You are reading a single comment by @Oliver Schick and its replies. Click here to read the full conversation.
  • I'd like to be more sympathetic but it's also true the the kind of heartless, anonymous, abuse she indulged in has also driven its victims to suicide. She wasn't set up, she wasn't tricked, she was unmasked. Sometimes people can't live with the guilt at what they have done. There's an easy way to avoid that.

  • I'd like to be more sympathetic but it's also true the the kind of heartless, anonymous, abuse she indulged in has also driven its victims to suicide. She wasn't set up, she wasn't tricked, she was unmasked. Sometimes people can't live with the guilt at what they have done. There's an easy way to avoid that.

    I wish it could be so simple ... there will be reasons why she did it in the first place, and they might well point to her being vulnerable herself. Needless to say, that's not to excuse on-line abuse, but when people abuse, even 'just' on-line, they have often in the past been victims themselves and suicide or self-harm are very real possibilities when the option of releasing some of this by abusing others is withdrawn (old repressed fears can be released that can be impossible to deal with) and/or, as may well have been the case here, the heavy-handed approach by some journalist bullies can be deeply intimidating.

About