A reader of my blog recently contacted me and requested I share a Cyber Safety Guide she found useful.
The Women’s Guide to Cyber Safety offers recommendations to help you stay safe online.
The guide provides both general recommendations as well as recommendations specific to individual platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
The guide was published on WizCase.com, a website that provides tech advice.
I have to
say that I’m not particularly fond of the way the guide's introduction frames the topic.
The introduction presents online harassment against women as widespread and intense, while claiming that men experience little to no harassment online.
For an alternate take, I recommend watching a 2014 video from the American Enterprise Institute that cites studies that found men and women experience similar rates of online harassment.
Personally, I find it likely that the frequency of online harassment someone receives is more strongly correlated with whether they’re a public figure, than their gender.
If you want to skip the introduction entirely, the guide’s recommendations begin under the heading, “Social Media Best Practices.”
The guide provides good recommendations for people who are concerned about harassment or their privacy online.
It provides guidance on how to navigate online dating, as well as how to respond to harassment received while playing games online.
The guide also provides simple tips for parents to help their children stay safe online.
If you’re looking to protect yourself online, or simply want a good refresher course about your privacy options on social media, I’d recommend checking out the guide, regardless of whether you decide to skip its somewhat dogmatic introduction.
If you want to brush up your cyber security skills even further, you can check out an Internet Safety Guide I wrote about in 2019.
