Internet

The user is the most responsible. They have a duty to adhere to the terms of use of the website, which includes not including racist content.

Should the user fail their responsibility to follow the website's terms of use, the next person to step in is the administrators or moderators of the website, who have different "title" names depending on what the website is exactly. Here on Answers we call them "Supervisors".

These people will step in and deal with the user and their content, pointing out their violation of the ToU and eventually banning them if the violations continue.

However, some communities, such as Answers, are so large that staff cannot effectively filter everything. For example, on Answers there are just over 1,000 Supervisors dealing with an average of 7 to 9 million international visitors a day. In those cases, websites rely on their good users to help them identify bad content by reporting it.

On Answers

If you see bad content such as racism on Answers, please report it either:

• Directly to a Supervisor via their message boards (Supervisors have particular badges on their profiles or the word "(Supervisor)" in their name when looking at the recent site activity).
• By posting the link in the relevant section of the "Report Vandalism & Abuse" area of the community forum.
• By clicking the 'Flag' link on the left toolbar while viewing the question.

Yes, warn the site owners. At least you did your reasonable part, the moral, socially responsible thing, and what happens next is out of your hands.

If you think he is or may be criminally dangerous, go to the police.

If he contacts you again, I recommend two options:

1) call the police, or

2) if you are voluntarily talking to him, seek mental health help. (I am not joking).

I speak from experience, these people can sometimes be deadly dangerous, and they suck you into their twisted world millimeters at a time,so you have no idea it's happening until you're "in", and dangerously deep, and can't get out.

If you have a police report in hand, then the site owners will take you seriously.

Get help if you feel anything other than to run, run, run.

Many thanks for all that info Marcy. I will consider what I should do next. As you will have noticed, they moved it to the this section when I asked them to. You are absolutely right about the dangers of Internet "dating" but having said that, this is the first bad experience I've had, though it's been enough to cure me completely! Don't all fall round laughing (I know you won't) but I am a very experienced mental health professional. From the first communications with this guy my intuition was screaming "No - danger" but I ignored it!!!!!!!! I think he "hooked" into the part of me that likes to know how/why people tick, and he seemed very interesting and unusual (oh, boy was he!). We met only once at New Year, which was mixed. Other plans to meet were always scuppered by him at the last moment - I reckon he gets his kicks out of lying/manipulating over the phone - he would phone every night for about 2 hrs. I became increasingly suspicious and gave him five "conditions" he would have to meet if we were to continue the relationship, one of which was to provide an address where I could send a recorded delivery letter to the name he had given me. In the letter would be a piece of paper with one word on and he had then to phone me and tell me what the word was. He balked at this and tried to spin lines about why he couldn't do it, and I told him it was non-negotiable. Shortly afterwards he wrote and admitted that he had been lying, but didn't feel he was "obligated" to tell me the truth. That was a week ago. I didn't write back and he hasn't tried to contact me. He doesn't know my address. He did try to get money out of me, but on that I saw sense! The only way he "harmed" me was to dent my pride/ego and to waste a lot of time and energy on him. Now he knows he's been rumbled (well about the lies, not that I have realised he is a sociopath) I expect the whole thing is no longer fun, so he will have moved on to "greener pastures" - looking back, I can see how he "groomed" me in a similar way to how paedophiles "groom" kids. But as he never had any genuine feelings for me (despite what he said to the contrary), I don't really feel in danger, because I am of little consequence and disposable - plenty more mugs where I came from!

If this person is hurting these women in any way, you should report it to the police immediately. You can do it without giving your name.

I am the person who asked the original question, but wish to remain anonymous for safety reasons. Although Leslie's answer is sound advice in general, it is the particular nature of sociopaths to be extremely devious and secretive. They are "con" men par excellence and often women do not realise what is happening until it is too late and they have lost everything - house, family, business etc, not to mention self-esteem, and in the worst scenarios, their life. I realised fairly early on and caught him out as a liar, but from things he told me, I have managed to find him on other sites. He targets older women, who are probably flattered. I can't go into details about the sociopathic personality here, but it would be hard to give the police anything to go by. Even after knowing him 3 months, I'm still not sure which of three names is actually his real one (if any) or have a verifiable address for him. I wanted this question to go into the Mental Health FAQ, rather than "love and Marriage" but obviously it got re-routed!

You are right that the police will do very little unless you have a whole lot more info than you do. Why? They are kept too busy going after other criminals and the internet, while a good source of info to many, has put a whole new slant on criminal activity.

There are a couple of ways you can get around this. If you go on "Google" and type in: Reporting stalking over the Internet" there are several sites that offer some help. You may have to pay for it, so be very careful. Believe it or not you can actually hire a hacker! All hackers are not bad. (Example: The U.S. Army in the approx. 6 years ago had to hire young hackers to find out how other hackers were getting info from the weapons dept.!!!!) That's the truth!

A hacker can perhaps locate this person for you. If you can get enough information on them you might get lucky with the police.

If you aren't willing to do this then you are going to have to back-off. You are in a very dangerous position as I know you realize.

Women especially, should use their brains and not speak to strange men over the internet. There are social clubs you can contact to find a mate and ones that are secure sites. I still would take it as a big risk. To me it is no different than a strange guy pulling up beside you in a car and offering you a ride. I sure as heck wouldn't get in the car not knowing this man. For every successful case of "found love" over the internet there are hundreds of men and women that are really taken for a ride and in some cases murder has even been connected to these internet meetings. People have to be more responsible for the information they give over the web and the police, quite frankly, are rather tired of warning the public. Can't blame them one bit.

You sound very nervous about this man, so unless you can hire that hacker then I would walk away. I sure hope this person is not bothering you????? If they are let us know on the board and I'm sure more than myself will try to find better ways for you to stop this person.

Good luck!

Marcy