Having a Safe Online Presence After Leaving Your Community
A Note on Language
In this toolkit, we will sometimes use the word woman/women and feminine pronouns for simplicity and to recognize the significant impact technology-facilitated violence has on women and girls. We recognize that TFGBV also impacts trans, non-binary, and Two-Spirit people. We hope that all people impacted by TFGBV will find these documents useful.
Sometimes, to escape violence in relationships, Indigenous survivors living in isolated communities must relocate to a women’s shelter or transition house in a neighbouring community. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are used to stay connected to friends and family, but sometimes they are misused by abusers to stalk, harass, and humiliate survivors.
This tip sheet has been created for Indigenous survivors who may be creating a social media account for the first time and for those who want to make sure they use their accounts safely.
Set Up or Review Your Account for Privacy
- Create a new email account on a safe computer to use only for social media.
- Consider not using your real name or spell your name differently when creating your profile username.
- Use a generic picture for your profile picture such as one of a flower, car, or a beach in another country.
- Go through your privacy settings to make sure you are not sharing the location of the new shelter and set up your account to only share posts with people you trust.
- Create or change your password to one that is hard to guess but long in length such as SummerIsMyFavouriteSeas0n!
- Set up two-factor authentication so that you will get notified if someone tries to log in to your account.
Become Familiar with Social Media Tools that Help Keep You Safe
- Most social media companies have safety centres or pages to help guide you through keeping your account safe and private. See the Specific App Guides section in our toolkit.
- If you are receiving harassing messages on social media, you can block the abusive person and/or report them or their post to the company.
- If your nude photo or video was shared on social media or someone is threatening to share one, you can “create a case” on these sites so that the image will be taken down immediately or be prevented from ever being uploaded.
- For images taken when you were 18 or older: https://stopncii.org/
- For images taken when you were 17 or younger: https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/
Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence (TFGBV) is part of a continuum of violence that can be both online and in-person. If you or someone you know is experiencing TFGBV, you are not alone. You can use sheltersafe.ca to find a shelter/transition house near you to discuss options and create a safety plan. You don’t need to stay in a shelter to access free, confidential services and support.
We gratefully acknowledge Carrier Sekani Family Services and the Indigenous Shelter Advisory Committee for their support in the creation of this information sheet.