Online Harassment & Doxxing

“Doxxing,” as it is frequently called, is the act of gathering someone's personal information and revealing it to the public, often in a malicious way. This can be done in a variety of ways including but not limited to public humiliation, online harassment, stalking and identity theft.

Many people maintain a public presence online, whether publicly and/or professionally. Given the risk of online harassment, we recommend you take precautions and be attentive about posting personally identifiable information. Below are some precautions you can consider taking to decrease the chances of online harassment.

1. Search yourself. See what information is out there about yourself and determine what info you may want removed, versus what is reasonable to remain public. Malicious actors can go to great depths to find out everything they can about you, so be sure to be as thorough as possible.
    
2. Be careful what you post or share online. Some public records (like property ownership, tax records, and voter registration rolls) may be out of your control, but you have the power to control what and where you post. Personal information can be used against you in a malicious manner, so be careful when posting private data. If you use social media as part of your professional practice, be aware that posts on a platform you can not control may not be able to be deleted later.
    
3. Update Social Media privacy settings. Online harassment often comes through social media platforms. To help prevent this, try adjusting your privacy settings to decrease the potential for harassment.
   • Overall guide: Online Removal Guide from the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative
   • More Detailed Social Media Guides:
     • Twitter
     • Facebook
     • YouTube
     • Instagram
        
4. Remove yourself from data broker sites. Data brokers collect your data from various websites/anywhere they can find it and then sell the information they find. It is important to remove any data you can find from these brokers to ensure your information is safe and kept within your scope. The easiest and quickest way to do this is to Google yourself and see what data broker websites possess information about yourself that you didn’t know. Go through these websites and opt out of their “service”. If you need help opting out, you can contact cio@oxy.edu.
   • Some big data broker sites to opt out of include:
     • TruthFinder Opt-Out
     • National Do Not Call Registry
        
5. Change your passwords. If you suspect one or more of your accounts have been compromised (banking information, email, social media, etc.) you should change your passwords on all of your accounts. Occidental has recommendations for protecting your accounts and maintaining strong passwords posted here. We also strongly encourage you to use a different password for each site. A simple and convenient way of doing this would be to use a password manager, such as LastPass, to safely secure your accounts.
   • LastPass
   • 1Password
   • KeepPass
      
6. Limit granting third-party applications permissions when connecting to social media sites. Third party applications who ask to use your social media information can accumulate this information and use it however they like, including selling it to data brokers.
   • How to Keep Your Personal Information Secure from the FTC

Additional Resources:

• Brief pdf guide from Homeland Security on how to mitigate online harassment.
• National Cyber Security Alliance
• FightCyberstalking.org
• Online Safety Guide from Feminist Frequency
• CyberSmile.org - A multi-award winning anti-cyberbullying nonprofit organization committed to tackling all forms of digital abuse, harassment and bullying online