homepage Forums SimHQ Community Community Hall How to defend yourself from cyberbullying?

It happens in certain forums that deal with combat flight simulators and not politics, that the administrators and moderators, rather than guaranteeing balance and impartiality, use their "power" to impose their personality and their ideas. Here's what a person I didn't know wrote to me privately on one of these forums:
“Hi Greybeard.
I would like to say that I totally agree with what you wrote here:
... omitted...
But I'd better not say it in the forum, so I send to you this pm.
Here's the empire of the dominant thought
It's forbidden to speak and even to think differently.
True totalitarianism.
So sad."
This, however, is what a friend of mine thinks of a "moderator" of another forum:
"it's not the first time **** been acting like a tu*d and most surely not the last time either."
And more:
"he seem to enjoy his electronic powers and become a bit obsessed ...
He's exactly the type of personality that should never be granted admin power anywhere."
I know that the remedy is simple - just abandon and walk away - but the bitterness and sense of impotence remains, as if you had suffered an injustice from those who were supposed to protect you, such as the police, the judiciary or politics.

My first thought is that I don't think there is any message board on the internet where there is any true impartiality by the moderators. I think it's simply human nature to let personal biases come into play when it comes to reviewing posts made by members.

Secondly, I take issue against the statement from the person who sent you the private message saying "true totalitarianism". I believe "true totalitarianism" can only be enacted by a governmental or political entity. When we are talking about private ventures such as internet websites, there really is no "freedom of speech" guaranteed.

There is a certain muddy flight sim forum that, while trying to remain free from political discussion, blatantly allows users to plaster certain "acccepted" political messages in their profile pictures, which are unavoidable and always in view.

In a "Forum" or Game Chat there is a certain air of invisible impersonal bullying, I've been playing some of these games where there is all kinds of empty threats and taunting in game griefing and the like, and it is really eye opening because there is no way to tell who these people really are in the world, I mean how many are truly wicked and how many are just acting out in their only outlet for their perceived grievances and their personal frustrations how many are children? how many adults? Apart from a a very few people here I'd guess the better part of this Forum is over 50 and I play GTA and IL-2 and a ton of different genre, if there's a chat, there's a bully.

I can't recall who said this on SimHQ many years ago but it sticks to me to this day: "You should respond to people on a message board the same way you would respond as if you were speaking in person". I'm convinced that the vast majority of online "bullies" do what they do because of the anonymity that the internet provides.

I think that permeates most online discussions, and because that has become one of the - if not THE - primary forum for political discussion, I think that has been a big contributor to the current divisiveness in the world today. Or the US, at least. The anonymity makes people feel like they don't need to be considerate, and then those that agree with them give support, and it becomes addictive - it's like an endorphin shot. And when someone else counters, it's the opposite, like a big downer, and it becomes an emotional roller coaster with greater intensity.