
Cheap Tricks: The Low Cost of Internet Harassment - jpbutler
https://www.propublica.org/article/cheap-tricks-the-low-cost-of-internet-harassment
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soyiuz
A simple solution would be to restrict your professional communications to an
online "contact me" form, which in itself would require CAPTCHA or some sort
of registration. That would require a culture shift within ProPublica--easier
to achieve than policing all WordPress installs or all mailing lists.

~~~
gumby
For a reporter, like this author, that barrier would probably be too intrusive
for them to be able to do their job.

~~~
soyiuz
Perhaps. However, we do a similar thing with telephone numbers--to reach most
professionals I have to go through a receptionist. The added friction to
contact has to be weighed against safety and susceptibility to disruption.

At the very least, a single point of entry to ProPublica's journalists is
something the organization can control. It is by scales of magnitude more
difficult and intrusive to control spam in the wild.

"Too" intrusive is a question of expediency. In other words, the cost to
harassment is low because the price to contact has been set low. Raise the
barrier to entry. It will make legitimate contact SLIGHTLY more difficult, but
it would also make opportunistic harassment in bulk MUCH more difficult.

