Most of the internet’s blessings—the opportunities for communities to connect despite physical borders and oppressive controls, the avenues to hold the powerful accountable without immediate censorship, the sharing of our hopes and frustrations with loved ones and strangers alike—tend to come at a price. Governments, corporations, and bad actors too often use our content for surveillance, exploitation, discrimination, and harm.

It’s easy to dismiss these issues because you don’t think they concern you. It might also feel like the whole system is too pervasive to actively opt-out of. But we can take small steps to better protect our own privacy, as well as to build an online space that feels as free and safe as speaking with those closest to us in the offline world.

This is why a community-oriented approach helps. In speaking with your friends and family, organizing groups, and others to discuss your specific needs and interests, you can build out digital security practices that work for you. This makes it more likely that your privacy practices will become second nature to you and your contacts.  

Good privacy decisions begin with proper knowledge about your situation—and we’ve got you covered. To learn more about building a community privacy plan, read our ‘how to’ guide here, where we talk you through the topics below in more detail: 

Using Secure Messaging Services For Every Communication 

At some point, we all need to send a message that’s safe from prying eyes, so the chances of these apps becoming the default for sensitive communications is much higher if we use these platforms for all communications. On an even simpler level, it also means that messages and images sent to family and friends in group chats will be safe from being viewed by automated and human scans on services like Telegram and Facebook Messenger. 

Consider The Content You Post On Social Media 

Our decision to send messages, take pictures, and interact with online content has a real offline impact, and whilst we cannot control for every circumstance, we can think about how our social media behaviour impacts those closest to us, as well as those in our proximity. 

Think About Cloud Servers as Other People’s Computers  

When we backup our content to online cloud services, corporations may run automated tools to check the content being stored, including scanning all our messages, pictures, and videos. Whilst we might think we don't have anything to hide, these tools scan without context, and what might be an innocent picture to you may be flagged as harmful or illegal by a corporation's service. So why not take extra care to choose whose computers you’re entrusting with sensitive information. 

Assign Team Roles

Once these privacy tasks are broken down into smaller, more easily done projects, it’s much easier for a group to accomplish together. 

Create Incident Response Plans

Since many threats are social in nature, such as doxxing or networked harassment, it’s important to strategize with your allies what to do in such circumstances. Doing so before an incident occurs is much easier than on the fly when you’re already facing a crisis.

To dig in deeper, continue reading in our blog post Building a Community Privacy Plan here.