'd been initially caught out.
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