Surveillance Self-Defense by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world, championing user privacy, free expression, and innovation through original research on the policies impacting our access to the internet. EFF’s Surveillance Self Defense offers tips, tools, and how-to guides covering all your cybersecurity needs, from deleting data on your desktop to choosing the VPN (virtual private network) that’s right for you. While this guide is geared more toward targets of surveillance than victims of online abuse, it offers a number of security measures valuable to anyone who would like to beef up their security during an episode of online harassment.
Consumer Reports Security Planner
CR Security Planner is a free, easy-to-use guide to staying safer online. It provides personalized recommendations and expert advice on topics such as keeping social media accounts from being hacked, locking down devices ranging from smartphones to home security cameras, and reducing intrusive tracking by websites. Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works with consumers to create more fairness, safety, and transparency in the marketplace. It doesn’t run third-party ads, and no company will ever exercise influence over its recommendations of products or services.
Global Cyber Alliance’s Cybersecurity Toolkit for Journalists
Digital First Aid Kit
An open-source guide, developed by the Rapid Response Network and CiviCERT, that walks you through a series of questions about the online harassment and digital security challenges you’re facing and offers specific guidance in multiple languages (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, and Albanian).
Zen and the Art of Making Tech Work for You
A bilingual manual sourced from a community of women, trans activists, human rights defenders, and technologists, Zen and the Art of Making Tech Work for You, by the Tactical Technology Collective and the Association for Progressive Communications, comprises a virtual library of information dedicated to strengthening and protecting a user’s online presence and creating safe and collaborative online spaces.
HeartMob
HeartMob by the creators of Right to Be—a community of activists engaged in ending harassment in public spaces—offers a ready-made online community and support system with which to share stories of online harassment and receive tips for combatting it in the future. In the name of bystander intervention, HeartMob utilizes its Twitter bot, sustained by HeartMob volunteers, to log and reply to online harassers with disincentives. HeartMob also sources in-depth guides to both technical and social media safety and self-care, and advises the development of anti-harassment infrastructure at organizations where it does not yet exist.
Safety Net Project by the National Network to End Domestic Violence
Predominantly geared toward victims of domestic violence and cyberstalking, the National Network to End Domestic Violence offers several comprehensive tool kits on internet safety useful for individuals subjected to cyber harassment. Their Technology Safety & Privacy tool kit, Technology & Confidentiality tool kit, and App Safety Center (with apps available in English and Spanish) help internet users to identify online harassment and impersonation and offer information regarding mobile device safety, stalking, and law enforcement.
