Hitting back at cyber-bullying
The court in Canada has made it clear that it expects the same standard of civilised behaviour in cyberspace as it does in real life, and has cracked down in a case of online bullying.
Back in May 2009, an Ottowan local government HR worker Elayna Katz, went to the Mambo Nuevo Latino Restaurant and, when ordering her meal, told the waitress she really didn't like olives and asked for an olive-free dish. The meal she received contained olives so naturally Katz was dissatisfied. Other problems she experienced included slow service, and being charged for two starters she had not ordered.
The matter could have been settled simply, there and then, but the waiter was dismissive, whilst the restaurant manager, Marisol Simoes, refused to meet with her, and didn't return Katz's calls over the next few days. Katz then posted a negative review to a restaurants website, RestaurantThing.com.
Simoes reacted badly to this criticism when she heard about it. A short time later, Katz noticed a response to her review which published Katz's full name, address, phone number, job title, and employer's address, along with suggestions that she was a terrible customer and a crazy person who should be locked up in the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre.
Over the following years, the restauranteur claimed that any other critical reviews of the Mambo Nuevo appearing on the RestaurantThing website were also the work of Katz using false identities. RestaurantThing eventually suspended the Mambo Neuvo listing due to "continued abuse" and replaced it with correspondence from Simoes and the Mambo Nuevo.
www.restaurantthing.com/ca/on/ottawa/listing.php
In addition, Katz became the victim of a number of vicious email attacks and fake postings. In one incident, 75 managers and council officials at Katz's place of work received an email, supposedly from Katz, which read: "I am open to anything! Couples, threesomes and group sex. Am especially into transsexuals and transgender, being one myself." Similar postings appeared on adult dating websites and used a wedding photo of Katz. The fake websites and Gmail addresses were traced back by investigators to IP addresses assigned to Simoes.
This culminated in a court case in Ottowa in which Simoes was convicted of criminal libel and has been sentenced to six months detention. In passing sentence Judge Lahale said "Ms Katz suffered great heartache and shame. Cyber-bullying of this nature can drive people to more tragic endings than what happened here." Meanwhile Simoes still maintains that she did not commit the crime and claims it must have been a disgruntled employee.
28th November 2012
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.