What is Digital Harassment?
Digital harassment refers to the repeated misuse of information and communication technologies by individuals or groups to inflict harm on another person. This harmful behavior can manifest as threats, embarrassment, or humiliation within an online environment including emails, instant messages, dating apps, and social media direct messages, comments or posts.
Understanding digital harassment and implementing preventative and responsive measures are essential for navigating the complexities of the online world. By fostering a safe and respectful digital environment, USD students and employees alike can help prevent unwanted threats and harassment by following the information below regarding how to handle with different types of digital harassment.
Please contact the following departments with any questions or concerns.
USD Department of Public Safety
publicsafety@sandiego.edu
(619) 260-7777
You can also visit the USD Public Safety Webpage for more information.
USD ITS Help Desk
help@sandiego.edu
(619) 260-7900
You can also visit the ITS Security Webpage for more information.
If you are a USD student or employee and you receive a harassing, hate-based, or threatening email message, instant message, or social media direct message, comment or post please follow these steps:
- Do Not Engage the Sender:
Do not reply to the message or forward it unnecessarily to friends or colleagues. - Preserve the Message:
Do not delete it and save the message in its message location (e.g. email, direct message location). You can also save the message as a file after taking screenshots of the message - Forward the Message to the USD Department of Public Safety:
This allows DPS to begin the investigation process. Please forward all messages to publicsafety@sandiego.edu - The USD Department of Public Safety Will Coordinate With ITS:
ITS will work with DPS to monitor for any related activities. - Block the user:
Once you've completed the above steps, you should block the user. Below are steps on how to block users in different messaging mediums.
Remember to Slow Down - Think - and Proceed with Caution when these events occur. Because online targeting has significant real-world consequences, and is incredibly intense, alarming, and disruptive, having a settled plan before moving forward will help to better navigate these scenarios safely and effectively.
Threatening Messages:
These are messages sent to you that contain threats or intimidating language intended to cause fear, harm, or distress. These messages might include, direct threats of violence or harm, harassment or bullying, coercion or blackmail, inappropriate or aggressive language or threats to expose personal information or secrets.
Harassing Messages:
A harassing message containing content intended to upset, threaten, or intimidate you. This form of harassment can include:
- Message Bombardment:
Persistent sending of unwanted messages even after asking the user to stop. - Insults or Abusive Language:
Use of offensive, derogatory, or demeaning language. - Threats:
Explicit or implicit threats to harm, hurt, or cause distress. - Visual Harassment:
Is a type of unwanted visual conduct. It can include sharing sexually explicit images, making offensive gestures, or displaying offensive materials without consent. - Cyberstalking:
Is the act of persistent and unwanted contact from someone online often making you feel uncomfortable or threatened, even if the messages themselves aren't overtly aggressive. It may involve offsetting likes, posts, messages, threats, libel, defamation, sexual harassment, or other actions in which to control, influence, or intimidate you.
Junk Email Messages:
If you find yourself receiving junk email messages but don't feel it's necessary to involve USD DPS, adjust your spam filter settings. You can often create custom mail filtering rules to block messages with specific characteristics (such as messages from a particular sender or with certain subject lines). For guidance, refer to the Gmail article on how to add custom spam filters to Gmail.
Harassment can manifest itself in various ways across different social media platforms, including public forums, discussion threads, private groups, instant messaging apps, dating apps, and other services. If you encounter social media harassment, take the following steps:
Temporarily Disable Your Account Profile:
Consider temporarily disabling your social media profiles or switching them to private, so only those you are connected with can post or comment.
Document the Message:
If possible, document the harassing message to report it then report and block the user.
Block the User:
Many social media platforms allow you to selectively prevent others from following you, seeing your posts, or commenting on your content by blocking them.
Ignore Users:
Not engaging is a valid form of action; you can choose not to respond. The goal of social media agitators, or trolls, is to elicit a response. In many cases, trolls move on when ignored.
Mute Users:
If what someone is saying about you on social media is causing distress, you can change your settings to mute them. The harassing party is not notified that you have muted them, allowing you to ignore their comments.
Report Users:
Reporting a user's behavior to social media platforms' policy or compliance page could result in their account being suspended or messages taken down if they violate the platform's terms of service. Fake or impersonation accounts can also be reported to the social media company's website. Most platforms have community standards of behavior. Be sure to take screenshots of captions and comments on social media with dates and time stamps in case the posts are deleted later.
Secure Yourself:
Ensure two-factor authentication is enabled and use strong, unique passwords that are changed regularly to prevent unauthorized access and malicious actions on your accounts.