Resources for Researchers
Online Resources
PEN America
PEN America is an organization that seeks to protect free expression in the United States. They "ensure that people everywhere have the freedom to create literature, to convey information and ideas, to express their views, and to access the views, ideas, and literatures of others" (About). As part of this mission, one of their focus issues is on Online Abuse. Particularly impressive is their Online Harassment Field Manual, which contains resources for targets, allies, and employers while also providing advice about preparing for and responding to abuse while also taking care of yourself, requesting support, and knowing your legal rights. DiggitAggro finds this to be one of the most comprehensive resources available.
FemTechNet
FemTechNet "is an activated network of scholars, artists, and students working on, with, and at the borders of technology, science, and feminism in a variety of fields including Science & Technology Studies (STS), Media and Visual Studies, Art, Gender, Queer, and Ethnic Studies" (the Network). Most notably, they created a digital Center for Solutions to Online Violence which includes targeted materials for survivors, educators, and journalists, and also information about definitions and terms, legal implications, and a "mega-spreadsheet" containing over 300 online resources. DigitAggro finds their Locking Down Your Digital Identity advice to be one of the most useful available.
Right to Be (formerly Hollaback) and HeartMob
Right to Be began by collecting stories of and providing support for experiences of street harassment, but eventually grew to include digital harassment as well. They "hold space for people experiencing harassment to share their stories for affirmation and support" (What we do) and provide bystander training as well. HeartMob is one of their projects whose "goal is to reduce trauma for people being harassed online by giving them the support they need" (About). While they focus mostly on journalists, DigitAggro finds that some of their most helpful resources include a self care guide and a legal guide.
Crash Override Network
Crash Override Network was founded by Zoë Quinn, the main target of GamerGate, and is no longer active as of 2016. However, it provides a comprehensive Resource Center that contains useful information on how to lockdown your identity online and stay safe. DigitAggro finds these preventative tools to be useful in thinking about potential future instances of targeted digital aggression.
DigitAggro Advice
While the pages above provide ample advice for how to lock down your identity/ies prior to an attack, respond to and take care of yourself during one, and learn your legal responsibilities, DigitAggro finds that this information can be overwhelming at first glance. As such, we have compiled a list of some actions that we have prioritized for researchers, divided into pre-publication, post-publication, and during an aggressive event.
Pre-Publication
If you are conducting research that you know might open you up to digital aggression, part of your research plan should involve protecting yourself prior to any possible threats. DigitAggro recommends building these protections into your research methodology.
1. Lock Down Your Digital Identity
The resources listed above have a lot of really good advice for this, but here are some that DigitAggro wants to highlight:
There are some other key considerations, although many of these may not be as doable:
- Search your name in white page databases and remove your information. Search your family members who can easily be traced to you (via Facebook or any other social media) and help them to remove theirs as well.
- Google yourself and remove any information that you are able to.
- Lock down your social media. Set profiles to private and unsearchable and delete any that you no longer use.
- Set up multi-factor authentication on any platforms you are able to.
- Create unique and complicated passwords for every website by using a random password generator. Use a password manager to keep track of them.
There are some other key considerations, although many of these may not be as doable:
- Ask if your university will obscure some of your information, such as your office and classroom locations, email address, or any other identifying information. Most universities will likely not do this since this is key information that needs to be available for students, but be aware that this information is likely publicly available for anyone with access to Google.
- Call your local Circuit Court and see if you can have your public records removed from online or otherwise made more difficult to access. Most will not do this unless you are the target of domestic violence or are a judge or law enforcement officer.
2. Consider Publication Audience and Disclaimers
When publishing digital aggression research, it is often important to consider the audiences and to possibly attempt to limit them for safety. Here are some ways to do that:
Importantly, both of these considerations also apply to conference presentation or other public speaking events.
- Consider publication venues and determine if your work is more suited for traditional publication, which is often behind paywalls with less accessibility to the public, or open access, which is often free and easily findable in a Google search.
- Consider adding disclaimers about how you work should be shared. Even if you choose a publication venue with a more restricted audience, researchers and teachers often share PDFs with each other and graduate students, so adding a disclaimer that asks them to be conscious of how they do so could help control your audience.
Importantly, both of these considerations also apply to conference presentation or other public speaking events.
- Find out if your talk is being recorded and if it is, find out where it will be archived and how it might be available to audiences beyond your immediate one. Request password protection or other safety measures. If you are not comfortable with the privacy protocols in place, ask that your talk not be recorded.
