Canadian Teen Imprisoned For Online Harassment
A Canadian teenager, linked to hacker group Lizard Squad, has been given a 16 month sentence for online harassment. According to Wesley Yin-Poole of eurogamer.net the convicted would contact victims: “via League of Legends or Twitter, then set to work harassing them if they declined his friend requests. He blamed his actions on boredom.”.
The accused would post personal contact information online and often call his victims late at night repeatedly. In some case he would also call local police departments claiming to have taken a victim’s family members hostage or killed someone in their house.
In one case, Yin-Poole writes: “One woman, a student at University of Arizona in Tucson, was forced to drop out of her course due to the teen’s continued harassment. Armed police were called to her house twice within the same week, and family members were removed from the home at gunpoint.”.
According to citynews.ca: “The 17-year-old boy has pleaded guilty to 23 charges, including criminal harassment, extortion and public mischief.”, most of which were committed against women.
Many will be glad to see these disruptive actions met with criminal charges, especially when so often the law struggles to keep pace with technology.
What is your views of online harassment? What do you think of the problems with bringing charges in similar cases?
How can we be more proactive in preventing similar actions? Let us know in the comments section below.
