Social media platforms are among the most popular websites on the internet. Facebook has over a billion users, and Instagram and Twitter have hundreds of millions of users each. These platforms were generally built on the idea of sharing thoughts, photographs, and information. Any of these activities can rely on privacy settings, anonymity or pseudonymity.

Depending on your circumstances, you may need to protect yourself against the platform itself, or against other users of the site, or both. Most social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, have now integrated the option to report such actors. Twitter also has the option of bundling together multiple posts or messages into one complaint report. Make sure you make best use of these features. Guides issued by Front Line Defenders, an international rights group that provides support to human rights defenders, elaborate on what to take care of when using such platforms – right from setting up your account, to ensuring the privacy of your IP address, to managing the content that you share.