Internet safety 2026

By Jess Santacroce

Writer/Editor: The 315

Nearly everyone is online, even those of us who consider ourselves “never online” or “not someone who uses the internet.” This is especially true for local artists, as we depend on sites like facebook to promote gigs, find events, and even buy needed equipment, instruments, or materials, email lists to keep in touch with fans and supporters, Instagram to post photos from showings and gigs, and in some cases, delivery apps to raise funds for projects. And like anything that has become such a basic resource for so many of us, we both already know and tend to disregard safety guidelines when we’re in online spaces. We know not to do things like post our home address and set it to public, post a facebook comment when we want to share something privately with someone else, or give money to internet strangers who approach us with the promise of a gig or an introduction to an agent, but there are still a few unsafe behaviors that are seen with alarming frequency.

Looking for immediate tutoring, childcare or in-home pet care in facebook groups

“Need a sitter for my eight year-old daughter on Mondays and Tuesdays. Must have your own car as you will need to pick her up from ABC Elementary school in the afternoon. Must have excellent references and CPR training. Must love dogs, as we have two big Huskies.”

Most people who post ads like this are deeply offended when someone suggests that what they are doing is unsafe. Anyone who does anything other than give them names, make an offer, or praise them for being cautious is likely to be told off, informed that they will be doing thorough reference checks and of course they’re not stupid enough to let the person who writes to them into their home without meeting them first.

It’s already too late. The act of posting the ad alone just alerted anyone who may read it that you are in serious need of something important. People who are frantically searching for something tend to be at least somewhat distracted and prone to trust too easily, no matter what they say. In addition to alerting anyone who scrolls past your post that you’re in a vulnerable state, you told them where your child goes to school and let them know that the family pets are soft spots for members of your household and that you’re more likely to trust a person who can present CPR training. A predator could easily combine that information with names, pictures, and other details you may not even give a second thought to posting on your personal pages and use it for evil.

If you do not have people you already know and trust in town available, spend the time you would have spent meeting random people from the internet for coffee researching and contacting social service organizations that may be able to refer you to licensed day cares or other childcare, pet care, or tutoring services within your budget.

Following “day in the life” video trends

Content creators have been posting “day in my life” videos since online content creation began, and many of them are able to do it safely. There is certainly nothing wrong with this in general, and content displaying your artistic process, rehearsals, or parts of your life to promote your work can be as safe as anything else we do these days.

The safety concern comes in when the current trend of highlighting your time alone is followed. Videos with titles like “Living alone in my forties”, “Twenty-four hours in my life as a single artist” and “A week at my day job” can create a variety of unsafe situations.

The fact that you spend a lot of time alone, or that you are alone at certain times during the day or week is not information that belongs on the internet. You may be intending to comfort others in the same situation, and you may be doing so, but you’re also letting dangerous people know that you’re alone a lot, or alone at certain times. You may be unintentionally showing them the path you take to work, or revealing when your house is empty.

If you feel called to comfort people who are experiencing isolation or dissatisfaction with a day job or other work situation by sharing your story, and video is your art form, take some extra time to screen and edit all content before you post it. Make sure to edit out not only obvious details like the name of your apartment complex on a sign in the background of the shot or the key code you punched in on the door of your workplace, but more subtle details that can be too revealing. A shot of the mail truck in front of your building with “Another afternoon all by myself with no one to talk to but delivery people” as a voice over tells anyone who can find out what time the mail comes to your neighborhood exactly when you’re home alone.

Engaging with trolls

Internet trolls rarely pose any physical danger. Unless you’ve done something else unsafe online, and revealed far too much information that could be used to find and/or follow you, that random person who told you that everyone of your religion, political affiliation, gender, orientation, ethnic background, socioeconomic background, or other social group should perish horribly is not really going to show up and cause you any true harm. And even if you did, it’s unlikely they’re paying enough attention to you or otherwise have the means to do so.

The person you’re talking to is someone with nothing better to do, nothing better to think about, than upsetting random strangers for their own entertainment. They know better than to do it offline because people can reach them to kick them out of the building or slap them across the face. You were targeted simply because your post or comment scrolled across their screen, and because you are both on screens, you can’t reach them.

But while you’re not in any physical danger, spending time talking to these people can harm your mental health. It can also harm your professional reputation, finances, and personal relationships, as you may find yourself arguing with trolls on a work computer accessible to a colleague, wasting time you should have been working on a project or looking for work, and ignoring your spouse, friends, or family members to devote your time to some internet irritant.

The best response to a troll is to simply ignore them. Their goal is to gain attention from strangers on the internet by upsetting others, so any response is going to be experienced as a reward for them. If you must respond, or if you’re talking to someone and realize the person is trolling you, a simple, “You have succeeded in your goal of getting attention from a stranger on the internet, but if you need more, you are going to have to talk to someone else now. I don’t have any more free time to respond” is all you need to say. Then stick to it. Once they realize they’re really not going to get any more attention out of the situation, they’ll go away. Or they’ll sit there and post things they and they alone even bother to read, essentially talking to themselves. Either way, you have the time and energy to move on to something better to do.

Remember that the internet is not different than “real life.” There are real people on the internet, and real people may or may not be safe or healthy to be around.