Thursday, September 22, 2011

The Hijacking Of "Cyberbullying" By Marketers, Tech Hacks, And Social Media Gurus

Cyberbullying is a real problem. Children have committed suicide as a result. Cyberstalking is another problem. I've received calls from women being stalked by men (both known and unknown), wondering what to do.

These real problems though, with real definitions, have been embarrassingly used by the marketing, tech hack, and social media guru folks on the internet in order to stave off any criticism, discussion, debate, or questions about their backgrounds and various bullshit they peddle.

Any marketer, tech hack, or social media guru who has complained about being "cyberbullied" or "cyberstalked" should bow their heads. You are worthless theives of terms that have real meaning to defenseless people. You have used these terms to round up your groupies in to believing you and offering help.

So listen up, real good:

"Cyberbullying" is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying.

So you 30 and 40 something marketers, tech hacks, and social media gurus, shut up. You want to write something critical of someone else, great. Defend it. You want to sit there and passively aggressively call your critics "psychopaths," or "weirdos" because they don't hug you and otherwise kiss your ass on your blog, expect a response.

Criticism of the bullshit you write (or even the bullshit I write) is not akin to being "tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted."

There is a group of lawyers, me included, on the internet, that have no problem calling bullshit when we see it. If you believe that is "cyberbullying," then show me your identification that proves you are under 18, and I'll show you mine.

So stop threatening us, stop thinking we are scared of you and your screenshots and your free lawyer friends. That means you - the marketing scam artist, the iPhone "evangelist," and you, you lying social media guru - you and your online "friends." We have been sued, stalked, and as they say, "been there done that." Your threats, discussions about what you are going to do are in and of themselves, as you call, cyberstalking and harrassment. But we can handle it without crying like babies to our online ass kissers.

So shut up. Move on, and stop thinking for a minute that you have any relevance in the world of professionals. Your entire life is online, ours is not.

Grow up, stop whining, and stop hurting the children of the world by trying to convince people that you are a child as well.

Non-anonymous comments welcome. Located in Miami, Florida, Brian Tannebaum practices Bar Admission and Discipline and Criminal Defense. He is the author of I Got A Bar Complaint.Share/Save/Bookmark

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You wrote a post about how social media influence and online adoration were irrelevant to a man's personal struggles and could not have stopped him from killing himself.

A self-anointed social media marketing guru, one Oliver Blanchard, then uses your post as a straw-man to bolster himself as the Beau Geste of online marketing. His mewling sycophants gleefully pile on.

You then post comments on his blog which only escalate into his modus operandi of rallying the troops, organizing off-line huddles and trading 'saucy winks' with his socmed posse.

When efforts to mediate and call a "truce" are accepted, he and his cadre of Klout chasing cuckolds trumpet their victory.

Le constructeur de la marquet" then wrote another post about cyberbullying and cyberstalking ending the post with a predictably desperate plug for own his social media ROI book.

All of this, notwithstanding the fact that it was he who instigated this flame war and fanned the fire by repeatedly hurling insults and epithets on Twitter, including in his native French, then running away to hide behind his mother's apron.

So who's the cyberbully or cyberstalker, Monsieur Olivier?

Pot. Kettle. Black.

David Fuller said...

Aren't the Marquis of Queensberry Rules supposed to cure this stuff? Alternatively, achievements in real life, i.e. forums other Twitter and Facebook, are considered a suitable and effective vaccination for adult victims of cyber-bullying.

So for the record, if you're over 21, you have two options: 1) say "keep talking and you'll be swallowing teeth" and mean it; or, 2) be able to truthfully state "I get paid real money by real people to do real work."

Tom Matte said...

Antonin,

That is not exactly what happened. Let me clear things up. Olivier’s original post did not include Brian’s last name. Not because Olivier is a coward as Brian claimed but because he knew that most people would consider Brian an asshole to write this type of post right after a suicide. He did not realize that Brian takes great pride in being the asshole in the room. Brian cleared that up when he went on Olivier’s blog site and left his last name and “coward” comment. After that all bets were off. Now we have Part Deux - a post by Olivier about cyberstalking, online bullying, and Twitter abuse among other things. His post was written to educate his many readers on how to deal with these types of folks. I am sure it was unpleasant for Olivier to have to deal with so much bullshit. Most people who disagree with him are more civil. People who read his blog want to be educated about social media not see personal attacks. Brian has now written an indirect rebuttal focusing only on cyberstalking leaving out the online bullying focus of Olivier’s new post. Not sure why, perhaps to show how much more he knows about the legal definition than Olivier, who Brian repeatedly alludes to as a laymen social media hack. It will be interesting to see if this develops into another Mayweather - Ortiz outcome. Who will head butt and who will sucker punch? You know who the real winner is here? Adrian Dayton. For the last few weeks no one has written anything negative about him. The usual self righteous Tweets but no posts.

Cheers,

Tom Matte
Max Advertising

P.S. For the record I have never met either of these folks. I have however read both blogs

Brian Cuban said...

I find it troublesome that online harassment and cyberbullying statutes are being legislated and perverted to settle Twitter/social media disputes over what is for the most part "should be" 1st Amendment protected speech(other than true threats, defamation etc.). If you're annoyed that someone tweets your a dick 10k times, get off Twitter. No one is chaining you to the soapbox.