THE cowboy was supposed to ride off into the sunset, offending IP addresses in the bag, a hero of the day.
Except he got shot.
In an odious affair, Mr Stephen Sing, director of local anime distributor Odex, was the hero-turned-villain.
Despite having the full weight of copyright laws on his side, he seems to have forgotten one thing (besides the need for effective public relation skills): In the cowboy town that's cyberspace, mob justice rules.
Netizens flamed him big-time. One threatened to burn his house down. Others started an anti-Odex T-shirt campaign.
Looking back, was there anything new about it?
Hardly. But it does show one thing.
From the racist bloggers in 2005 to blogger Michelle Quek (who made a police report in March against a certain Chao_turtle), flaming is creeping from cyberspace into real-world law books.
GROWING PROBLEM
"It's a growing problem and it's a complicated one," media lawyer Samuel Seow said. In the past three years, his firm has seen a 50 per cent jump in such complaints.
"(But) Electronic personalities and pseudonyms make it tougher to prove the identities of offenders," he said.
So where's the sheriff? Who's going to tame cyberspace?
Professor Benjamin Detenber from Nanyang Technological University said it's a matter of perspective. Most online forums are far from anarchic.
"Both service providers and communities have a vested interest in maintaining the quality of the their forum," the division head of communication research said.
But Mr Alvin Chong, a former moderator of a comics forum, said that "a big problem with the Internet community is people typing off the top of their heads".
In cowboy-speak, it's called shooting from the hip.
It's the moderator's job to step into this dreaded crossfire. Yet, their powers are hardly fearsome: Virtual warnings and banning users from entering.
Offenders, of course, can sneak back into town with another user id.
Mr Chong, a 25-year-old research assistant, reminded that these are "unpaid sheriffs".
Sometimes, moderators go online only an hour a day. Sometimes, they go on holiday. And sometimes, they actually want people to continue talking because they feel they are making a difference.
Little wonder that the "streets" aren't always safe to walk around in.
Thugs, or "trolls" as they call it in the virtual world, once barged into civil servant Benjamin Loh's forum for toy-collectors, ranting about Islam and terrorism.
"You'll be surprised," the 29-year-old said.
"They're everywhere. Remember too: That person behind the nickname may be someone as young as 12."
It's hard to shake away the dreaded feeling of stepping into a Mogadishu when you enter certain forums.
After shooting down Odex's "villain", vigilantes in one forum turned on one another, starting private spats and calling each other names.
Is there hope in this disorderly state of the web?
The optimist would say yes, if there are more responsible vigilantes than outlaws, more reasonable Netizens to check the cowardly anarchic.
