Woman Stalked & Harrassed in Real Life By Men Who Did Reverse Image Search on Her Second Life Avatar

I recently received a fairly urgent e-mail from a young woman I profiled nearly a decade ago, who told me the post I had wrote about her had inadvertently caused considerable stress -- for herself, and potentially, for people close to her. The post was a mixed reality profile, containing a screenshot of her Second Life avatar alongside a photo of her in real life, and therein was the problem:

"I've come across certain people on SL who used a reverse image search on the pictures in your blog to find out my RL information," she told me, "so when possible, I'd like to make that a bit harder for them." (Not the images above, by the way.)

Years after the fact, the woman I'd profiled has stalkers who started harassing her in Second Life, and have taken their obsession to the wider Internet. "I actually have been threatened by a guy halfway across the world via Second Life," she tells me, "who said that he would 'destroy my life' by sending pictures of my avatar to my (RL) partner."

They found out who she was in real life through a devious search of her Second Life avatar's name:

"In my case," she explained, "my avatar name is pretty unique. When you Google my avatar's name, your blog post is one of the first results. Next step: reverse image search the RL picture to find out the name (and other details, like e-mail or workplace) of the person via social media."

And she's been stalked this way, not just from Second Life to the wider web, but vice versa:

"I have been contacted on my private e-mail address by a person I didn't even know," she continued. "He said he saw my picture on a dating site and decided to reverse image search me (to check if I were real) and just contact me directly on my private/RL e-mail."

Emphasis mine, because WTF. And adding to that WTF, here's what her stalker told her, when she asked why he contacted her that way:

"'Because women don't tend to respond to messages on dating sites often.' After telling that person he was being extremely creepy and I didn't want to have contact with him," she says, "I made sure to block him from sending me any other messages."

And of course, she's been endangered in Second Life for equally creepy reasons: "It's very easy to piss off somebody on SL," she says. "This can happen when you say 'no' to sexual invitations, or people who are just jealous or think you have mistreated them. Next step for such a pathetic person is to try to find more information about you and either blackmail you or send chatlogs/pictures of your avatar or whatever to your friends, family or employer."

Fortunately, she goes on, "This never happened, because I told him I wasn't afraid or embarrassed about it. I don't think I have anything to hide." Still, she asked me to remove her mixed reality profile photos, for very good reasons, and I've done so. "I don't want my friends or relatives to have to deal with childlike behavior like this," she adds. "They have nothing to do with weird people on the internet that barely even know me on SL. So, for me that is a reason to make sure my SL info and my RL info are strictly separated wherever and whenever possible."

Her words are worth taking to heart, especially by other women, who are disproportionately stalked and harassed on the Internet. I'm taking her words to heart as well, because I've often written about the value of linking one's real life identity to one's avatar identity. I still think that should be an option for users, and valuable for many of them -- but sad to say, as we can see here, it's not practical or advisable in general.

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Comments

[Triangle Monarchy]

This website was calling for no anonymity/pseudonyms on the internet period only a number of months ago.

[Wagner James Au]

That's not correct. I do agree with Danielle Citron* that anonymity should be stripped away from abusers and that we should *encourage* RL/SL linkage in SL through Facebook other mechanics, but I never said it should be mandatory. However, like I wrote in this post, I definitely didn't consider the stalking implications carefully enough, and was wrong not to do so.

*LINK HERE: http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2014/10/online-harassment-gamergate-stopgamergate.html

[Amanda Dallin]

Your link in your comment response is bad. You included the parenthesis and comma on the end in the link.

[Tess Hannah]

You could just as easily do this to someone from any social media site. I realise this one is specifically about an SL avatar but it happens ALL the time outside SL. People are stalked and threatened every day. The only way to keep it from happening to you or affecting your life is to be honest with your family and friends and NOT TO SHARE PERSONAL INFO ONLINE...NONE. And if you're worried about people finding out about your avatar or things you do in SL, then don't do things that people can use against you.

