Protect Yourself Online: Social Media Safety and Ethnic Minorities

This video reveals key research findings about the negative experiences ethnic minorities face online when using social media, including racist abuse. It offers guidance to reduce the risk of online harm and abuse and suggests advice on what to do if abuse occurs.

This advice includes:

• Using privacy settings to stay safe.

• Reporting online hate to social media platforms.

• Documenting and reporting threats or crimes to the police.

• Blocking abusive users.

• Seeking support from Victim Support (https://www.victimsupport.org.uk/) or mental health professionals.

Empower yourself to create a safer online experience. Watch now and share to support ethnic minority communities online. This educational video is one outcome of the Protecting Minority Ethnic Communities Online (PRIME) project, which is a collaboration between five universities and five community organisation partners, led by Heriot-Watt University (HWU). The other university partners are the University of Glasgow (UoG), the University of York (UoY), The Open University (OU), and Cranfield University (CU). The community organisation partners are BEAP Community Partnership, BRAP, the Caribbean and African Health Network (CAHN), CEMVO Scotland, and the Tower Hamlets Chinese Association. This video is available in the following languages: English, Cantonese Gujarati, Hindi, Mandarin, Punjabi, Somali, Sylheti, and Urdu.

Gina Netto (HWU) was responsible for writing the script with inputs from Farjana Islam (HWU), Aunam Quyoum (UofG), Deborah Menezes (HWU), Mennan Guder (CU), Mehdi Rizvi (HWU), Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (OU) and Laura Whyte (HWU) as well as the community partners listed above and members of the advisory group of the project. The videos were produced in the Institute of Educational Technology (OU), with contributions from Sara Bailey (OU), Elizabeth FitzGerald (OU) and Agnes Kukulska-Hulme (OU). Support with identifying/selecting voiceover artists and checking the translation of the scripts was provided by Zinat Aboli, Chi Keung Chan, Kefan Chen (HWU), Farjana Islam (HWU), Faisal, Mohamed Mussa, Mizan Rahman, Mehdi Rizvi (HWU), Yingfang Yuan (HWU), Aunam Quyoum (UoG), and Xiao Quian Zhou. This work is supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant number EP/W032333/1.