Wild West 2.0: How to Protect and Restore Your Online Reputation on the Untamed Social Frontier

untraceable speech. Social norms have not yet evolved to create a code

of conduct for acceptable online behavior—and may never do so. The

psychology of the Internet creates a feeling that the targets are some-

how distant or unreal and therefore less sympathetic—this problem

has been known since the psychologist Stanley Milgram demonstrated

the effect of social distance on human behavior, but, has been accen-

tuated and made nearly universally applicable by modern technology.

Law enforcement also lags behind the Internet. In the United

States, online law enforcement has generally been focused on major

fraud and child pornography. Many victims of “routine” online at-

tacks cannot obtain help from the legal system, either because the at-

tackers have disappear ...