The stalker won’t leave me alone

This is how Someturva helped.

Hi!

Thank you for telling about your situation to Someturva. So sorry to hear that you have constantly received disturbing and threatening messages from the same person. We are glad that you contacted us! Below is our assessment of your situation and a suggestion of what you could do.

Legal assessment

You told that the same person constantly sends you disturbing and threatening messages. Even though you have asked this person to stop and blocked the account, the person continues to send messages, always creating new profiles. Your situation seems very serious and it is important that it will end soon. No one has to put up with disturbing and threatening contacts.

From the legal point of view, such continuous harassment can cross the line of two different crimes. This may involve a crime called violation of freedom of communication or an even more serious crime, called stalking. The legal assessment is affected by, among other things, the number of messages, the timeframe when they have been sent, the content and whether the messages have been sent despite bans or blocks. You told that the messages have been threatening and the act has caused you fear and anxiety. Because of this, we estimate that the limit of the crime may have been exceeded in your situation.

What we recommend you to do

It's good that you have intervened in the harassment by blocking the user’s profiles. It's really unfortunate that blocking has not been enough to stop the harassment. It is now important to put an end to the situation. We recommend that you file a criminal report. It can be done electronically online, by visiting the nearest police station or by phone.

You should provide the police with as much information as possible about the disturbing messages: how many have you received, what was their exact content and what time they were sent. It is also a good idea to take screenshots of all the messages and the different profiles, which have been created. In addition, you can make a list of the different messages and the times when they were sent.

If the messages or different profiles have disappeared due to blocking, don't worry. You can file a criminal report even without evidence. Investigation of the crime and collection of evidence are the responsibility of the police during the preliminary investigation. In addition to the evidence, it is important to tell the police about the unpleasant consequences of the act, such as anxiety and fear.

Protect yourself on social media

Unfortunately, such long-standing harassment situations are common on social media, and there is not always an easy and quick solution to them. On social media, it is important to take care of your privacy and make sure that your personal information, such as your full name, phone number or place of residence, is only published in necessary contexts.

You should also always deal with all kinds of unpleasant contacts with a low threshold. Before blocking threatening or harassing messages and the profile of their sender, it is always a good idea to report them to the maintenance of the social media platform. If the platform does not receive information about the harassment, they cannot intervene. Reporting to the platform is an important first step in cases of harassment. In addition to individual reports, you can report harassment to Instagram by using this form.

Your own well-being is important

It is understandable that you feel threatened and that you are scared. They are natural reactions to such a stressful situation. However, social harassment is unfortunately common and can happen to anyone. Remember that you have not done anything wrong! It's just a coincidence that you've been the target of an unpleasent act.

It's great that you managed to figure it out this far. Now it's important that you are not in the situation, but discuss it with the people close to you and also professionals, if necessary. This kind of situation that feels threatening and scary can, if left untreated, affect our well-being for a long time. It would be really good if you could talk about your feelings and go through your experiences with someone. You can talk about this confidentially with nice people for example in Sekasin chat.

Did you find our answer helpful? If you still need more help, please contact us. We will do our best to help you.

Best regards,
Someturva team