Probably the ‘biggest’ story on the blogosphere at the moment is the death threats that Kathy Sierra (Creating Passionate Users) has received. The story is all over the web and there has been plenty of sympathy and support for Kathy and the position that she has been put into.

Basically, Kathy is being bullied, in fact she is a victim of cyberbullying. Some people have decided to use some fairly nasty language and to threaten her sexually and even talk about her death.

I deplore what’s happening to Kathy and to any other person who is being treated this way but what I find really fascinating is the response. As I write (and this is a full twelve hours since I first read Kathy’s post) there are more than 1000 comments on her post. The overwhelming majority (and I’ve really only skimmed them) are supportive and encouraging. But a few of them go further and have actually stopped blogging in support. Is this the right thing to do? I can certainly see the point of taking a stand but maybe the interweb collective needs to continue to talk and to renounce these threats and the bullies who consider that it’s OK to attack the player rather than the ball.

This is only one example of the bullying that goes on every day and in many corners of the internet. I think we need to talk about it and talk about how this behaviour is unnacceptable.

EDIT: I have just been to Andy Carvin’s Waste of Bandwidth. Andy suggests that we take some time on Friday to support Stop Cyberbulling Day. He suggests blogging with the tag stopcyberbullying.