How to Support Black Lives Matter Online
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The threat of Coronavirus means many of us must continue to support Black Lives Matter online. Unfortunately, fighting social justice issues online isn’t always a risk-free protest in itself.
Are you looking for a way to stay safe as you continue to fight for Black rights online?
Well, don’t worry. vpnMentor has compiled all of the most important safety information you need to know as you show your solidarity for BLM on the internet.
You need to know this stuff because there are malicious and hateful individuals that will do whatever they can to make you feel afraid or stop you from affecting change. Whether you're posting on social media or lobbying on other parts of the web, you’ll likely have already experienced your fair share of distasteful responses. But there’s also the possibility of hackers, abusers, political rivals, government organizations, and hate groups that can target you for your views, or their personal gain.
While this may all sound a little bit scary and overwhelming, we mustn’t allow antagonists, racists, criminals, and opposers to impede BLM or the broader social justice movement. People across the internet must take action by persisting with the crucial message of BLM. By adopting the tips in this article, you can continue to support social justice issues safely for years to come.
9 Steps to Stay Safe While Supporting Black Lives Matter
The internet is full of people who are up to no good. During times of social change, it’s no surprise that people with their own agenda are looking to exploit the situation.
Targeting someone because of their opinion is simply not acceptable. Here are some ways you can avoid these spiteful groups, all while reducing the risk of threats as you support Black Lives Matter online.
1. Keep your social media private and secure
If you engage in social activism online, malicious people and groups can use the information on your social media against you.
Harassers might comment on your social media posts with hateful language to disparage what you say. They may even go as far as analyzing your content and personal information to dox you (revealing your private information online), harass you across other platforms and in real life or target your friends and family.
Snoopers, hackers, or other bad actors might use your contact details or personal information to launch phishing attacks against you, either to monitor what you're doing or to commit various types of fraud.
By making your social media private and secure, you can reduce the risk of exposure to these threats.
Restrict your past posts
Control who can see your new posts
Make sure your privacy settings hide any personal information that could be used against you (like where you live, your phone number, job, or email address)
Enable two-factor authentication on all of your accounts.
2. If you publicly support BLM or other causes, put safeguards in place
If you plan on supporting BLM publicly, and you're confident in engaging openly in conversations, debates, or collaborative discussions online, be careful about what information you share.
Consider keeping at least two separate public and private accounts on any social media. For example, you could create a public Facebook profile that’s completely open, and a 2nd private account just for close friends and family.
When supporting BLM online publicly, limit how much of your personal life, relationship, location, other information you reveal. Make sure your posts or public profile don’t accidentally reveal anything that could be used to hurt you or make you vulnerable to attacks.
As soon as you start supporting BLM online, you could experience an onslaught of attacks, bullying, and attempts to dox you.
But by creating a buffer between your public ‘persona’ and your private online life, you can shield yourself from most attacks.
3. Filter your social media
If you choose to support any social justice cause, it’s not always possible to prevent others from responding negatively to your content. A friend, colleague, or family member may suddenly expose themselves as hostile and bullying.
It's exhausting dealing with negative comments, messages, and other forms of online bullying. Still, there are some effective ways you can stop bad actors from interfering with your support for Black Lives Matter.
Individuals may post comments rubbishing your opinion, being racist, abusive, or generally unpleasant. In this case, you should simply report and block them, and take screenshots of any nasty remarks you receive in your comment section or inbox to use as evidence or to publicly out them for their bullying or racism.
You’ll get called a snowflake or ridiculed for ‘cancel culture.’ Just ignore it.
Follow these steps to avoid persistent online abuse while holding on to evidence of this harassment should it become a real problem and you need to report it to the police. In doing so, you’ll stop malicious individuals from spoiling healthy conversations about equality, or making you feel unsafe online.
4. Don’t trust strangers who approach you online
This one seems obvious, but it’s vital. If someone pops up in your online network, reaching out privately and asking to connect, be extremely cautious. However trustworthy they may seem, they could have very sinister intentions.
Bad actors with all sorts of different motivations could appear as friends or sympathizers to build trust and extract information about you. From here, they could launch cyberattacks or other forms of abuse.
We need to continue to have healthy conversations about rights and racism, but keep your personal information to yourself. That way, you can prevent the threat of strangers with ulterior motives.