What is Cyberstalking?
What is stalking?
"Stalking" refers to the deliberate, frequently recurring and persistent persecution and harassment of another person over a long period of time. Contact is made against the person's will. Those affected are harassed and persecuted, threatened, coerced or even blackmailed.
Cyberstalking is stalking through emails, posts and messages via messengers and chat services, or other social and digital media. Nowadays, almost every case of stalking involves such digital assaults.
Forms of cyberstalking include:
- Constantly contacting you on social media, e.g. Facebook or WhatsApp;
- Spying on the smartphone or computer with spyware;
- Checking status messages, and photo uploads etc. of friends of the person affected to gather information;
- Using social media to expose the person concerned to others;
- Defamation on the internet, at work and in the social environment;
- Collecting and publishing private information about a person against their will (e.g. posting private email addresses, private photos, etc.);
- Identity theft (e.g. stealing social media accounts to post content through this account);
- Planting location trackers, e.g. AirTags;
- Secretly installing cameras or microphones.
You are not to blame for what has happened to you.
Other people may not necessarily understand how you are feeling, and may advise you to stop using the internet. But that cannot be the solution. You have just as much right to use the internet and digital media as anyone else. Talk to people you trust, or contact a counselling centre in your area.
Stalking as a form of violence in relationships with (ex-)partners
Partners or ex-partners are often the ones who send messages, spy on phones or use social media to collect information about you, or expose you to others.
Technical tools are used to maintain control and power, especially during or after break-ups.
Even if your partner thinks they only mean well and have the right to do so, any behaviour that restricts you, makes you feel bad and causes you to withdraw increasingly from friends and family is violent!
Regardless of your relationship with the perpetrator, it is usually about exerting control and pressure. Violent behaviour and surveillance always have the aim of exercising power.