My introduction to workplace bullying was in the late 1990s in Silicon Valley. During the initial Internet "dot.com" expansion into commerce, I supervised a secretarial service pool in a large law firm that operated 24/7 to keep up with the work. The workplace bullying followed what is now a recognized pattern: An inexperienced department manager replaced a highly experienced manager who left for another job. The new manager developed allies who believed they deserved more than they were getting. They started pushing out perceived rivals and blocking work for "unliked" supervisors to obtain more. A fellow supervisor who should have been promoted to the department manager position was targeted for removal. When a part-time weekend secretary passed away due to overwork and high doses of Fen-Phen, this supervisor was blamed. Chaos ensued. Gossip and loyalties tore apart a once cohesive and supportive secretarial service pool. Workers became fearful and departed, leaving the department short-staffed.

The off-hours phone calls from crying secretaries sent me back to college. I thought adding letters behind my name would help others believe me when I spoke about the anti-business behavior I had experienced. It did not. When I moved on to academia, I learned firsthand that the horror and denial of workplace bullying existed outside law firms. Earning a degree with honors did not protect me. Instead, it made me a naïve target for sabotage by a manipulative boss gaming the system. The professor blocked me from working for nine years after deliberately overworking and underpaying me in a bait-and-switch scheme. The stress from the overwork scheme made me so sick I could not work for over three years. As one of the continuously disappearing financial analysts, I was number nine over the 15 years of her tenure. Because of these two experiences, I became an anti-bullying advocate. I wrote a book on the bullying cycle. I co-authored another book with a union steward for union stewards in California. I have supported and coached targets through the workplace bullying cycle for over 20 years.

Recently, I became reacquainted with the trajectory of cyber-bullying in Silicon Valley's startup culture. Cyberbullying is defined "as an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself" (Smith et al., 2008, p. 376). The difference is that work tools become the source of trauma workers must face whenever they attempt to conduct business. Like in-person bullying, the outcomes for the target replicate face-to-face bullying in the work environment, leaving an adverse impact on an individual's physical and mental health (Rao & Rao, 2021). Symptoms of being cyber-bullied include depression, insomnia, loss of productivity and engagement, lowered job satisfaction, and job loss. Organizational outcomes result in formal complaints with regulatory agencies and lawsuits against the offending company.

The young woman who contacted me was cyberstalked after working at a startup AI robotics company – one of many new ventures taking over the Valley. Cyberstalking involves the repeated and deliberate use of the Internet and electronic communication tools to frighten, intimidate or harass someone" (Brown et al., 2017, p. 57). This woman had been doxed and received cryptic messages indicating journalists were writing about her. Simultaneously, she continually received messages from other unknown individuals that her home security and computer cameras had been hacked. After law enforcement came and went, she received more messages that calling the police would accomplish nothing. Her crime was refusing a date request sent by email.

This notice of cyber-stalling preceded several more women suddenly posting about this problem in my response to my posts on LinkedIn and SafeHarbor, a support community for targets that I moderate. The women told a similar story of stalkers trolling on dating and support forums, attempting to establish relationships that quickly turned sour. They all complained about the impossibility of stopping this technology-enabled harassment that followed them everywhere.

What is particularly disturbing and terrorizing is the community of like-minded allies the cyberstalker recruits to support the cyberstalking project on Internet forums like 8chan, 4chan, Anonymous, and KiwiFarms (Cross, 2019; Nieborg & Foxman, 2018). On these forum sites, the original complainant can create a profile of the target, establish a justification for revenge, and recruit and challenge followers to take up the cause against the target. If you are female, the language in messages becomes increasingly sexualized and denigrating, while challenges issued by the original stalker to help stalk the target increasingly feel like a game reminiscent of the sub-culture of feminist and anti-trans animosity organized around #Gamergate in 2014 and 2015 (Cross, 2019; Nieborg & Foxman, 2018). The technological sophistication of these group attacks means the stalking can appear through home security and computer cameras, social media sites, and doxing -- spreading private information online without the target's knowledge or permission.) Unfortunately, ongoing engagement in online incel forums affected participants' changes in their emotional experiences and online radicalization about women through the development of hate echo chambers (de Roos et al., 2024). Internet use disorder has also been studied as a precursor to cyberstalking behavior (Floros & Mylona, 2022).

