What to do before abuse happens
The Space exists to help artists and cultural organisations develop digital projects and skills and in recent times opportunities to create and promote content and engage with audiences online have exploded. But so too has some behaviour of online abuse and harassment towards artists, creatives and cultural and heritage organisations.
We want to help the sector plan for and respond to potential malevolent or harmful issues and have prepared some resources to guide you through what to think about to prepare and protect your organisation. Being prepared means you will have the protocols and support systems ready to deal with an attack if it happens and minimise its impact. We hope they offer some of this much-needed guidance. It’s not intended to be exhaustive or definitive, and for those individuals and organisations caught up in a storm of online abuse, we recommend that you consider seeking professional help – whether that’s for legal, communications or emotional support.
It is advisable to put robust plans in place to protect your organisation, staff, systems and freelancers should an incident of online abuse occur. Being prepared means you will have the protocols and support systems ready to deal with an attack if it happens and minimise its impact.
How ready are you?
An online abuse audit is an assessment of your current policies, protocols and preparedness for an attack against your organisation, team members or the freelance artists you work with.
Below are just some of the ways that you might encounter online abuse as an arts, cultural or heritage organisation:
▶ The organisation is subject to online abuse
▶ An employee is subject to online abuse related to their work for the organisation
▶ An employee is subject to online abuse for external reasons but targeting both work and personal accounts
▶ A commissioned artist is subject to online abuse related to work commissioned by the organisation
▶ A regularly commissioned artist is subject to online abuse for an independently commissioned piece of work
▶ The organisation is drawn into a more generally contentious position online
How to respond
The starting point for an arts organisation will be opening a conversation about online abuse and harassment within your team and those you work with. Indeed, thinking through how such an incident could impact your team, the freelancers you work with, your audience and your brand is likely to reveal how holistic your approach to this issue needs to be.
In how you wish to respond and the tone and ‘voice’ you want to adopt online, your artistic or editorial leaders need to be involved; in how members of your team or collaborating freelancers might be affected, your HR team may need to be consulted; and, assessing your cybersecurity will involve your IT team.
At the beginning of this journey, it is worth considering who is likely to first see or deal with online abuse. It may be a junior member of the marketing team who handles your social profiles, or a freelance artist that you have commissioned at home alone.
As organisations, we have a responsibility to protect those who work for us, especially when we are commissioning their work, or asking them to speak on our behalf. Simple steps such as having policies in place to manage an online abuse scenario if and when it occurs including escalation and response protocols and training are important to make them feel secure in their work.
Questions to consider
Risk profile
Are there aspects of your organisation or its activities that might be considered high risk in relation to online abuse? Areas to consider include:
- Campaigning or supporting causes or themes that might attract online abuse
- Running performances, events or other activities that might attract online abuse
- Employing or working with individuals who might be at risk of attracting online abuse
◆ Given your risk level in the above areas, do you feel you have satisfactory plans and policies in place for the areas identified below?
◆ Is it clear who in your organisation is responsible and accountable for issues relating to online abuse, digital security and your responsibilities to employees and collaborators?
◆ What is your organisation’s approach in relation to balancing freedom of speech with the need to prevent online abuse?
Social media and online content
◆ Who is responsible for managing your social media channels and other online content?
◆ Who can publish content on behalf of your organisation or act as a named representative online?
◆ How do you manage passwords to access your social media channels?
◆ Is there a process for changing/deleting user access for publishing content when a person leaves your organisation?
◆ Do you have an online content policy that addresses tone of voice to be used in online content and when and how to comment about or share third party content?
◆ What is your process for approving social media or other online content before it is published and for flagging content that might be high risk?
◆ Have you reviewed the privacy policies, sharing and commenting settings for your social media channels to manage who can see and comment on your content publicly?
◆ How do you monitor social media, so you might respond in a prompt manner to any negative public comments about your organisation or its work? Do you need to do this outside business hours?
◆ Have the individuals managing your online content been trained in the issues?
◆ Do those individuals have the skills and experience to take appropriate decisions in higher risk areas or to know when to escalate an issue?
◆ Do you have a clear process for escalating issues, including readily available out-of-hours contact details for the relevant senior managers?
◆ In the event that your organisation or a member of your team experiences online abuse, do you have clear communication and response guidelines and do you know when and how to notify the authorities?
◆ Do you have a policy for employees’ personal use of social media? This should include references to your organisation/work, publishing opinions that could bring your organisation into disrepute and use of social media during company time and use of company equipment.
◆ When forward planning your cultural programme or projects do you have a process to review your online content strategy and identify specific risks and mitigations around online abuse?
IT systems
◆ Do you have legally compliant policies and processes covering data protection and privacy, including GDPR?
◆ Is the data your organisation stores encrypted where necessary and regularly backed-up?
◆ Do you have clear policies and secure processes covering your team’s access to software and systems? This should include use of secure passwords, password managers and two-factor authentication, where appropriate.
◆ Do you have up to date anti-virus software installed on the computers used by your team?
◆ Have your staff been trained in digital security, including how to identify and prevent social engineering attacks on your digital systems (e.g. phishing or similar)?
◆ Do you have online services that could be vulnerable to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack? If so, have you considered defensive measures?
HR
◆ Do you have policies and processes covering your duty of care in relation to online abuse for employees and artists and other collaborators you may be working with?
◆ Where you have identified people who may be at higher risk of encountering online abuse, do you provide training and support for them to reduce this risk?
◆ If people in your team did experience online abuse, do you have guidelines on how you will support them and do you know what resources you might signpost them to?
◆ What is your approach to identifying staff and collaborators on your website or elsewhere online and publishing personal information or images? Have you secured their permission?
How do you balance the risks of this versus the benefits?
For individuals to review
◆ Do you use secure passwords, a password manager and two factor authentication where appropriate when accessing your online accounts?
◆ Have you reviewed the privacy and security settings of your social media accounts recently and are you happy with the settings?
◆ Have you researched what information is available about you online?
◆ Are you comfortable with this or do you want to take steps to try to have certain information removed?
◆ Have you checked whether any email addresses or passwords you use may have been compromised in a previous data breach?
◆ Is the data on your personal devices encrypted and backed-up?
◆ Do you have up to date antivirus software on your computer?
◆ Are you comfortable with the extent to which you separate your personal and professional identity in terms of the online information you share?
Download our Online Abuse ToolkitFurther support
Bespoke advice
The Space offers a range of support to help arts and heritage organisations plan for and respond to online abuse. These services include risk assessments, consultancy for organisations looking to draw up policies and protocols to deal with online abuse and bespoke training for managers and teams. To find out more, please get in touch.
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