# Internet troll gets his comeuppance



## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

Time to rejoice

http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028961/Sylvia-Hooper-spared-jail-attack-plot-disabled-daughters-internet-abuser.html


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Argh. A socially bent (maybe in the pretzel group) personality. I suspect it will take God to straighten him.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

> Mrs Hooper realised the culprit was Mr Berwick, who lived nearby, and joined her son Robert and his friend Soloman Taylor outside his home.
> 
> Mr Hooper, 19, punched Mr Berwick after his mother said 'hit him' and the bully was then taken back to the family home by car.
> 
> He was forced to crawl inside and make a 'grovelling apology' to his victim while on all fours.


The real story here is kidnapping and assault.

This guy's obviously a ********, not gonna argue that. But if you escalate an online situation into violence, the dangerous/socially maladjusted one is you, not the one making mean comments on the internet.

Forced to crawl and make a grovelling apology? Who is the real sadist here? What an emotionally reactionary, hypocritical culture we have.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> The real story here is kidnapping and assault.
> 
> This guy's obviously a ********, not gonna argue that. But if you escalate an online situation into violence, the dangerous/socially maladjusted one is you, not the one making mean comments on the internet.
> 
> Forced to crawl and make a grovelling apology? Who is the real sadist here? What an emotionally reactionary, hypocritical culture we have.


I'm sure you are right....I just couldn't resist rejoicing in the poetic justice


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Hmmm... Now we just need to deal with the internet hill-troll.


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## Chris (Jun 1, 2010)

Klavierspieler said:


> Hmmm... Now we just need to deal with the internet hill-troll.


Not on his birthday!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I'm not a psychologist, and haven't played one on television. However, I consider 'vengeance' to be a form of delayed, and thus inappropriate defense. The emotional charge can be very powerful though. Passing it off to God is a good idea.


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## Yoshi (Jul 15, 2009)

I like how they are not so brave in real life.

But there's one thing I don't understand, why didn't they just block the troll immediatly? There's a reason why I disabled private messages from facebook, I don't want random strangers trying to contact me.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

I'd be interested in knowing more about the relationship between these people. Random trolling happens, but it can be more complicated than that, especially when the people know each other. I've grown distrustful of what old media has to say about the internet, since it seems to enjoy sensationalizing ~~~trolling~~~ as much as possible. People love having a new thing to be afraid of.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

regressivetransphobe said:


> The real story here is kidnapping and assault.
> 
> This guy's obviously a ********, not gonna argue that. But if you escalate an online situation into violence, the dangerous/socially maladjusted one is you, not the one making mean comments on the internet.
> 
> Forced to crawl and make a grovelling apology? Who is the real sadist here? What an emotionally reactionary, hypocritical culture we have.


Well, a suspended sentence isn't meaningless. It means you're been found guilty, but spared prison because of extenuating circumstances. It's not generally a good idea to take the law into your own hands, for a number of reasons including your own safety.


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

regressivetransphobe said:


> I'd be interested in knowing more about the relationship between these people. Random trolling happens, but it can be more complicated than that, especially when the people know each other. I've grown distrustful of what old media has to say about the internet, since it seems to enjoy sensationalizing ~~~trolling~~~ as much as possible. People love having a new thing to be afraid of.


It took place in Chatham - the heartland of the British Chav 

That is chav - as in 'Chatham Average', rather than the other variations of chavva or other derivations. Need the media say more.... when it has such stereotypes to play up to


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Internet shouldn't exist.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Fsharpmajor said:


> Well, a suspended sentence isn't meaningless. It means you're been found guilty, but spared prison because of extenuating circumstances. It's not generally a good idea to take the law into your own hands, for a number of reasons including your own safety.


Yeah, but unfortunately if you don't take 'the law' into your own hands in these sort of cases nothing happens.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

In the long run, I do think it's better he got his *** handed to him rather than be fed the system. But people need to learn that words on the internet are just that. Say what you will about "slippery slope", but reacting violently to non-threatening words on the internet--or hurt feelings in general, for that matter--sets a bad precedent. Some day that son will start crap with someone who won't get on his knees and beg.


