News anchor Vickie Newton who recently left her post with KMOV (Channel 4) in St Louis and has since moved back to her hometown in Arkansas has revealed the real reason she left her job was because she has been the relentless target of a stalker going on 5 years now.
The presenter who has won a regional Emmy award for best news anchor goes on to reveal how she was sent abusive emails by a stalker who she reckons also hacked both her private and work email accounts as well.
Since leaving off air back in July, Newton now tells how the stalking has only worsened with the stalker now even naming items in her home, names of family members.
She even went on to tell thevillagecelebration.com of suspicions of physical intrusion after an alarm at her home was triggered while she was out-of-town but the police didn’t find any suspects at the scene. Police at the time were not able to find any suspects.
‘I don’t know who is stalking me and I don’t know what the end game is,” she told the journal.
‘Recently, some of the postings have included key words that describe rooms in my home, family members’ names are included and so the level of the threat is more aggressive.’
Newton has since gone on to the FBI to ascertain the identity of the stalker but as of yet the stalking continues.
Reflects Newton: ‘The internet allows cowards to harass and intimidate. People who would never in a million years say or do the things they do on the Internet are emboldened by the anonymity it provides.
And that of course is the leverage and truth of the majority of many social media outlets, case in point reddit where recently one of its chief moderators, violentacrez was outed for supporting and orchestrating forums that vilified and exploited the privacy of their subject matter.
It has also been argued the great strength of forums such as reddit for example where anonymity remains supreme and cyberculture in general is the very fact that anonymity provides many who would feel threatened or compromised to express their views without the threat of recourse.
Of course that too is where also the real danger lies as some are wanton to abuse the web’s dynamism and instead use it to exploit and harass others as in the case of Newton. Perhaps it may in the end may make sense where the identity of all who enter the world of the web have their true identity revealed if to at least maintain culpability and responsibility for one’s actions and choices. Paradoxically that too also opens up issues of those users then being vilified and their privacy exploited in turn by those unhappy with their views…
With respect to Newton’s case it appears to be a very personal issue and beyond that of merely expressing a view that was not appreciated. The question then is why?
