Stalking

I hope I can give you some useful information about how someone can try to stop Internet harassment on social media sites such as Facebook. You can also read more about other safety tips on our Internet Safety page. Also, we have some safety tips specifically for social media on our website as well.

Here are some ways that a person can try to protect himself/herself from being found and harassed on social websites. I cannot tell you whether any of these would work in your situation or not but you can read them and evaluate whether you think they would help or not - please don’t take any of them as specific advice for your situation.

With Facebook, an account holder can block people so they can’t see his/her profile or any of his/her other actions on Facebook. To block someone, go to the Privacy Shortcuts icon, which looks like a lock (top right side), click How do I stop someone from bothering me? and then you can enter a person’s name to block him/her. Another thing someone can do to try to secure his/her privacy online is to make sure that his/her Facebook profile does not appear when someone searches his/her name in Google. You again go to Privacy Shortcuts icon, which looks like a lock (top right side), click See more settings and then go to the one that says: Who can look me up? It then asks if you want other search engines to link to your profile and you can turn off that feature. You can do similar things on other social media sites such as X (formerly Twitter). Also, if a person has a blog, s/he can check the privacy setting on that too and set it to Invite Only so s/he can control who sees it and who doesn’t.

Even with email, many accounts allow a person to block specific addresses if harassing emails are coming from a specific email address - this may be done in the privacy settings section of the email account.

[INCLUDE THIS PARAGRAPH IF THE PERSON IS GETTING PHONE CALLS: To stop getting phone calls and text messages, sometimes someone can call his/her phone company and ask them to block certain phone numbers. Some phone companies will block up to a certain amount of phone numbers for free. However, sometimes this might only work for a landline, not for a cell phone. Since I cannot talk about your specific situation, you may want to ask the phone company about this if this is a concern of yours.]

Sometimes when someone is trying to stop contact from a person, that person may reach out to others to try to make contact. Therefore, sometimes the person who is trying to stop the contact may ask family, friends, colleagues, etc. not to reveal his/her contact information to anyone if requested.

Another possibility for someone who is being harassed or stalked might be to apply for a restraining order if s/he meets the requirements. You can see information on protection orders in STATE on our website. (EMBED LINK) We also list some crimes an abuser may commit, including some technology-based crimes, on our website. [LOOK ON STATE STATUTES PAGE FOR DEFINITIONS OF CYBERSTALKING OR HARASSMENT OR WHATEVER MAY FIT] I cannot say if these crimes apply to your situation - there may be additional or other criminal definitions that we don’t have on our website that may apply. For legal advice, you can talk to a lawyer in your state. You can find free and paid lawyers in STATE on our website. (EMBED LINK)