Back when news of the Eagle Mountain City Utility Scandal first broke in February we decided to create a Facebook group page (Eagleshare Emcity) so residents could discuss the issues in a forum that was easy to use and follow. But after the site was bombarded by trolls supporting the city, we decided to delete the group. It was just too much work to moderate and many people were afraid to participate because they didn’t want to become targets for harassment.

On our site and on other FB pages within the city our supporters had their home addresses posted online, their medical histories were disclosed, and their private emails were leaked. Even our FB group page was hacked and almost all of the members (over 450+ people) were booted off the group. Some of the bullies were quite open about having personal connections to city employees, others created fake FB accounts so they could harass the members of our group in anonymity. This kind of behavior demonstrated just how vindictive and immature some of the city’s supporters could be.

One person who had to endure an amazing amount of harassment dubbed it ‘Government Sponsored Cyber Bullying.’ While I doubt that any city funds were actually budgeting for these kinds of activities (unless there’s a black budget I don’t know about), it’s very clear that some of the perpetrators were receiving government paychecks at the time and were doing their best to support the city’s current administration.

-Sam Allen