Tips for journalists: how to keep your social networking safer

Just a few days after my rant about online abuse - particularly that directed against women - came this excellent article in Poynter from Jeff Sonderman focusing on the harassment that women journalists face from their social networks when using Twitter and the Facebook subscribe function to engage with their readers.

“We’re more accessible to people than ever, which is both a good thing and a bad thing,” Politico reporter Juana Summers told Sonderman. “I’ve covered cops and courts, protests, and now state and national government, but some of the most seedy and inappropriate stuff that’s been said to me, mostly race or gender-based, has been said on my social networks.”

As we discuss in our white paper: A guide to managing social media for news sites and media organisations, journalists are encouraged to use personal Twitter accounts to build up followings.  But there are a few very obvious safety groundrules which should be observed.  In Sonderman's article, femail journalists recommend these steps:

Keep personal information to a minimum.

Don't tweet about where you are, what hotel you're in ...wait until  after leaving a place to post a review online or check in on Foursquare 

Take evidence If you are being harassed, copy transcripts or capture screenshots of harassing content when it happens, before you delete it.

And then of course, there are examples of retaliation ...Think Progress reporter Alyssa Rosenberg began tweeting the full names and institutional affiliations of her harassers under the #ThreatoftheDay hashtag. “Threaten me,” Rosenberg wrote, “and I will cheerfully do my part to make sure that when employers, potential dates, and your family Google you, they will find you expressing your desire to see a celebrity assault a blogger.” Perhaps not what could be officially recommended, but I bet it made her feel a lot better. 

Specifically for Facebook, here are some suggestions from Mandy at Zombiejournalism.com on keeping your Facebook profile clean and safe if you're using the 'subscribe' feature: 

Set up friends lists to help direct posts.
Click on ‘Friends’ on the left side of your profile. Here you can sort, search and assign friends into lists of your choosing. Take the time to create lists based on the sort of things you share. Maybe you have a list for family and friends to show off photos of your kids/pets/self. Maybe you have one just for coworkers or work-related purposes.

Be selective about who you share with.
You can direct individual status updates, photos, videos, notes and galleries to very granular groups (based on those friends lists you made). Your subscribers likely don’t care about your dinner plans with friends, so maybe those sort of updates should be directed to friends only. Also take the time consider the privacy of those you tag or feature in posts or images, they may not want to be exposed to your public audience.

Be smart.

Don’t share where you live or details about your schedule on public posts. Consider what your public posts say to the sexual harassers, stalkers and all-around creeps who hang out on Facebook.

Manage your comments.

If you have comments turned on for subscribers, keep an eye on them. People will sometimes spam you, say horrible things or pop into a conversation thread like a bull in a china shop with a “So hottt. C me in Turkiye”. You need to delete stuff sometimes, your friends and subscribers are depending on you to keep the comments cleared. Do this by hovering over the right side of their comment until you see an X. Click to delete the comment.

Don’t be afraid to block people. If someone is spamming you or being abusive to you or your commenters, don’t hesitate to block them from your page. Do this by first deleting the comment, then you’ll get an option to block the user.