When they cross certain lines they become illegal harassment, and there are ways to handle them.
I've worked with people who have been fired for "cubicle farm in the financial services industry" type of behavior, and it's becoming less and less acceptable as time goes on.
In high school a group of boys was expelled for writing homophobic slurs on another student's locker.
I lived in NYC for a period of time, and it's a cake walk compared to spending time on social media. I did feel in danger at one point on the subway, but I was also helped out of that situation by a bystander... and the police were able to ID the individual with security footage (who had a history of causing problems and who I later provided testimony against in court).
With the anonymity of the internet, levers like this are often non-existent. Local police often don't even have the capability to understand it, let alone investigate it. I attempted to report death threats (which contained my home address) at one point and was referred to the FBI (which as far as I know, did nothing).
The mechanisms we have for handling problems like this IRL certainly aren't perfect, many people fall through the cracks, and mechanisms like the police can be very problematic in their own right... but the only time I've felt entirely helpless was when dealing with anonymous online harassment. It became very clear early on that no one was going to do anything about it, and the only way out was to attempt to "not exist" online.
They are certainly illegal, but I've had very different experiences reporting IRL death threats versus online death threats.
Anecdotally it seems like law enforcement doesn't take online death threats seriously, and are incapable of determining legitimacy and origin. The lack of accountability seems to make it much more likely for death threats to happen online...
I've reported online threats containing my home and work addresses and they're basically shrugged off. If someone approached me in person and said the same thing the outcomes are very different.
I've worked with people who have been fired for "cubicle farm in the financial services industry" type of behavior, and it's becoming less and less acceptable as time goes on.
In high school a group of boys was expelled for writing homophobic slurs on another student's locker.
I lived in NYC for a period of time, and it's a cake walk compared to spending time on social media. I did feel in danger at one point on the subway, but I was also helped out of that situation by a bystander... and the police were able to ID the individual with security footage (who had a history of causing problems and who I later provided testimony against in court).
With the anonymity of the internet, levers like this are often non-existent. Local police often don't even have the capability to understand it, let alone investigate it. I attempted to report death threats (which contained my home address) at one point and was referred to the FBI (which as far as I know, did nothing).
The mechanisms we have for handling problems like this IRL certainly aren't perfect, many people fall through the cracks, and mechanisms like the police can be very problematic in their own right... but the only time I've felt entirely helpless was when dealing with anonymous online harassment. It became very clear early on that no one was going to do anything about it, and the only way out was to attempt to "not exist" online.