Three women who have survived sustained online abuse are releasing an easy-to use digital handbook designed to help others speak freely and safely in digital spaces.
Anita Sarkeesian director of Feminist Frequency, Jaclyn Friedman, anti-rape activist and founder of Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) and Renee Bracey Sherman, reproductive justice activist and author of Saying Abortion Aloud, have been forced to learn a lot about how to protect themselves against cyber mobs, stalkers and harassers. Now they’ve collaborated to make all of their experience available to anyone else who fears they might be targeted, or who is already under attack.
Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment, launched today at onlinesafety.feministfrequency.com, features a warm, friendly tone and easy-to-use navigation designed for use by people who may be experiencing fear or trauma. It 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.
Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment 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.
Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment can be found at onlinesafety.feministfrequency.com and is currently available in English, Spanish, and Arabic. More information on the creators can be found here.