[JoJaDhara]

After a long time I decided to have a look again in Second Life and the first things that pops up in my instant message is from a lady that has been harassed by a same guy that harasses many for years including me.
The last encounter I heard was that if he would see me in Real life he would run me over by his car.
This guy also collects records of your RL and blogs about it in even your personal records. Trying to destroy your reputation.
What bothers me most with these kind of harassments that even it goes beyond TOS and you point this out nothing is done. Even as a group we complained about this harassment. And who knows more had the same encounter and reported it.
Now honest I am not that bothered by the guy because I did the same and checked him out on the Internet but also heard personal other stories of him. Saw even a "victim" panic in front of me when hearing his name.
It is clear that he is a man that cannot take a NO for answer. It is sickening if you read what also his reallife is doing and behaving.
The only thing I am bothered is that indeed the lawmakers the creators of platforms are still closing their eyes for this kind of terror.
And it is funny I had a friend on SL that is a bit of a demonstrator and he was in the time of occupy and snowdens and assange in a rebel mood and got this picture as profile of this occupy mask and for some reason he got reported because he was having a strong discussion and that has been taken care of by one of the reports. He was banned from SL...But this what clearly is even deaththreatning or ruining your life threat is being ignored. Amazing!
Reading this I think indeed we should set up a voice for all that has been harassed. And maybe it will be a good picture for LL even they would spend a week as a theme on this issue. Have arguments dialogues about this. What would be a good answer for lawmakers for platforms.
I honest even challenged my "stalker" to have an discussion with lawmakers to see where are the boundaries and to realize how far these people can go while nothing is done. ( of course he was not interested ;-) )
How can we protect ourselves real and virtual? What is the mind set you need to have or how to behave? Despite you do know unfortunate it is like driving perfectly your car but the changes are that the accident will be caused by another. Even you know the rules so well etc.
So you always have a change like me and the lady from this piece that you will meet a lunatic and how is the virtual world going to protect us from the bad guys?
As final I am "glad" to have met this lunatic as it opened my eyes and he is used many times as an example. Even though I do not want him to get to much platform. That is the other danger of these people they love the negative or positive attention.... it is attention.
But I do deeply hope there will be a solution to stop this.... at this moment in case of Facebook there is a court case happening. Very interesting as the platform has to give up a kind of rule of privacy to get the bad guy....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/25/us-netherlands-facebook-ruling-idUSKBN0P51Z020150625

[Concerned Somebody]

This is why you shouldn't reuse images between services you don't want to be related.

[A.J.]

Real Life celebrities have to deal with this kind of thing all of the time. Getting attention gets you all kinds of attention.

Until we have the ability to control everything and everyone, we're left with choices.

It will be interesting to see how the use of social media evolves... like if what we don't massively share is just as valuable as what we do.

[Rei Nori]

Of the horror stories I have heard about anonymity loss, this is among the tamest. I do have sympathy for the woman in the story, but it can be much worse.

There is a subtle point you have missed over the years James. The more SL is like RL, the more undesirable RL situations will "creep" in, and the less people will want to be immersed in SL. Immersion and not mass market appeal is the life blood of virtual worlds.

[Brandy Maltas]

I have never separated my SL and my RL. Links to my social media are right in my SL profile. I've managed top SL live music performers for 7 years and lead a higher profile SL because of it and I have never been stalked or harassed in RL.

I believe there are cases of SL harassment that leads to RL but I think those are the exception not the rule.

[Vanni]

Brandy: I've left my car unlocked several times while shopping and it hasn't been stolen or my radio taken. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to just leave my car open every time I go shopping. But, everyone can do as they will.

[Shingami Kayo]

Some years ago we spoke of this very thing. Think it was in reference to Facebook policy and at that time google+ policy on names. People have traced back to me, stalking me in SL and yes, stalking me in RL. They extrapolate tidbits of info through profiles, conversational references till they formed a basis to hunt you on. Recently I have had a such an individual who lives within a mile of me turn from friendly nice to I need your cell number and your husband will never know if we got together. This shit is real and can be creepy scary and the general response I get from men is hey, this is no big deal and I am making a mountain out of a mole hill. Lets hope I am not calling the police one day and having to explain how I somehow encouraged this to happen by having a sexy avatar.