Online Harms

Types of online harms

Definitions

Examples

Harassment/cyberbullying

Online bullying, harassment, threats, insults or abuse

Trolling

Doxxing

Publish a person’s identity information with the intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress, fear of violence or facilitate the use of violence

Cyberstalking

Online stalking (e.g., by tracking one’s whereabouts through his/her social media accounts, creating a website to document the victim’s daily routine without the victim’s consent, flooding the victim’s inbox with unwanted emails or messages every hour)

Image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) i.e., non-consensual publication of victim’s intimate images

Any:

(i)              distribution of, or

(ii)            offer or threat to distribute, or

(iii)           offer to acquire, buy or gain access to

nude, intimate or sexually explicit images or videos (including altered images or videos) of the victim without his/her consent

Example of (i): X posts intimate image of victim online without victim’s consent

Example of (ii): X uploads a post asking if anyone would like to receive the victim’s intimate image, without the victim’s consent; X threatens victim to post victim’s intimate image online

Example of (iii): X uploads a post asking to buy/receive intimate images of the victim

Revenge porn, sextortion, deepfakes, cyberflashing, voyeurism (upskirt photos/spycam)

Sexual Harassment (excluding IBSA)

Unwanted messages of a sexual or indecent nature

Asking someone to send intimate pictures of themselves

Sexual grooming, sexual communication.

Impersonation/’identity theft’

Posing as someone else online (e.g. setting up a social media account under another person’s identity)

Catfishing

Defamation/falsehoods

Statements, images or videos about a person which are false or misleading or causes reputational harm

Fake news, libel/slander

Cancel campaign

Having someone participate in and encourage others to call for and create pressure to punish a person for what he/she may have said or done (or what is sometimes referred to as “cancelling”) (e.g. punishing a person by shaming him/her, or pressuring employers to fire him/her)

Cancel culture, boycott, deplatforming, silencing

Hate speech

Targeting a person with hate speech/hate comments because of the community / segment of society they belong to or identify with, or targeting the community or segment of society as a whole (e.g. racist comments)

Communication of child abuse material

Any:

(i)              distribution of, or

(ii)            offer or threat to distribute, or

(iii)           offer to acquire, buy or gain access to,

child abuse material.

Child abuse material means material that depicts an image of a person below 16 years of age as a victim of torture, cruelty, physical abuse or sexual abuse.  

[Please refer to examples of what constitutes (i), (ii) and (iii) for IBSA]

Misuse of confidential information

(breach of confidence) Misuse of information that a person has received in confidence by taking advantage or using the information without consent. Confidential information is information that is not publicly known (e.g. passwords, emails, as well as the personal data of individuals and third-parties)

Fraud/Deception

Fraud involves deceit with the intention to illegally or unethically gain at the expense of another

Scams (Sextortion/love scams may apply here as well)