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| Jessi Slaughter |
Last week, Friday, Google Trends played host to this most popular search term: "Jessi Slaughter given PCP by her father." That claim turned out to be part of a smear that went viral, as many did not know it was fake and used it to make forum entries and blog posts, hence the rise on Google Trends.
What really happened was that 11-year-old Jessi Slaughter was using the live chat system Stickcam to have an exchange with other young teenagers, all of whom use the Internet to say the most vile things about each other. Apparently, Jessi herself became extremely fowl-mouthed in one YouTube video, threatening to "pop a Glock" and make someone's "brain a slushie" if they continued to insult her.
Well, instead of that causing a decrease in harassment, it caused an increase in it. It's also something the U.S. Justice Department and the FCC should step in and investigate because it's an example of how some people are using the Internet to commit harassment crimes and think they can get away with it.
Internel Trolls are Criminals
The commenters associated with this issue should be the first to be discovered (you can be found) and jailed where the offenses are the greatest. There's an old saying that every action causes an equal and opposite reaction; if the Ineternet trollers persist, that response will be jail time.
What they're doing - and I place the so-called TILA ARMY of Tila Tequila in this category - is nothing less than a violation of Section 113 of The Violence Against Women Act which specifically prohibits cyberstalking. In other words, the people of TILA ARMY who've bothered my blogger Nikky Raney, and those who have been harassing Jessi Slaughter, are committing crimes and should be dealt with as criminals, regardless of age.
Jessi Slaughter Received Death Threats
What happened in Jessi Slaughter's case went beyond the usual level of immature Internet trolls writing stupid notes and ventured into the area of phone call death threats. Gawker called Jessi's mother Dianne Leonhardt, who reported that her daughter received not one but several phone call death threats. Someone passed Jessi's real name and phone number around on the Internet, until some really screwed up person elected to demonstrate that they were messed up by calling Jessi.
Jessi Slaughter reportedly in a Safe House
Jessi Slaughter's now in a safe house after an investigation by the Marion County, Florida Sheriff's Office. The one big issue is that the Marion County, Florida Sheriff's Office spokeswoman confirmed that they're investigating a case with details that "match" the Jessi Slaughter case, but did not confirm the death threats.
What she did claim was an investigation into nude photos of the girl on the Internet. That's something Gawker's Adrian Chen wrote he did not see.
I'd not read too much into that Gawker report; such investigations are confidential and the spokeswoman is under no obligation to confirm anything with Gawker. Of course, if Gawker were paying for the information, as some other blogs do, they would get the real story.
A Hoax Story?
One reader sent this email speculating that the Jessi Slaughter case was a "hoax" story:
You wrote a post about the Jessi Slaughter case, and I was kind of
disappointed that you took it at face value. My first response to the
video of her father getting angry was "This is a joke". I am actually
not certain that it is a joke, but I think that it is fairly likely that
it is some type of hoax. I could present several pieces of evidence that
it is, but the overall gestalt of what is going on seems scripted.
My response is I don't see the value of creating such a story, as it now has law enforcement behind it, and at the behest of Jessi's parents. Now, if the story were false, Jessi's parents could be seeing jail time; there's no reason to believe it is.
Stay tuned.
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