Lesson Objective
Participants will understand their rights,responsibilities when participating in a digital space.
Participants will understand their rights,responsibilities when participating in a digital space.
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People use social media to build personal connections and communities and to share their experiences with others. People have rights and responsibilities in digital spaces, just as they have in physical spaces.
While many interactions online are positive and respectful, unfortunately harassment can occur in digital spaces.
According to Pen America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting free expression in the U.S. and worldwide, online harassment includes “pervasive or severe targeting of an individual or group online through harmful behavior”.
Online harassment can take many forms, including:
If you or someone you know is experiencing harassment online, there steps that you can take:
Identify the abuse. What type of harassment are you experiencing?
Document the abuse. Copy direct links, save any audio or text-based communication, and take screenshots of social media posts or other visual types of harassment. Documentation is helpful when having conversations with allies and reporting harassment to online platforms. It also allows you to share with law enforcement if necessary.
Assess your safety. If you feel unsafe, consider reporting your harassment to the appropriate authorities.
Use monitoring tools to block, mute, and report accounts that are bothering you. Using reporting features helps platforms to maintain respectful and safe communities for all participants.
Be proactive about setting up privacy and security measures on your online accounts and social media profiles. (For more information on how to stay safe online, review the Privacy and Security Modules.)
Enlist allies. Ask colleagues, family and friends for support in addressing harassment. You can even seek support from any of your online communities.
Speak out when appropriate. You should never feel pressured to speak out, but if it is appropriate and you feel comfortable you might denounce harassment, defend your reputation, fact-check false information, or ask for public support from allies.
Practice self-care. Take care of your mental health and well-being. Take breaks from online interactions when needed. In the next lesson, you will learn more about cultivating digital well-being.
On most sites, you can report objectionable content that violates platform guidelines including illegal content.
If you encounter objectionable content that does not violate platform guidelines, there are other steps you can take to avoid viewing the content, including unfriending or blocking someone. You may also want to make your profile private to limit access to and interactions with your profile.
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Students will learn how to keep their online information more secure by using and maintaining strong passwords. Students will learn about the principles of strong password design and the potential problems of password sharing.
View PageStudents will learn about malicious online users who might attempt to use security weaknesses to gather information about them.
View PageStudents will learn what information verification is and why it is important for news consumers to verify the stories they read or view.
View PageStudents will learn about a five-step checklist they can use to verify the origin, source, date, location, and motivation of a news image or video.
View PageStudents will define what a scrape (a copy from an original) is and explain why this can make the verification process more difficult.
View PageStudents will learn how to keep their online information more secure by using and maintaining strong passwords. Students will learn about the principles of strong password design and the potential problems of password sharing.
View PageStudents will learn about malicious online users who might attempt to use security weaknesses to gather information about them.
View PageStudents will learn what information verification is and why it is important for news consumers to verify the stories they read or view.
View PageStudents will learn about a five-step checklist they can use to verify the origin, source, date, location, and motivation of a news image or video.
View PageStudents will define what a scrape (a copy from an original) is and explain why this can make the verification process more difficult.
View Page