Some online discussion groups have been offered on sites set up by the authors of books on the subject. Some online groups are public and anyone can read and write on the site. Others require people to become members using an email address or user name and a password but letting almost anyone join. Occasionally such groups may block a person who violates the moderator's rules of conduct but it is easy for someone to make up another user name, get another email address, and join again.
Some people make up multiple identities to use in a group. Reasons for
doing this can vary from someone wanting to have a ready made friend
who will always be in agreement with them to someone trying to disguise
their identity for reasons of their own. Reasons for using multiple
identities could be positive or negative. There are estranged relatives
who do stalk the people from whom they are estranged. Both stalkers and
stalkees might create multiple identities. It’s a strange strange world
wide web we inhabit!
A couple of years ago a site was set up specifically for parents who were
estranged by their children and that site is semi-private. They attempt
to prevent adult children who had estranged their parents from joining.
Discussion groups there are only for parents who are mourning the loss
of their children. The group owner doesn’t want the group to be
publicized. I am not the group owner and I do not belong to it. I had
offered to publicize it when it was first set up and the owner told me
that they did not want it publicized. I can understand why.
Some public discussions of family estrangements take place on sites
that have as a main subject something that has nothing to do with
relationship issues but which offer forums that provide an opportunity
for registered members to start discussions on topics of their own
choosing. These are generally public discussions and are open to anyone
to read and write. However, participants usually can create their own
user names and their email addresses are generally not shown with their
posts.
Private online discussions can be set up in such a way, thanks to the
many services offered online, that it is almost impossible for someone
to find and read the postings, assuming that all of the members’
computers are secure and not accessible to anyone else and that no
spyware has been installed on their computer. In one situation that I
know of, a woman’s private email to a group moderator was read by her
son who had estranged her and who had not lived with her for some time.
He used spyware installed on her computer to monitor her online. Both
her son and her ex-husband used spyware on her computer to do this at
different times. She did not know whether her son had installed the
spyware that he used to read her email. Someone had put something on
her computer.
The son never did get into the discussion group as far as we know as
the mother didn’t receive postings as emails. He only saw the email. If
she had set her group postings to be received as emails he would have
been able to see all of the group’s discussion, including the private
posts of people he didn’t know. If that had occurred and he had wanted
to, he might have been able to contact others who were related to these
group members and reveal their postings to them. That could be
disastrous for those who had trusted that their postings would be
private within the circle of that group. There is probably spyware that
is more invasive than the spyware that he used and that would have
given away her password and user ids that she used to log into the
group. Then he would have had even more access to the group and could
have posted under her user name if he had wanted to.
If there has been an opportunity for someone to put spyware on a group
member’s computer, then there is a risk, no matter how private the
group, that their password and user name and membership in the group
are known and that the specific person whom they most would not want to
read their posts can see everything. If that occurred, then there is
also the chance that the identities of other members of the group would
be known to that person and there could be further consequences and
compromises to the privacy of other members with unfortunate results.
This is something to be aware of when joining or creating an online
group. It may be rare that this happens but it is something to be aware
of as a risk.
One daughter who had estranged her mother for ten years joined a
password protected group on family estrangement when she had a conflict
with her father and stepmother. Her mother had belonged to the group
for a year and a half and had been invited to join the group by the
owner when it was first formed. At the time that the daughter began
posting on the group, the mother hadn’t posted anything for six months.
The daughter searched the group archives for her mother’s posts and
then became enraged. The daughter did not see her behavior as an
invasion of her mother’s privacy but only as an example of her mother’s
foolishness for posting in a group on the internet where her postings
could be found by anyone. The mother was not able to establish any kind
of productive dialogue with the daughter in the group and subsequently
quit that group and created a private group which could be joined only
through invitation.
The danger of a password protected group to which almost anyone can
join is that it can become too large for anyone to know anything about
the identities and backgrounds and agendas of the members. So if
privacy is important, as it can be in many situations, then you must
know the risks associated with joining a group with a large membership.
Creating another email address and a user name that is not associated
with you personally and not ever using real names or other identifying
details in your posts are good strategies if you join a large
discussion group. As well as being certain that no one has ever put
spyware on your computer.
In the next post I will talk about the opportunities that exist to create your own private online discussion group.