Social media harassment and the sharing of images and videos via Social media

Social media harassment often happens by sharing images and videos of other people without their permission. These are the steps that you will need to take to have harassing images, posts and videos removed from social media.

What to do if you are harassed on social media

What if you do not have access to the harassing posts on social media

Different methods of social media harassment

What can you do to stop harassment on social media

Can you harass someone you don’t even know

How to remove harassing posts and images from social media

What to do if you are harassed on social media

If you discover that someone is sharing your images or videos that feature you on social media, whenever possible, you should ask them to stop and to immediately take positive action to delete any images already shared on social media, as well as to ask others to do the same.

In many cases, however, this will not be a practical solution. One of the reasons for this is that you might not be aware what happened to the original image or video that was shared on social media, which means you will continue to feel harassed and distressed just from the sheer knowledge that there is information out there, which you have no control over.

What if you do not have access to the harassing posts on social media

Your harassment may continue without you knowing who has been sharing your images or videos or what is being said about you in connection with those images or videos. You do not need to see any posts yourself in order to feel harassed and distressed by the fact that your images are being shared on social media. Often, the sheer knowledge that those images or videos have been shared by others is enough to cause most people harassment and distress.

The different methods of social media harassment

What shapes or forms the social media harassment is very different compared to the way you feel about it. One of the most important elements of harassment is the distress that is felt by the victim. A typical campaign of social media harassment will involve a mixture of derogatory posts, derogatory images, and in some cases posting of videos.

The social media harassment might start on a website or a blog and from there, it will be shared via social media. Recipients of a link to the harassing posts might be able to view the harassing posts or images on a blog or on a website. The sharing, however, is always taking place on social media even if all that is being shared is a link whilst the harassing posts, images of videos are permanently posted onto a website or a blog.

What can you do to stop harassment on social media

To stop harassment on social media whenever possible, try to communicate with the person who has initiated the harassment. If the harassment on social media involves cyberbullying where there is more than one person involved, or the harasser is not approachable, it might be the case that you will need to speak to a lawyer who will be able to communicate on your behalf, with the people harassing you. You should try to instruct a specialist social media lawyer to avoid unnecessary errors.  

You need to remember that if you are an innocent bystander who have received a message or a post on social media, which you suspect, or have reasons to believe are harassing, you must not share it again with other people, because by doing so, you will be committing social media harassment yourself.

Can you harass someone you don’t even know

You can harass someone you have never met and whom you don’t know. You don't necessarily need to know the victim of the harassment in order to harass them on social media. All that needs to happen, for social media harassment to occur is that you share a post, an image or a video of harassing nature.

How to remove harassing posts and images from social media

Very often, you will need to make the people who share the harassing posts, aware that their actions are tantamount to harassment. If this is impossible for you to do or not practical, you should contact the social media platform to request that they take massive action to clean up all the harassing posts about you on the social media platform.

You will need to give them sufficient details for them to be able to locate the harassing posts or images and delete them. For a case of a video that is posted on YouTube, read the article How to Remove Videos from YouTube. In extreme cases where the harassment is taking place on a variety on social media platforms, or where the harassment is so prevalent, that it would not be practical to have the harassing posts removed one by one, you might need to obtain a court order or an injunction that will tell the social media company to place a filter on your name in connection with the existing and any future harassing posts. For more information, read the article: How to Remove Images from Google.

This will facilitate a fairly quick clearing up of any traces of the harassment on social media, and will also help prevent more harassing posts of similar nature, appearing on social media in the future.