Today what is most scary for those of us that wind up getting coverage in the media is the fear of being targeted maliciously by someone with nothing but malice and self righteous justification for their harmful actions as their motivation. In the past it was our fear that the media would print inaccurate statements about us, which is quite common. Now it is an even worse nightmare if some sicko deranged functioning psychopath finds us. If you have this happen to you then you will understand. They tend go to any length online to post comments that are both untrue and defamatory. They are delusional normally so they invent their own version of facts laced with enough real information to make their attacks sound almost plausible. If you confront them (that is what they want) they just attack you more seeking to raise and elevate their own desire for self worth by destroying your own life and livelihood if they can.
They seek to challenge you and draw you out in lengthy engagements so they can find more avenues to invade your privacy. They issue challenges to debate them via blogs. This only fuels them more and creates even more unhealthy attention on you by them. Lastly, what person in their right mind would give them business or client information. They would turn and attack your clients with their blatherings.
Consider this, your clients shy away from you fearing they will become targeted. Just as any that the stalker can find have experienced. This makes recovering your business stability difficult, time consuming and expensive. Worse yet is that our spouse and kids are subjected to this crap by the sheer nature of search engine optimization.
These psychopaths quote the first amendment and think they are journalists or actual media professionals. As most professionals realize the first amendment does not permit defamation of character or libel.
While I have little regard for media professionals I have much less for these online stalkers and social media thugs. I am convinced most of them have deep seated emotional issues from their childhood and possibly adult lives.
You can sue these cyber stalkers but that takes several years and by then the damage is done. They are generally worthless financially so that does not justify the expense.
No, the best solution is to begin to lobby our congress to create strong new online defamation laws with criminal and civil fines and penalties. This new law would also force all such posts to be deleted from cyberspace. This is the only real answer that makes any sense.
In the end remember these stalkers are mentally unstable so don’t try to reason with them, they are incapable of clear thoughts and reasoning. Avoid them and then let nature run its course. Eventually they move to their next prey or one of their victims might actually snap and best them at their own game. Who knows but my advice is steer clear, don’t engage them, report them to the police, and write your Congressman about cyber stalking.
I hope you never have to deal with this in your life. As an act of last resort you can place a voodoo curse on them and at least work out your own frustrations through an old fashioned belief in what gets dished out gets retuned ten fold. LOL at least we hope so!