This June and July, grab your laptops and your phones and sign up for Digital Safety Snacks. PEN America, the Online News Association, and the International Women’s Media Foundation have teamed up to create step-by-step videos and hands-on workshops to help you defend yourself against online abuse. We’ll explain how to protect your most sensitive accounts from hackers and how to dox yourself before someone else does. We want to empower you to feel safer and more secure while maintaining the public profile you need to do your job.
As journalists, we’re increasingly expected to have an online presence and engage on social media, which puts us at risk of abuse. Reporters from marginalized backgrounds—including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people—are especially at risk. And now, with the United States heading toward the midterm elections, odds are high that attacks against journalists—online and off—will escalate. Abusive trolls join forces to send hateful messages, impersonate, hack accounts, and publish sensitive personal information (aka doxing). Their ultimate goal is to intimidate, discredit, and silence journalists and undermine press freedom. But there are concrete steps each of us can take to protect ourselves and fight back.
Resources
International Women’s Media Foundation
Online News Association
- Internetting While Brown/Black AND a Woman: A Collective Guide
- Cover Your Assets: How Not to Get Hacked and Other Essential Security Tips
- Reporting as Journalists of Color: Why We Need to Add “Safety” to Our Conversations about Diversity in Our Newsrooms
- Hacked Your Beat? Asking the Right Questions When Cybercriminals Target Your Community
- James W. Foley Legacy Foundation: Journalist Safety Curricula (Seminar 5)
PEN America
- Online Abuse Defense Program
- Training Program
- Field Manual against Online Harassment: How to prepare (including against hacking and doxing)
- Manuel de défense contre le cyberharcèlement
- Manual contra el acoso en línea
Coalition Against Online Violence Response Hub
The GCA Cybersecurity Toolkit for Journalists
Committee to Protect Journalists
- Digital Safety: Protecting against targeted online attacks
- Psychological safety: Online harassment and how to protect your mental health
- Digital Safety: Remove personal data from the internet
- Digital Safety: DIY guides for better protecting against online abuse
- Digital safety: Protecting against online harassment
