Hacker News Reader

Comment by ThatGuyRaion | Hacker News Reader

It's not okay but he's giving them ammunition by mentioning them and complaining about them. It proves that it's working.

When I started getting harassed in 2022 over an ill advised post on a site, the only thing that stopped it was to sandbag everything and rethink how I interacted on the internet.

View on HN

Didn't your change in behavior also prove that your harassment "worked"?

Not at all. I haven't changed my principles. I simply learned how to say things better.

That's victim blaming, even when it's in reference to yourself.

I'm not blaming the victims for anything. But I am absolutely saying that you need to modify your behavior in order to get what you want oftentimes. Suggesting that people make even the smallest changes to their lives in 2025 is apparently victim blaming.

I should have been clearer, I'm specifically replying to this statement: "... he's giving them ammunition by mentioning them and complaining about them. It proves that it's working."

Are we supposed to not speak publicly about being harassed? I feel like a culture of silence only allows bullying to perpetuate, and puts the onus on the victim to change their behaviour, and not the harasser's.

In general, yes. But in the case of obsessive stalkers, I've heard that the standard advice is to "go radio silence", because their pattern if you ever break down and reply is to think "now I know how many times I need to harass to get a reply" and increase their efforts to get through that count faster. So it ends up escalating exponentially.

Of course, ideally some authority should stop the harasser. But you probably don't want to wait until it gets severe enough for that to happen.

Sometimes the victim can take the action to stop the abuse even when they’re not at fault

Reply on news.ycombinator.com