At its most basic legal definition, “cyber-stalking is a repeated course of conduct that’s aimed at a person designed to cause emotional distress and fear of physical harm,” said
Danielle Citron, a professor at the University of Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law. Citron is an expert in the area of cyber-stalking, and recently published the book called
Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. Citron told me that cyber-stalking can include threats of violence (often sexual),
spreading lies asserted as facts (like a person has herpes, a criminal record, or is a sexual predator),
posting sensitive information online (whether that’s nude or compromising photos or social security numbers), and
technological attacks (falsely shutting down a person’s social-media account). “
Often, it’s a perfect storm of all these things,” she said.
When this happens to a victim, they can take their complaint to one of the justice system’s two worlds: criminal or civil. In the civil court, victims of these kinds of cyber attacks, from stalking to revenge porn to online bullying, can sue their harassers through something called tort law, otherwise known as
civil wrongs. There, victims can claim the torts of defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment, and public disclosure of private fact, said Citron, depending on the specifics of the case. But unless you have Jennifer Lawrence’s resources this isn’t exactly realistic: Filing a case like this is a very expensive and time-consuming process, not to mention emotionally draining.
In the world of criminal law,
federal cyber-stalking laws, in place since 2011, include language allowing prosecutors to go after people using electronic tools to harass. These laws specifically stipulate that an “interactive computer service” cannot be used to threaten. Citron said approximately half of the states in the U.S. have also updated their laws to allow authorities to press charges against people engaging in cyber stalking and cyber harassment. As early as 1999, shortly after California enacted the country’s first cyber-stalking legislation,
Gary Dellapenta was charged and eventually
convicted to six years in prison for placing online ads and responding to emails in a woman’s name about rape fantasies, which led to men showing up at her apartment.
So in states with specific cyber stalking and harassment laws like California, Illinois, and Massachusetts, theoretically victims can press criminal charges against their online stalkers and harassers. (Theoretically because, as we’ll get into later, that doesn’t always happen the way it should.) But for those living in a state without these laws, there is little other recourse.