Online, too.
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Three women who have survived some pretty nasty (and ongoing) campaigns of online harassment are sharing what they know about how to protect yourself online.
Jaclyn Friedman (writer, anti-rape activist, and founder of Women, Action & the Media), Renee Bracey Sherman (reproductive justice activist) and Anita Sarkeesian (you’ve heard of her, I imagine) have teamed up to create a very handy resource called Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment.
As the press release explains, the site
details best security practices for social media, email, online gaming, website platforms, and ensuring privacy of personal information online, as well as the documentation and reporting of harassment, and caring for oneself emotionally during an online attack.
Sadly, the press release goes on to note, Speak Up & Stay Safe(r)
was made necessary by the failure of social media services to adequately prevent and deal with the hateful targeting of their more marginalized users. As this guide details, forcing individual victims or potential targets to shoulder the costs of digital security amounts to a disproportionate tax of in time, money, and emotional labor. It is a tax that is levied disproportionately against women, people of color, queer and trans people and other oppressed groups for daring to express an opinion in public.
While I’m at is, I want to also put in a plug for Crash Override, the online harassment task force set up by Zoe Quinn and Alex Lifschitz, a very useful source of advice and support that’s I’ve turned to more than once.
I’ll be putting both sites in the sidebar for handy reference.