An Olympic high jumper from Germany has grown tired of her alleged cyber-stalker, and she’s taken to Facebook to turn the tables on him.
Ariane Friedrich, who’s currently training for the 2012 Olympics, has over 11,000 likes on her official Facebook page. That’s the medium she chose to call out a man she claims sends her unwanted pictures of his penis.
Friedrich claims that Thorsten Dersch of Allendorf emailed her a message: “[Would you like to] see a nice shaved ****, just showered and fresh.”
“He has sent a file that I will not open,” Friedrich posted in German. (The Daily Dot translated the message with the help of Google.) “I want to see neither your genitals, nor to see the genitals of other fans.”
Many of Friedrich’s fans have been supportive, indicating she’s right to take public action against the harasser. “Hat off. I can only endorse your action,” wrote Bettina Stepczynski.
Others, however, have pointed out that she only knows a name associated with an account—and she could be inadvertently libelling an innocent person.
“It’s not about whether the message was proper,” wrote Marco Anders. “It’s not right to make the name public without looking closely at who’s behind it.” Anders added that “Thorsten Dersch” could easily be a fake account.
A Facebook search reveals two accounts with that name. Both have enabled maximum privacy settings.
Friedrich took to her page a second time to defend her decision:
“I’ve read your comments on my last post very carefully. Of course, it’s a big step to make such an outrageous email public, but it’s not the first time I’ve been contacted in such a way—by others, though, not [Dersch]. …
“I have not committed an offense with the publication of his name. The removal of anonymity is, in my opinion, a means to clarify, to make sure I’m willing to be proactive and that I just not read these things about me and be quietly angry about it.”
For Friedrich, this appears to be just one more in a long line of hurdles.