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## Head_case (Feb 5, 2010)

Isn't that rather ironic....in a democratic country ... others have the freedom of Facebook speak ... until a crime is committed and a victim identified. 

I'm not so sure it feels right For a victim to find her voice, through the courts - is that really democracy? Through legal representation...and the courts. 

This is modern legalism. I'd wish the Chatham mother of the disabled girl had posted a youtube clip of the bully boy getting pwned. 

Sympathy ---> right here


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I agree with the point made in the newspaper forum which differentiates between a troll and a cyber-bully. Trolls are sad and annoying in their own way but tend to lack true vindictiveness wheareas cyber-bullies like this wretched piece of insignificance operate on an altogether different plane of anti-socialism. For what it's worth, I feel he deserved nothing less than a hard smack and what a sad state of affairs it is that the law almost found for him as a result - after being told there was nothing the police could do I completely empathise with the family for reaching the end of its tether. Encountering this kind of scumbag online seems to be an occupational hazard of electronic social networking and impersonal and widely-used sites like Facebook seem more susceptible to this than ever.


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

Chris said:


> Time to rejoice
> 
> http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028961/Sylvia-Hooper-spared-jail-attack-plot-disabled-daughters-internet-abuser.html


I sure rejoiced! 

The important thing here was to help the disabled girl by putting an end to the abuse. And when society didn't care, her family stepped up.

A bully can never expect mercy.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

TresPicos said:


> I sure rejoiced!
> 
> A bully can never expect mercy.


Sadly, had the case been tried by a more unbending judge the chances are that this particular bully would have got it.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

regressivetransphobe said:


> In the long run, I do think it's better he got his *** handed to him rather than be fed the system. But people need to learn that words on the internet are just that. Say what you will about "slippery slope", but reacting violently to non-threatening words on the internet--or hurt feelings in general, for that matter--sets a bad precedent. Some day that son will start crap with someone who won't get on his knees and beg.


For clued-in internet users, particularly ones who have grown up with it, words on the internet are just that. Trolls are pointless and we try our best to not take the bait. But I've noticed that, to people of a different generation, a troll - or indeed a cyber-bully - can feel just as horrible as a person standing at the end of your drive-way shouting abuse. And why shouldn't it? After all, a bully - online or offline - is still a vile human being. This doesn't condone their reactions, but it makes them more understandable, and it makes me more sympathetic. Especially after the way this woman devoted herself to her daughter.


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## graaf (Dec 12, 2009)

Polednice said:


> For clued-in internet users, particularly ones who have grown up with it, words on the internet are just that. Trolls are pointless and we try our best to not take the bait. But I've noticed that, to people of a different generation, a troll - or indeed a cyber-bully - can feel just as horrible as a person standing at the end of your drive-way shouting abuse. And why shouldn't it? After all, a bully - online or offline - is still a vile human being. This doesn't condone their reactions, but it makes them more understandable, and it makes me more sympathetic. Especially after the way this woman devoted herself to her daughter.


On a careful enough analysis I would always see the same: if I was upset/angry/furious by some online conversation, it was my fault every single time. In real life situations - I can't say the same. Online, it meant that I clung to some comment, or got upset over criticism of something I like or whatever. In real life, even if I resist all those things, I can be in front of a physically stronger person that... doesn't believe in rational argumentation. Online, you can be bullied only if you give trust to someone (like 13yr old Megan Meier did), in real life, if you are at the wrong place at the wrong time.

I would also say that I have seen more "older" people behaving much better online and upsetting less about online comments than younger - they might not be tech-savvy as youngsters but are pretty much life-savvy and further away from adolescence and more into emotionally stability. And that is more important for online conversation, because starting browser and pressing "reply with quote" is not expert level skill anyway.


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