Inside The Horrid Subreddit Giving Tech Support For Cyberstalkers

You may have checked your ex's Instagram, or maybe you've seen a colleague's LinkedIn story. But just as the Internet has made digital browsing easier, it may also be taking a darker turn, helping some people go further than they should.

Obsessive Love, a subreddit active since 2019, is an online community that allows users to share webcam offers from their lovers, many of which are not properly password protected, using specialized search engines such as Shodan. electronic registration device. Some users have also given advice on using mobile hunting apps to stop enthusiasts from shooting deer on private land, which could reveal the identity of the owner, including the name of the target. Other tips include using a phone recorder, creating fake social media accounts to avoid getting banned, and using a photo from an online AI image generator "This person doesn't exist" to avoid detection.

Hacking your unsecured webcam is also around the corner and has been very common in the past. There is also an online database of webcams in homes from England to Taiwan. You don't have to be a tech genius to figure this out, as many webcams came with generic passwords that were easy to crack, or at least until recently when hardware manufacturers realized the problem.

But you have to dig deeper to find this content. Obsessive Love revolves around the theme of "yandere," a Japanese word that translates to "falling in love." This concept is often found in manga and anime, with characters so committed to the object of their desire that they cannot escape or let it go, even to the detriment of themselves and others they are used to.

But in Obsessed Love, the lines between fiction, crime, and role-playing are blurred. You can find tips on how to find credentials in Facebook photos, as well as cute anime memes, elaborate "love shrines" with highlights in the target's hair and exaggerated messages or artificial details of the user's life.

But does the Obsessive Love community encourage dangerous or potentially criminal behavior, or will it still happen? Are most of them just dirty anime fans who have gone too far? And can we effectively control these types of gray areas?

Sam Jahara, a UK-based psychotherapist, believes specialized online communities like Obsessive Love run the risk of exacerbating existing mental health issues compared to the pro-anorexia online communities we've seen in recent years.

Jahara told The Daily Beast that online communities have the ability to "fuel people's delusions." He also recalled that often the image created by people in online communities does not correspond to reality. “There are all kinds of people who take the opportunity to pretend to be someone they are not,” he says. "It's very problematic because everything happens virtually."

“The internet can exacerbate many mental health issues after one,” he later added.

Obsessive love is likely to add fuel to a fire already lit in many use cases. Jahara believes you won't find a detective who doesn't have mental health or interpersonal issues, but they vary in size. The spectrum can range from the evil to those capable of violence or murder in extreme cases.

According to Jahara, a recurring theme is that a person lacks empathy and doesn't understand how frustrating it is to be the object of one-sided desires. A stalker is usually someone who is very lonely and "doesn't do much". This usually leads to very bad relationships for various reasons.

Reddit also doesn't have the best track record when it comes to removing morally questionable material from the platform. For example, the site CreepShots, which ran for years before being banned in 2012, allowed users to share photos of women taken without their consent. Until 2014, a BeatingWomen sub-show continued that dealt with domestic violence.

Diyi Liu, now a graduate student at Oxford University's Internet Institute studying the power of digital communities in the modern age, told The Daily Beast that the "creepy but legitimate" subtext raises difficult questions for those seeking to prevent harm. He does not believe that obsessive love activities are actually criminal, at least in the United States, where the law is more leaning towards free speech, even if it is dangerous. While harassment and harassment is illegal in the United States, the sharing of information gathering tips is prohibited.

Liu believes that the reason so many Reddit subreddits were polled in his time is because of the decentralized nature of the moderation strategy. In this model, designated moderators control what is posted, as opposed to the centralized model used by Twitter, where paid moderators operate on a set of rules.

He believes that the problem can be solved by empowering users instead of leaving it unattended by moderators. Liu also believes that while Reddit's controversial "over forty" monetary policy reduces visibility for non-members, it works quite well.

Subreddit moderators did not respond to a request for comment as to why the cyberbullying tip was not removed.

But some members of the Obsessive Love community say they have no intention of pursuing their passions in real life. Jordan, a young American, told The Daily Beast she's been obsessed with the genre for years, but it was all just a fantasy to her. He was first attracted to popular vampire fiction, which had a very common theme of unrequited love, although the term "yandere" was never used. Then he began to like anime such as Future Diary, in which Yandere was relevant, and the character Misa Amane from Death Note.

“I think I enjoy looking at these things, as most people do when they watch a horror movie,” he said. "And depending on the nature of the character, sometimes I find them acceptable."

He added, "I love seeing dedicated and obsessed people like me."

Jordan was quick to point out that he thought a lot of people in the community didn't take their fantasies very seriously. In fact, according to Jordan, they are not as "obsessed" as they say, and lose interest in someone just as quickly as everyone else. He described most of his members as "12-16 year old TikTokers" who said they would kill anyone who spoke to their girlfriends.

Apple sues AirTag for alleged harassment

Another user who spoke to The Daily Beast believes the stigma could exacerbate the problem, saying "Yanderers are not a threat and if they treat us as a threat, it allows us to be bigger."

While some in the community say it's mostly harmless, cyberbullying is a very serious problem and it's only getting worse, said Alexander Kochowski, a computer scientist who specializes in online privacy and bullying. Cyberbullying, like all other forms of digital crime, “has grown rapidly in recent years,” says Kochowski. Like other cybercrimes, the COVID-19 pandemic has escalated.

He also attributes this surge in cyberbullying to the "finally online" society and the emergence of dating apps like Tinder and Grindr, where many of these obsessive love interests originated.

If you want to protect yourself, Kochowski believes it's important that your online presence be as free of personally identifiable information as possible. According to him, there is no clear distinction between physical surveillance and cyber surveillance, at least not.

For example, cyber sleuths can use Instagram photos to obtain information that reveals a potential victim's address, such as a road sign in the background.

As for who should be ultimately responsible, Liu believes that distorted online content is "a human problem, not an online moderation platform problem," pointing to the case on the right.

“If one subreddit goes down, they move to another or even a new online platform,” Liu said. "I don't think the platform is solely to blame."

No matter how innocent some users of Obsessive Love may be in their intentions, in the past we have seen online communities encourage justifiable behavior in real life, such as in many incidents involving messages promoting suicide. Moderating online communities is hard work. However, this problem has been around for over a decade and won't go away because we ignore it.

Learn more about The Daily Beast.

Get the biggest scandals and scandals from The Daily Beast straight to your inbox. Register!

Stay up to date and get unlimited access to the unique reports of the Daily Beast. Subscribe now!

Scandinavian conference online. Online Hate, Threats and Sexual Harassment June 11, 2021