The bartender and the life coach deal with the question of cyberstalking! This question arrived via email, and brings up many issues, both moral, ethical and legal…we do believe it warrants a follow up post with a more in depth answer, but the bartender and the life coach kick off the conversation in Episode 6 of TDG TV.
Cyberstalking is certainly a concept that goes hand in hand with technology, and a concept that has become quite a concern. There are many levels to consider, from the simplicity of a significant other accidently finding your email open and reading a message or two, (which by defintion is not exactly cyberstalking) to the deliberate hacking of someone’s social networks or password protected sites for the purpose of “checking up” on them within your relationship, all the way to the malicious and purposeful and/or threatening behaviour designed to harm someone’s reputation, situation, or finances, for personal gain.
Despite the fact that the bartender and the life coach enjoy much laughter in this episode, cyberstalking is a serious topic. Add a glass of wine and Glenn’s irreverant sense of humor, and it is tough not to laugh…but we do both believe that this issue has a very serious side. The specific question that we recieved had to do with a romantic relationship, and the accidental stumbling upon information that caused one partner in the relationship to feel hurt and betrayed by the other. In our opinion, this is not so much cyberstalking as an invasion of privacy perhaps, and the betrayal of trust on both sides. We have all heard that “curiosity killed the cat”…there is much truth to that statement!
So the question that is raised is simple, but moves very quickly to the complex. If you “accidently” stumble upon someone’s open computer, and you “accidently” see something that makes you unhappy, what do you do? How wrong are you and how wrong are they?
Let us know what you think!
Cheers…The Drink Guy Team!