Brodie's Law - The Hunter becomes the Hunted

Foreign Correspondent - Land down under

In Victoria, legislation is being introduced in Parliament which cyber bullies will face upto 10 years' jail.

Note: All cyberbullies are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

Brodie's Law

The new law, named "Brodie's Law" after the death of Brodie Panlock, will add serious workplace and cyber bullying to Crimes Act provisions governing stalking. Users who use the Internet to threaten, harass or victimize others will be held accountable for their actions. 

This legislation is welcoming news to users who use Embarcadero's forums and other Internet forums (i.e., provided by Software vendors). Personal attacks, inciting hate, insults and other undesirable demeaning behaviour by (anonymous) Australian individuals can be reported to relevant authorities.

Troll Hunting

Formerly, such complaints would be ignored by authorities, given this was harmless crimes, but with the Internet becoming more ubiquitous, such actions can no longer be ignored.

While private investigators (in Australia) hired to track down abusive people who post such offensive posts to their colleagues, privacy laws stymie evidence collection. "We know the person's IP address, but without co-operation from ISP companies (Optus, Pacific Internet Australia, Telestra) it becomes difficult to find who actually posted these offensive posts. Often, such individuals would log-out from their ADSL connection and get another IP address and post offensive, insulting posts again." says a private investigator speaking in anonymity.

Currently (in Australia), the only law against cyber bullying is the Occupational Safety Act, which meagre fines  are imposed. Since the harassment is continual - lasting many years, victims - when searching for their names, they see hundreds of nasty posts by anonymous individuals leaving nasty remarks on FaceBook, Friendster, various Internet forums and other websites, many years long after the original incident occurred. 

Many of these victims, after trying in vain to defend themselves from anonymous individuals, gave up with their reputations ruined, their personal life made a "living hell". One victim recounted how it costed him, his job, his career, his livelihood and continually lives in fear and unable to do anything about it. Another victim recounted, many years later, he was unable to get any software-development job.

It will be very welcoming move towards making newbie software developers able to ask questions and those who don't know much about certain software languages to ask questions about them without nasty insults or inflammatory remarks by others. 

Embarcadero should drop the "off-topic" section of their forums, since it invites anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic remarks. It's ridiculous that Embarcadero should be allowing anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic sentiments when Embarcadero operates globally. When Borland opened this forum originally to keep the .non-technical section of their newsgroup from being filled with useless junk, the off-topic section became a place where individuals would get their reputations ruined, slander and insults run amok. 

"It's off to off-topic, off-topic land", where supposedly useless posts (including newbie questions about Delphi) are redirected to. While new-comers won't notice their posts were redirected to this forum, insults start to fill-in quickly for those new-comers with merciless assaults towards character and reputation.

It's same what happens to the .jobs section as well. Formerly, recruiting agents posting jobs would have their reputations questioned, or if they paid too little or the contract was in somewhat bad terms, there would be hundreds of posts questioning that (recruiting agent's) character or involve them in endless tirades. It became so bad that now, the Jobs sections of the Embarcadero section is heavily moderated.

It would be interesting to see whether Brodie's law will affect Embarcadero. While Embarcadero has a regional sales office in Sydney, will they be required by law to stamp out cyber bullying on their own forums?

For example, if anyone says something nasty to any Embarcadero employee, those posts are quickly removed, that person is permanently banned from Embarcadero's forums. When someone says something bad to a C++ Builder, Delphi developer, there is no interest to remove those intimidating posts towards them, or any effort to break-up the chain of insults preceding after the original post, or in some cases, the same continual insults posted  against those individuals many years long after they have left and presumably stopped using (Borland's products).

All companies (in Australia) are required by law to provide a safe, conducive working environment. The same goes to companies in EU region - UK, Ireland, France, Germany, and various member EU countries. Embarcadero should apply these same rules to all users who use their forums.