Counselling For Cyber Bullying Doubles In Five Years
Children as young as nine have contacted the NSPCC’s Childline complaining of being tormented by name-calling, blackmail and death threats posted publicly on social media profiles and blogs.
Advances in technology present greater opportunity for criminals to stalk.
Cyberstalking Can Involve:
- Repeatedly sending messages which inflict harm, harass, intimidate or make someone feel unsafe
- Digitally ‘tracking’ someone by using their social media updates, and location settings
- Using this activity to enable physical, offline stalking
- Posting malicious information about someone online
- Receiving direct threats on messaging platforms
- Being impersonated with fake social media accounts set up
- Having your online accounts taken over and hacked
- Webcam hacking and blackmail
Protect Yourself Online
- Review what information exists about you online, and keep it to a minimum
- Review your online privacy and security settings – who can see what you post on social media and who has access to your accounts?
- Ensure that your computer and mobile devices have anti-spyware software installed and turned on
- Ensure your wireless hub/router has security turned on, and you have changed your router password from its defauly.
- Unless you are using a secure web page, do not send or receive private information when using public Wi-Fi
- Limit the amount of personal and financial information you share on and off-line
- Educate friends, family and work colleagues about the risks – they may otherwise be sharing information about you online, even without them realising
If You Are Affected By Cyberstalking
- Screenshot any harassing messages or any other proof of the stalking behaviour, along with dates, times and any online user information
- Report the stalking to the police
- Turn off the location setting on your phone
- Update your social media privacy settings, and only add people you fully trust
- Regularly change your passwords for key online accounts and keep them safe (e.g. banking, social media, emails)
- You may wish to consider changing your email address
- Change any usernames to something which does not identify YOU, go for something as generic as possible
- Avoid online public forums, and be careful of how much information you may have shared on these in the past – if you can, go back and delete posts
Support For You
- Seek help and support from organisations such as the National Stalking Helpline and Warwickshire Victim Support
- Most social networking sites have a means of reporting such issues, for example Facebook, click here. Twitter is also introducing an in-Tweet 'Report Abuse' button across all apps and its website