According to SafeHome.org, 7.5 million people experience cyberstalking yearly, and 80% of victims are tracked using technology. Cyberstalkers (61%) use everyday communication tools like smartphones, text messaging, and email. Less than a third of cyberstalking is reported because most actions to halt cyberstalking appear ineffective. Instead, 69% of victims suffer emotional distress and can repeat the tale of job disruption and loss originally expressed by that young woman from Silicon Valley. Additionally, while the problem can follow someone home, the 2024 Workplace Bullying Institute survey on the state of workplace bullying found that 51% of hybrid (remote and onsite combined) workers represented the highest category for bullied workers in the United States.

The first woman who contacted me relayed that the EEOC moderator's impression of the company's representatives was that they were more interested in knowing how well the stalking worked as opposed to stopping the harassment. Due to this attitude, establishing a safer technological environment using reliable legislation and strengthened EEOC laws on cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking should be a primary concern. Cyber Bullying Research, an online nonprofit studying cyber abuse, reports that 47 states have some form of law against electronic or digital abuse. However, only six state laws use the term "cyberstalking." (Cyberbullying.org, accessed November 12, 2024). Organizations should also ensure workers have a safer work environment along with mechanisms for oversite to ensure stalking can be stopped. If you are being stalked, you should connect with the following organizations to seek help: 

·  Victim Connect Resource Center https://victimconnect.org/

·  National Domestic Violence Hotline https://www.thehotline.org/

·  RAINN – National Sexual Assault Hotline  https://rainn.org/

·  Social Media Victims Law Center https://socialmediavictims.org/

If you are female, you can share your harassment story with others on Right to Be.

https://righttobe.org/

·  Cyber Bullying Research at https://cyberbullying.org/

·  CyberHelp Online at: https://www.thecyberhelpline.com/

·  Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center (SPARC) at https://www.stalkingawareness.org/

Denigration – spreading malicious information to damage a victim's reputation

Doxxing –collecting and then spreading personal information online

Flaming – a perpetrator uses foul and violent language as cyberbullying in discussion rooms or chat and comment fields because specific individuals or groups convey angry and disrespectful messages online

#GamerGate – GamerGate occurred during 2014-2015 when a community of online gamers harassed three feminists critical of game elements denigrating women

Masquerading – pretending to be someone else, usually the victim

Outing– outing is a form of doxing – sharing your personal information online

Swatting – Using personal information to file reports or emergency responses from the police on a targeted individual

Trolling – fishing for a reaction online by leaving negative comments

• Brown, A., Gibson, M. & Short, M. (2017). Modes of cyberstalking and cyberharassment: Measuring the negative effects in the lives of victims in the UK. Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine, 57-63.
• Cross, K. (2019). Toward a formal sociology of online harassment. Human Technology, 15(3), 326-346. DOI: 10.17011/ht/urn.201911265023
• Cyber Bullying Research Center (2024). https://cyberbullying.org/
• de Roos, M.S., Veldhuizen-Ochodnicanova’, & Hanna, A. (2014). The angry echo chamber: A study of extremist and emotional language changes in incel communities over time. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 39(21-22), 4573-4597
• Floros, G. & Mylona, I. (2022). Association of cyberbullying and Internet use disorder. Current Addiction Reports, (, 575-588. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40429-022-00440-9
• Niebor, D. & Foxman, M. (2018). Chapter 6. Mainstreaming misogyny: The beginning of the end and the end of the beginning in Gamergate coverage. In J.R. Vickery, T. Everbach, (2018). Mediating misogyny. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72917-6_6
• Piotrowski, C. (2012). From workplace bullying to cyberbullying: The enigma of e-harassment in modern organizations. Organization Development Journal, 30(4), 44-53.
• Rao, M. E. & Rao, D. M. (2021). The mental health of high school students during the COVID-19 PANDEMIC. Frontiers in Education, 6, 719539. DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2021.719539
• Sheridan, M. (2024, October 1). The latest cyberstalking statistics for 2024. SafeHome.org
• Smith, P.K., Mahdavi, J., Carvalho, M., Fisher, S., Russell, S. and Tippett, N. (2008), Cyberbullying: its nature and impact in secondary school pupils. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 49: 376-385. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01846.x
• Workplace Bullying Institute (2024). 2024 Workplace Bullying Survey, https://workplacebullying.org/wbi-research/