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Let’s have a chat about who you send your woman friend to. You know, the one whose ex is in her phone and trying to get her fired and shopping pix of her? That one.
You’re a decent person and she’s not that technical and you’re trying to find her some help.
She broke up with that creep but she can’t get away from it all because her phone is compromised and she doesn’t know if her email is being read.
I have been getting that DM, that email, that call for almost a decade now. “Hey, I have a friend who needs help and we don’t know who else to reach out to.”
I remember when @evacide posted this a couple of years ago and the whole community was shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to learn that ongoing technical harassment was an issue still. https://mobile.twitter.com/evacide/status/957758149577986050
Guess what? I have some bad news for you. I’m still getting that contact, that email, that call, that DM. No one still knows who to go to. I help as many as I can. I know for DAMN sure Eva helps as many as she can. Other women help. But it’s not enough.
The problem isn’t that we don’t know how to *technically* help people. The @EFF & @ACLU are on it, and @KaitWells + @kingthor @nytimes have a great article on recognizing tech abuse w resources (ty for no paywall!!) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/smarter-living/wirecutter/domestic-abusers-can-control-your-devices-heres-how-to-fight-back.html
The issue here is the staggering emotional work and the perpetual retraumatizing of victims. Do you know what it’s like to do incident response and digital forensics with a victim of sexual abuse? I do. So do the other women I call when I can’t handle more.
The women I know who help survivors of tech abuse are absolute queens. They’re technical, top of their fields, & they’re also all experienced with forms of abuse. There’s maybe five women I call when I can’t handle more. Someone will pick up the call & help the new girl.
I heard another call go out over the grey network, just a whisper today, and I don’t know who it is or how to help, but girl: we will help you. We will find someone for you to talk to. Maybe you’ll become one of us in just a few years.
Maybe you’ll help someone who needs it one day, or maybe you’ll be healthier and happier for having gotten a hand when you needed it. PS: if you know what 2FA is, turn it on if you can, and if you’re scared to, email [email protected] and I’ll help if I can. Or I’ll get you to someone.
But here is the eternal shame and dirty secret of the hacker community: we help because we can, but there’s no number to call and no one other than us that I know. Telling victims to call law enforcement for tech abuse is a joke and a sham: ask me how I know.
I try to end threads like this with hope. I can’t give you more than my email address, and the knowledge that both I and the people I know have undergone trauma and triage training. We will be ok if you contact us, and we will try to help if we can.
You. Are. Not. Alone.
You. Are. Not. Alone.
And for the hacker community, the law enforcement community, and the globe: if you don’t know what number to call or who to contact for help with victims of tech and intimate partner abuse, you have correctly identified the problem. Goddammit I want to see that agency exist.
I was just asked: what trauma training did I do? 7 years ago, I first started getting these calls in a big way. I didn’t know how to deal. My church offered training in ministering to victims of crimes, survivors of deaths, and non-English-speaking traumatized immigrants.
I took trauma and triage training at my church because no other training in how to handle people contacting me out of the blue with horrifying stories existed that I could find.
My spouse @deviantollam did @OJPOVC training and thought highly of it. https://www.ovcttac.gov/
My spouse @deviantollam did @OJPOVC training and thought highly of it. https://www.ovcttac.gov/
I would love to know, and please respond here: what other triage and trauma counseling training programs and resources have any of you heard of? It’s not the tech that’s the problem: it’s the emotional commitment of helping someone through their worst day.
If you’re helping, thank you. If you don’t know who to go to, we will help. If u can make a difference, loudly demand law enforcement get a clue abt intimate tech abuse & stop saying “well just don’t use the internet”.
We got through it & so will you. It gets better.
We got through it & so will you. It gets better.
