It’s a thin line between Internet Hero and Internet Horror, and it seems that for one woman in Coventry, England, that line has been clearly crossed — over to the “horror” side, that is.
Mary Bale, 45, found herself caught in the crosshairs of the reputation executor that is the web this week after a surveillance video of her placing a cat in a garbage bin went viral. Now, the InternetInternetInternet is replete with parodies, groups and spin-offs dedicated to bringing Bale down. Ah, what we can achieve when we really apply ourselves…
According to The New York Times, Lola the cat was discovered unhappily yowling in a garbage bin outside the home of owners Stephanie and Daryll Mann. In hopes of discovering who had trashed kitty, the couple looked at security footage of the area, which showed an unidentified middle-aged woman petting the cat, and then dropping it in the trash. The couple posted the vid online, naturally, in an attempt to find out who the woman was.
It wasn’t long before her identity came to light. Gawker reports that Bale was outted, surprise, surprise, by denizens of the discussion board 4chan, specifically its /b/ board, which hosts topics of a more random nature. Subsequently, Bale received death threats, and information like her address and her boss’s phone number were spread around the web.
I think /b/ is more powerful than the FBI or any other congress.... /b/ itself has had 20k+ protest in multiple cities. The internet will take over the world no doubt.
Some people just hate cats. Lol at /b/ though, how the *** do they track someone down like that just from a video O_o
They already had a name, Mary Bale, which I believe the media brought up and that she's a bank worker at Coventry.
I'unno how to internet stalk, just throwing out thoughts on the matter. :p
But yeah, it made the news over here, pretty horrific thing to do.
It wasn’t long before her identity came to light. Gawker reports that Bale was outted, surprise, surprise, by denizens of the discussion board 4chan, specifically its /b/ board, which hosts topics of a more random nature. Subsequently, Bale received death threats, and information like her address and her boss’s phone number were spread around the web.
I think /b/ is more powerful than the FBI or any other congress.... /b/ itself has had 20k+ protest in multiple cities. The internet will take over the world no doubt.
Seriously. They find out any and everything fast. And then do stuff like this lol.
On the scale of things its pretty minor, and I do like cats but all this worldwide media attention is pretty harsh for her in a time of a recession she would be lucky to hold onto her job.
It’s a thin line between Internet Hero and Internet Horror, and it seems that for one woman in Coventry, England, that line has been clearly crossed — over to the “horror” side, that is.
Mary Bale, 45, found herself caught in the crosshairs of the reputation executor that is the web this week after a surveillance video of her placing a cat in a garbage bin went viral. Now, the InternetInternetInternet is replete with parodies, groups and spin-offs dedicated to bringing Bale down. Ah, what we can achieve when we really apply ourselves…
According to The New York Times, Lola the cat was discovered unhappily yowling in a garbage bin outside the home of owners Stephanie and Daryll Mann. In hopes of discovering who had trashed kitty, the couple looked at security footage of the area, which showed an unidentified middle-aged woman petting the cat, and then dropping it in the trash. The couple posted the vid online, naturally, in an attempt to find out who the woman was.
It wasn’t long before her identity came to light. Gawker reports that Bale was outted, surprise, surprise, by denizens of the discussion board 4chan, specifically its /b/ board, which hosts topics of a more random nature. Subsequently, Bale received death threats, and information like her address and her boss’s phone number were spread around the web.
