By Sonia Mittal
Have you heard of Feminist Frequency? If not, you may be glad that you just did. It’s a website that talks about women, harassment and misogyny in popular culture, especially gaming. And last week, they put together a guide to online safety for women, titled “Speak Up & Stay Safe(r): A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment”.
Having been cyberstalked myself, I approached this guide with mixed feelings (you’ll know why in a bit). I found it amazingly comprehensive. And rather scary. I wish I’d had it back in 2012 when I was at my wit’s end about protecting my online privacy. But reading it this week, I had to skip some parts because they were making me relive the worst “what if” moments of that year, with all the various hacking scenarios being addressed.
To start with, my Google account was hacked, among others, and I received nasty mails about what my hacker had found in my private correspondence. It took me a long time to figure out two-step verification to protect my account – and that’s the first thing this Feminist Frequency primer mentions.
I think my best defense mechanism against it all was burying my head in the sand and not thinking too much about what my stalker could be spying on right now, or how far his reach truly extended into my digital life. But if I’d had more information, more help – if I’d had this online guide – I’d have felt armed. I’d have been able to face up to things better.
So my agenda is pretty simple: if you’re brave enough to discover your vulnerabilities and not become paranoid, or if your hacker/stalker/cybermob has given you so much trouble that the scenarios mentioned in this guide will be nothing compared to the potential for paranoia, then do yourself a favour and please, please, please read this guide all the way through, and don’t stop until the end of the page. And if you’d rather bury your head in the sand, like I did, then please read their short version at the beginning of the guide: “Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t have time to read the whole thing? Start with these three steps.” Because this is simultaneously one of the most terrifying and reassuring documents I’ve ever had the fortune to encounter.