Watch Disconnect

Disconnect is a film where people having personal struggles are using technology to connect with each other. The film begins with a female reporter who decides to interview an underage chatroom worker thinking it would be her big break into a higher grade of journalism. As she talks to the young man working in this seedy chat room, she is unaware of the investigation of the Cyber Crimes Unit of the FBI. Everything quickly falls apart when the reporter is considered a suspect of soliciting services from the young man in question. In truth the Internet is a world onto itself with a different set of rules that hardly anyone knows. A second subplot is a teenager who has committed cyberbullying only to find out that there are serious consequences. The parents are horrified that their child had committed a very serious act of brutal harassment and intimidation to an acquaintance that was tormented mercilessly. Only after a suicide has been reported and computer forensic traces was proof that the incidents of cyberbullying had occurred over a long period of time. Harassment that causes suicide is a serious violation on one's civil rights that can lead to criminal charges and can result in prison time. The third sub plot is the aftermath of two identity thefts of a couple's identity which leads to the loss of their child. At the time the thefts were discovered, the couple scrambles to get their identities back only to find that their in a deeper hole than before. After some suspicious purchases by the thieves was reported to the authorities it was too late. In trying to regain their lives the couple began to neglect their child while they work frantically to undo the damage done by the identity thieves, that resulted in being labeled unfit parents by the courts and social services. The overall story is that there are many dangers trying to make connections on the Internet leading to some very tragic consequences in some cases. The fact is that some people are desperate enough to use the Internet after all else has failed in one way or another. Each of the personal struggles that leads to using a computer as a tool for compensating for outright loneliness is all too common, reflecting the truth of many personal insecurities of people that have very serious needs.