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Reviewed: September 13th, 2011
Social Media & Cyberstalking
Through the increased use of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flicker, Foursquare, and YouTube, an individual's profile, photos, and status updates may provide enough information for that person to become a potential victim of stalking without even being aware of the risk.
Cyberstalking is a crime and it is a serious invasion of online privacy. Although cyberstalking doesn't involve physical contact, it is no less dangerous than offline stalking. As the National Center for Victims of Crime points out, many cyberstalking situations do evolve into off-line stalking and a victim may experience abusive and excessive phone calls, vandalism, threatening or obscene mail, trespassing, or physical assault.
Since geotagging is automatically enabled on most smartphones, if you use a smartphone to take photos and share on social media sites like Twitter, you may want to check I Can Stalk U. The goal of this website is to raise awareness about inadvertent information sharing as well as the dangers of geotagged photos.
Victims of stalking may want to think about suspending and preserving your social media accounts until it has been resolved. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has great social media safety tips such as avoiding posting information about one's current or future location, and using caution when providing live updates from a cell phone.