What Is This Manual?
In 2022, the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic and Cyberlaw Clinic decided to collaborate to discuss the safety needs of our community in this environment of escalating online harassment.
On October 27, 2022, we held a listening call on the safety needs of LGBTQ+ advocates on the internet with members of over a dozen organizations, including:
Equality Federation, Family Equality Council, Frameline, GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National LGBTQ Task Force, PFLAG National, Political Research Associates, Sage USA, the Transgender Law Center, and more.
Advocates expressed concerns over the LGBTQ+ rights movement’s lack of capacity and coordination to challenge online threats, especially considering how social media platforms engage in selective de-platforming and use algorithms to create online echo chambers. Advocates also discussed the chilling effect of such harassment on non-professional movement actors, including parents seeking to support their transgender child.
In response to the listening call, we determined the necessity of coordination within our movement and other movements to combat these threats, centralized, easily accessible safety resources, and employer and organizational support to prevent such attacks and respond effectively when they happen.
With the support of a variety of community partners, including the Abortion Access Fund, the Digital Defense Fund and Hacking//Hustling, Equality Labs, and Lawyers for Good Government, we developed a set of policy proposals for employers and organizations to harden themselves as targets, prepare their employees for the possibility of attack, and respond to attacks when they happen in a way that combats individual risk, particularly for marginalized employees and members.
