Internet Safety

The negative side to communicating online

Social networking can be a great way to communicate on a global level and a fun way to socialize and maintain relationships. However, this form of communication can have its negatives. The anonymous nature and open access of the Internet allows for the potential to be exposed to offensive, derogatory, and inappropriate communications. Usually, you can ignore this type of content or simply leave a page where you are being exposed to it.

However, there may be times when things suddenly escalate into the following:

• Flame Wars: These are heated arguments online where intentionally insulting statements and personal attacks become the focus of conversation.
• Cyber-Harassment: This is any kind of harassment that happens online, including impersonating the victim on social media sites, spreading rumors about the victim, sharing compromising photos or videos, or pursuing the victim with unwanted emails or instant messages.
• Cyber-Stalking: This is cyber-harassment that is ongoing and/or where the perpetrator credibly threatens the victim with offline physical harm.

Tips to help prevent cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking

Unfortunately, these experiences can create mental and emotional distress and have the potential to become harassment offline or in the real world. While most sites have policies against such negative content, they are often limited in how they can respond and control it. Therefore, it is important to take the following precautions to prevent these circumstances from occurring in the first place.

• Avoid getting involved in flame wars
  It is important to think before you share comments, especially if they are controversial, religious, political, or disagreeing in nature. These types of posts have the potential to provoke a negative response and should be considered carefully.
• Avoid using a revealing screen name
  Choose a screen name that is gender and age neutral and that does not reveal your name or any personal information about you. If you have a racy or attention-grabbing nickname, be aware that this may cause you to be the target of unwanted attention.
• Avoid sharing personal information
  Be extremely cautious about sharing any personal information online. The more someone knows about you, the easier it is to access you online and offline. Review Googling Yourself in Lesson 1 of this tutorial to see if any of your personal information is exposed online and, if so, what you can do about it.
• Avoid sharing revealing photos
  Once you've posted an image online, you lose control of who can view, share, or alter it, and how they do so. A revealing photo is particularly susceptible to being shared in damaging ways. Like a racy screen name, a revealing photo may also make you the target of unwanted attention.