The Netflix movie – The Accused was so intensely accurate in terms of what has happened and could indeed happen again to someone being wrongfully accused via our glorious social media ecosystem.
I had to stop watching it halfway through just to analyse the touch points (spoiler alert) –
Reading classification – personal threat, injury detail, discrimination, suicide
The victim profile
| Threat / event | Possible risk counter measures |
| High number of followers 200+ | Do you know all these people? |
| Open profile – public access to personal data, followers, posts etc | Limited how unknowns can tag you |
| Connected family and friend’s profiles are open and contain meta data such as location details, home address etc | Limited how unknowns can map your relationships |
| Phone location services open | Turn off when no Apps not in use |
| Images taken by 3rd party in public revealing location | Tough one to tackle as people are always snapping |
| CCTV data mapped with social media | Almost impossible to hide |
| Monitoring a hashtag in real time | No real reason to do this unless you are actually going to react |
| Online rumour pushed as fact | Response to accusations in real time by key social media channels, put out a pubic statement, engage a legal advisor. |
| Online threat to life reported by phone | Report online and get a crime number |
| Open-source intelligence (OSINT) data used to compile and share personal data on public forums anonymously. | Check yourself to see what you are sharing publicly |
