If you find yourself receiving hateful messages, nasty comments on your profile or your partner is being sent messages with false allegations of cheating, it can be very stressful and anxiety inducing. Until you’ve experienced being harassed, trolled, defamed or threatened yourself, you cannot truly understand the emotion and concern it raises. At first you may think you’ll be fine to ignore it, but if the harassment continues you will likely ask, what to do if being harassed on social media.
If you go looking online for answers, you’ll certainly find numerous articles which will provide suggestions such as:
- Block the account/person
- Don’t reply to them
- Report the account to the social media platform
These suggestions are good options, however, in our experience this rarely puts an end to social media harassment and cyberbullying. The offender can quickly create a new account, and it continues.
Blocking and report didn’t work, now what?
If you don’t want to take the above route of blocking and reporting, or you did that but it didn’t work and you’re interested in getting answers (and justice), then we suggest the following:
- Record evidence. When harassment or threats begin, you do not know if it is a one-off thing, or if it is going to get worse. Before taking any action, including before reporting or blocking the account, collect evidence of the harassment. Take screenshots of the account and save a link to the account. Record screenshots of any comments or messages and save the files somewhere safe, just in case this is needed as evidence in the future.
- Consider the seriousness. How serious is the situation? Is the social media troll threatening your life or dramatically impacting your relationship or employment. Is this a situation where you should consider seeking professional help or are you happy to ignore the situation and hope it fades away.
- What has happened recently? When social media harassment first starts it is a great time to consider if any recent events may be connected. Did a jealous colleague just miss out on that promotion? Did you just bump into an ex-partner? Did you and a friend have an argument? If you choose to investigate the harassment, providing investigators with potential suspects will greatly assist the investigation process.
- Do not engage. We recommend that you do not engage with the offender in direct communication. However, we do understand that many victims feel the need to get answers or defend themselves. Most importantly, do not close the lines of communication. Having an open line of communication to the anonymous online user can be beneficial in tracking them down.
Most common types of social media harassment
Over the many years that Cybertrace has specialised in social media investigations, we’ve noticed the following common types of harassment that offenders conduct:
- Your partner is cheating. One of the most common approaches anonymous harassers take is to contact the victim’s spouse and notify them that their partner is cheating. Even for the strongest of relationships, this can allow uncertainty and disharmony to enter a relationship.
- Contacting your workplace. Another way offenders try to cause havoc is to anonymously make allegations to the victim’s workplace. This is often done through a contact form to the business’ website, through the official business social media pages or through an anonymous email. Unfortunately, depending on the allegation, this often forces the employer to conduct an internal investigation as serious allegations cannot simply be ignored.
- Threatening and intimidating. Sometimes anonymous social media harassers send the victim a direct message. The message could contain nasty comments intended to intimidate or may allude to the victim that they know things about them. It can be very unsettling to think that someone you know is behind an anonymous account. And in our experience anonymous offenders are often much closer to the victim than most would expect.
How to get real answers
If blocking and reporting the account didn’t solve the problem, what can you do? The NSW Government website states that the Police can track down anonymous online bullies. However, in our experience the Police generally are unable to assist in most online harassment and cyberbullying cases. If an anonymous user sends a direct threat to the victim to harm them, then the Police are likely to open an investigation. However, if the harassment, comments or messages are anything less than a direct threat to their safety, then in most cases the Police will not open a case.
And certainly, if an anonymous social media troll is slandering someone’s reputation and publishing defamation online, this will be considered a civil matter and not a criminal matter where the Police can assist.
If the harassment continues or if you want answers to hold the offender accountable for their actions, or if you just need to know the truth is so you can evaluate the seriousness of the situation, then you may need to engage expert social media investigators to get to the bottom of it.
Why choose Cybertrace?
Cybertrace maintains a reputation within our industry for being turned to for complex cases and when others cannot achieve a result. We are not traditional private investigators; we are leaders in our space and have even developed our own techniques and technologies to identify anonymous social media cyberbullies. We have a proven track record and have been engaged to investigate anonymous social media profiles by individuals, companies, groups and even local and international governments.
Identifying who is behind a fake account is not quick and easy. It is important to understand that these cases can be challenging, time consuming and require expert investigation. Below is a testimonial from a past client who is in the public eye and had attracted the unwanted attention of numerous fake social media harassers.
If you find yourself in a situation similar to the ones mentioned, contact our team of social media investigators today to discover how we can help.
