Guide to Documenting Online Harassment and Abuse

Online threats and harassment don’t just affect national candidates anymore. Anyone running for office or working on a campaign, down to the local level, can end up targeted, and most people have no idea what to actually do when it happens. This guide walks you through how to properly document online harassment and abuse, so you have a clear record if you ever need to report it to a platform, law enforcement, or your own campaign leadership.

Use it with our Documenting Online Harassment and Abuse Template to have a complete system for capturing threats as they happen and keeping that record organized and usable later. Once implemented, you’ll have a record that actually holds up if you need to report an attack to a platform, escalate it to law enforcement, or brief your own campaign leadership.

Included are:

• Step-by-step instructions for documenting online threats and harassment as they occur

• Guidance on what details to capture so your records hold up if reported

• Best practices for preserving evidence before a post or account gets taken down

• Direction on when and how to escalate a threat to a platform, law enforcement, or campaign leadership