I see the helpful information from my below post made it into the article, but the piece didn't stress enough how Misery was part of the problem. Yes, it escalated. But blaming his role on mild autism is like blaming eesh's indigestion for the role he played. You can't post what Misery posted and mean it as a joke, Misery was the definition of a "troll" which is why Cary had to go to such lengths to ban him.
The article gives the same impression as stories of other cases where someone takes bullying from real life to online harassment because they are gay or fat or emo or whatever. This case is totally different, Misery had a hand in what happened. If the article had quoted the wording of Misery's thread titles as I did, I wonder what the WaPo-commenting intelligentsia would say then? Defend a guy who wrote what he wrote?
The article should be about troll fights that go wrong and stupidly escalate, not some sad-sack pictorial of some guy whose family was affected by what he participated in.
really long-time FFU poster Wrote:
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> I never got into the eesh/Misery battles. The "real world" things eesh did were dumb and probably some of it illegal
> (if he in fact did them).
>
> But I don't feel bad about Mr. Misery, and his family should be blaming him for the consequences
> they suffered. If he was living at home they should have cut off his Internet access WAAAAYYYYY
> early in this process. They should be too embarrassed about their son's behavior to sue someone else.
>
> When I hear "Mr. Misery" only two things pop into my head... his posts about wanting to have anal
> sex with a baby, and his posts calling 9/11 an "accident" that should be celebrated. These are
> disturbingly callous things to say even if it was supposed to be a joke. If you post things like
> that you may anger people. Mr. Misery was a part of the problem and I believed asked for negative
> responses. I'm not saying vandalism is justified, but I am saying that you can't control the
> consequences of posting things like that.
>
> All of these were from his registered account, no one "impersonating" him or anything. There is no
> question this person posted these things:
>
> "want to fuck a baby up the ass"
>
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/632140/632140.html#msg-632140
>
> "having an adult relationship with a baby"
>
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/755278/755278.html#msg-755278
>
> "how do u adopt a baby"
>
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/753937/753937.html
>
> "how are you celebrating the 9/11 accident?"
>
http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/read/40/664043/664043.html#msg-664043
>
>
> The civil suit of course doesn't mention what Mr. Misery was doing on the forum, what he was
> posting, etc. A jury MAY be lenient on eesh when they see these posts and understand that it
> enrages people. Were it me, I'd give Misery's family damages for the vandalism's actual cost but
> that's about it, and that is ONLY if they had incontrovertible evidence that it was eesh. They
> claim eesh framed them into a SWAT visit, who is to say they didn't frame eesh with vandalism and a "note"?
>
> This was a lame Internet forum fight that escalated, and one finally said "okay I lose and I'll sue for cyberbullying".