Online harassment & abuse

Definition & description

Online harassment and abuse happen in many shapes and forms, including spam, mob attacks, sexual harassment, and more. It should be noted that online harassment has many other terms i.e. dogpiling, cyberbullying, trolling, online abuse, trolling, flaming, harassment etc. The phenomenon happens when an individual or a group of people is targeted severely and pervasively by a large group of aggressors through a large volume of threats, slurs, insults, and other abusive tactics. It can be a coordinated attack against you or involving a special interest group or it could be a series of events piling up against you, taking place in multiple digital platforms.

The consequences and harms experienced by victims largely depend and differ based on their intersectional identities that influence the barriers present and their ability to access justice. Online harassment and abuse can involve behaviours such as:

• Making abusive, insulting and offensive comments towards and about the victim with the intention to silence and harm the victim;

• Making sexualised and/or unwanted sexual advances against the victim;

• Name-calling, body shaming or dead-naming the victim;

• Sending unsolicited and/or threatening messages through various digital platforms;

• Spreading misinformation, malinformation and disinformation about the victim;

• Encouraging and inciting others to bully, spam and harass the victims;

• Spamming the victim's inbox with multiple messages and/or emails

What do I do: Incident response

Assess your risk. Has the online harassment made you concerned for your physical safety or that of your family or colleagues? We have a DIY risk assessment you can take in deciding your next step. The assessment is just a guide, but if you’re being made to feel physically unsafe in any way, trust your instincts. You may need to temporarily relocate to a hotel or a friend’s place. Tell someone you trust about your location (ideally through an encrypted channel like Signal or a secret channel on Telegram).

Document it. Documenting it is great because the content may get taken down. There are many ways to document the harassment; screen capturing the messages or content, saving the relevant links, saving a screen capture of your complaints, etc. Make sure the screen captures are inclusive of the date of the attack. If you consider reporting to law enforcement, your documentation would be very useful.

If the idea of going back to the platforms can be triggering for you, ask for assistance from someone you trust.

Setting up self-digital security. When being harassed online, it’s important to work on minimising your risks. Going private on your social media account can help avoid trolls or perpetrators from harassing you further. The perpetrators may try to infiltrate your other social media accounts. There are many reasons they may want to do this: to further shame you, to dox you, to shift the harassment from online to offline, or to use your personal information against you.

It is worth going private on your social media accounts even for a short while until you feel safe again. You should also assess how strong your passwords are and if you need to change them to strengthen your security. Alternatively, there is also the option of deactivating your account temporarily.

Report, mute, block. After you have documented the harassment, report the abuse that you have received to the relevant platforms. Every social media platform has its own reporting tools for consumers to file reports against violating content. Find out more on reporting to social media here. You may also block or mute the accounts that are harassing you so they can no longer see your content or communicate with you and vice versa.

Reporting it to police or MCMC. This is when your documentation comes in handy. There is no specific laws in malaysia for online harassment, but existing laws on sexual harassment, hate speech and violence should be extended to digital space. It is understandable that you do not feel safe coming forward to the authorities. If you do decide to make a report, we hope the information on this page will help you.

NOTE: Reporting may be seen as a simple step to most, however, for victims it may be a difficult task to do, and it is completely okay. The most important thing is to avoid the retraumatization of victims. If you feel this is a heavy process to do, we recommend reaching out to someone you trust to help you.

Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has set up a form available for citizens to file a complaint against media content, including online harassment. Link to MCMC complain form.

Let your friends know. If you are up for it, try reaching out to people who care about you and your well-being. Note that sometimes it can be difficult to explain what you are going through in words. After all, online gender-based violence is not widely understood by many and your trauma can still be fresh. Try to think of someone you can trust to create a safe space for you and your difficult emotions and thoughts. Start by sharing what happened, how it made you feel and what you expect from the other person in terms of support. Having someone who supports you and understands what you are going through can lighten the burden you are carrying. Being distressed does not always give you the right headspace to do the proper steps to protect yourself, but your friends or family can help! Please know that you don’t have to go through this alone.

Self-care. It is completely understandable if you are affected mentally, emotionally, or physically by the online gender-based violence experienced. Remember, it is not your fault and they should not have harassed and harmed you. Taking a time off or regular breaks from the digital space also helps. And, if you feel strongly about speaking up, you have the complete agency to decide how you would like to do so. Seeking professional mental health care can also make a big difference, especially if you get to a point where you feel hopeless or paralyzed by fear, talk about your abuse obsessively, struggle to enjoy things, or have difficulty eating or sleeping. Find out more on how to prioritise your well-being here.

Laws on online harassment & abuse

Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia renders it an offence when a person makes, creates, or solicits any content that is obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person. Victims of online harassment and violence are generally protected by this Act.

Anti-Sexual Harassment Act 2022 penalises any act of sexual harassment which is defined as "any unwanted conduct of a sexual nature, in any form, whether verbal, non-verbal, visual, gestural or physical, directed at a person which is reasonably offensive or humiliating or is a threat to his well-being". This will extend to sexual harassment committed or assisted by digital technologies.