- Give audience members live-tweeting instructions. Ask them to avoid using certain keywords, tagging you in their tweets, and/or ask them not to tweet your talk altogether.
3. Inform Trusted Administrators and Colleagues (Optional)
This step is listed as option because not everyone can trust their administrators or colleagues to help them. But for those who can,
- Give your administrators a heads up that you are about to publish a piece that might result in an aggressive response. This could include department chairs, college deans, the provost, or possibly even the president of your institution.
- Identify trusted colleagues who may be able to help you in the event of an aggressive event. You may decide what you'd like this support to look like, but it could involve helping filter through emails, taking over a class or two so that you have more time and space to formulate how you will respond, or something else that might help alleviate some of the burden.
Post-Publication
If we publish work that we suspect may garner aggressive responses, it is important to continue considering the circulation and uptake of this work, which may be shared beyond the audiences we had intended. There is one main consideration to make post-publication:
- Continue to check your digital identity regularly. White pages sites and any other websites that scrape and collect public data will often continue to do so after we remove some data. DigitAggro recommends Googling yourself monthly for a year or so after initial publication and then every few 3-6 months in the years after (adjust depending on how widely read and circulated your piece is) to ensure that any information you do not want to be public remains unavailable.
During an Aggression Event
If you find yourself the target of digital aggression as a result of your research, there are steps you can take to mitigate its impact.
1. Self Care
Receiving a barrage of threats and insults is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausting and dispiriting, so developing a self care routine is essential. Importantly, everyone's self care routine will look different and will likely include moving beyond buzzwords like "meditate" or "spa day." Find distance from the event and do what feels good to you. Take care of yourself.
If the aggressive event happens on social media, block aggressively and with reckless abandon. Set everything to private and disappear from their view. If you have difficulty doing this for yourself (logging in means seeing the hate), ask someone to do it for you.
If the aggressive event happens on social media, block aggressively and with reckless abandon. Set everything to private and disappear from their view. If you have difficulty doing this for yourself (logging in means seeing the hate), ask someone to do it for you.
2. Get Help
Aggression events can be extremely isolating, so it is essential to intentionally reach out to others for help.
- If you can, talk to your institution's administrators to let them know what is happening and provide specific information about how they can help. Maybe they need to remove your information from your faculty page for a little while. Or maybe they need to find someone who can check your institutional email account for you and filter out hateful messages.
- If you can, talk to trusted colleagues to provide support. Maybe they can cover a class or two for you while you sort out your response.
- Talk to friends and family to let them know what is going on. Provide clear instructions for how you want or need them to help. Crash Override Network has a guide for how to talk to your family and the police about aggression event, and PEN America has Guidelines for Talking to Friends and Allies and a list of Best Practices for Allies and Witnesses.
- If you can, talk to a therapist and work through the mental, emotional, and spiritual impacts of going through the aggressive event.
- If you feel like your physical safety is in danger, talk to the police (if you feel like you can trust them). This is not an option for everyone, but could be an important step in ensuring protection. It is also worthwhile to check that the police in your area are well versed in digital aggression and what they can do to help. Crash Override Network has a guide for how to talk to your family and the police about aggression event.
- Reach out to support organizations like Heartmob, which can provide specialized advice for your situation. DigitAggro is also available for consultation.
- If you feel like you have grounds for a legal case, reach out to lawyer. Heartmob has information about legal rights and how to prepare a case, and PEN America has a comprehensive guide key legal considerations during aggression events.
Collaborative Care
In addition to protecting ourselves, it's important for us to consider our work as part of a collaborative community of researchers. This means being careful with how we handle others' work in the public sphere.
The latter suggestion may seem counter-intuitive, but one member of DigitAggro published an open-access piece that included digital aggression experiences from several people, so they reached out to those they were citing to ensure they felt comfortable being cited. Two people were okay with it, but the third asked not to be included, so they didn't include them.
- Honor disclaimers you see on publications. If an author notes that they would like readers to be careful how they distribute their work, help them protect themselves by following any guidelines they give.
- Honor disclaimers on conference presentations and other talks. If a speaker gives directions on how to live tweet, follow them; if they ask you not to, don't. If they ask you not to record, don't.
- Consider citation practices. If you are planning to publish venues that are more accessible to the public, and depending on your topic and/or how you are planning to cite others, consider asking other authors if they are comfortable being cited in your work.
The latter suggestion may seem counter-intuitive, but one member of DigitAggro published an open-access piece that included digital aggression experiences from several people, so they reached out to those they were citing to ensure they felt comfortable being cited. Two people were okay with it, but the third asked not to be included, so they didn't include them.