Confront Online Abuse
If you’re public or political online, eventually you’ll be experience or witness online bullying. Ranging from a single person persistently stalking your comments to a coordinated swarm of AIs, the effects range from frustrating to dangerous. We know more than one activist whose online abuse became real-world intimidation.
Learn what to do if someone is targeting you, and how to help when you see it.
How to do it:
The first step is to learn about the various kinds of online harassment and bullying, so you recognize them. There are dozens of types, from technical attacks like denial of service (AI bots swarm your commercial site until it crashes) to social engineering like deep fakes designed to humiliate, and even crossover into the real world like doxing or swatting. Learn about the different forms of abuse here:
The most common circumstance is that you will observe online harassment. Most of us have, at one point or another. Start by seeing if the target is asking for help. If they run a business they may need positive reviews or to have politicized ones reported. If they run an online group they might want people to tag troll comments with “admin” so they can quickly block those accounts. What they need depends on the form of harassment and their own personality. Some people like to go quiet until the threat moves on, while others prefer to fight back. Make sure you follow their lead!
If you are being targeted, or if you’re worried you might be, we recommend browsing this excellent resource (the links above came from here, but there’s so much more!) It’s a good idea to learn more about how to respond if you engage in higher-risk actions like commenting in hostile spaces (e.g. right-wing political forums), lead open activist groups, run an openly political business, etc.
