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Abstract

“[Y]our tranny looking dad is a disgrace to American football,” “I would rape the shit out of her,” and “[The] [B]ears are easier than you on prom night,” are just a sampling of some of the alarmingly harassing tweets received by Chloe Trestman between the night of November 9, 2014 and November 10, 2014. Who is Chloe Trestman, and what could she have possibly done to warrant such abuse? Chloe’s father is Marc Trestman, the head coach of the Chicago Bears. And the twitter vitriol, or “twitriol,” directed toward Chloe was in response to the Bears’ blowout loss to their longtime rivals, the Green Bay Packers, 55-14 on Sunday Night Football. So the question remains, what did Chloe do to garner such an abusive reaction from the disgruntled Chicago fan-base?

The answer, of course, is she did nothing to deserve this hate-inspired tweeter tirade, other than being the daughter of an NFL head coach and having a twitter account. In this generation of Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets, it is commonplace for athletes, and unfortunately sometimes their family members, to become targets of harassing online misconduct and abuse. Arguably more alarming than the harassing component of social media websites, is the fact that the current laws governing Internet Service Providers lack the necessary teeth to provide any recourse to athletes victimized by online misconduct, which only perpetuates this type of behavior and leaves no recourse for the injured party. So Coach Trestman, Chloe Trestman and mostly any other internet targeted athlete are left with no legal remedy until the vast safeguards protecting ISPs are curtailed.

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