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Cyber and phone stalking
How to deal with people who cross the technology line.
Nowadays most people have mobile phones and Internet access, so cyber stalking and phone stalking have become issues. Both involve unwanted contact and harassment, but the harassment takes place remotely via phone or computer instead of in person.
This form of stalking can be just as damaging and traumatising as other forms of stalking. The following tips from Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA) may help keep you safe online:
- Use a separate email account for forums and chats and use an anonymous addy i.e. instead of MichaelByrne@hotmail.com; think warrior@hotmail.com
- Be careful about your online profile on forums and in chat rooms. It’s very easy and much safer to leave the non essential fields blank. People don’t need to know what country/county you live in for example.
- Set your profile to private so that only friends or known acquaintances can see it. Be careful with sites like Facebook however, as their privacy options change so much that it is best to leave any private info off them altogether.
- Try to lurk on forums or chat rooms before posting or getting active. You want to find out if it is a generally stable community before you post.
- Be careful what you type and don’t say something online that you wouldn’t say in real life.
- Don’t get into it with others. If someone turns nasty or aggressive, you are better off reporting it to the site moderators than engaging with them.
- Use a gender neutral e-mail address or username.
- Don’t give out your personal email address to anyone you do not know well/trust. This is where the email you use for forum stuff comes into play.
Prevention
- Trust your gut and don’t discount any signals of unwanted attention. If you feel someone is crossing a boundary, listen to yourself.
- Pay attention to even minor events i.e. a random text from someone you never gave your phone number to. There’s no need to be paranoid about it, but keep it in the back of your mind.
- Be firm when letting someone down. Don’t try and let them down gently. It never works for a start, but it also may send mixed signals.
- Ignore any unwanted attention. Stalkers mainly seek feedback and attention, so if you don’t give it to them, stalking is not as interesting to them.
