Harassment is when someone or a group of people try to hurt someone online by insulting them, humiliating them or intimidating them. Sometimes they will even set up fake accounts called “bots” to try to attack some and to make them feel bad or push them offline. You can find out more about harassment here.

Sexual harassment online is when someone is harassing someone else because of their gender or sexuality or is saying or doing other things with a sexual nature that are hurtful. It can include unwanted sexual advances. It can include things like comments insulting people because they are women or gay or trans. It can include “outing” – so revealing someone’s sexuality that they want to keep private. It can also include sharing images that are intimate or offensive. You can find out more about sexual harassment here.

Cyberstalking is when someone sets out to find out information about someone online to monitor them and see what they are doing. The cyberstalker finds out information by looking at social media and other online accounts. This might be information that people did not want to be public. Sometimes cyberstalkers will also send unwanted messages. You can find out more about cyberstalking here.

Doxxing is when someone shares private information about someone else online in public without their consent. This can include things like phone numbers or addresses or emails or private pictures. It can be used to threaten someone or to get others to threaten, intimidate or bully. You can find out more about doxing here.

Image abuse online is when someone shares images or videos of someone without their permission and these are often intimate images. Revenge porn is a type of image abuse. The images could have been stolen or taken without the person’s consent or could be from a past relationship. It can also include images that have been images or videos that have been faked. You can find out more about image abuse here.

Scams are increasingly common online. Someone may contact a victim on a website or on a messaging app and pretend to be their friend or a possible partner or to have a job offer or a business opportunity with guaranteed profits or to say they have a warning about something. All of these are attempts to trick the victim to give away money or information or to let someone install damaging software that could take over their account. Some of the scammers can be very sophisticated and build up what looks like a real relationship before they steal from someone.