Office of The State Attorney, Fifth Judicial Circuit, Florida
Serving the Citizens of Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, and Sumter Counties
Social Media Policy
We welcome your comments on our social media pages. However, comments that are obscene, vulgar, sexually explicit, threatening in nature, advocate criminal behavior, discriminate, include clearly inaccurate information, or are unrelated to the intended topic of discussion or provide links to other third-party sites, will be removed. The State Attorney’s Office has the right, with or without notice, to block access to its social media pages to any user who consistently violates the policy guidelines.
Here are some helpful hints to stay safe while using social media:
Privacy Settings
When posting on social networking sites, double check privacy settings and remove any geographical check-in points such as Four Square, or automatic GPS tags on photographs or photograph-based websites. Privacy & Safety on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors is an in-depth guide on how to best manage your privacy on Facebook. Learn more about safety and privacy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Discretion
When posting on social networking sites, be cautious not to provide unnecessary information regarding your daily activities or close friends and family.
Block Trafficker/Trafficker's Acquaintances
Consider blocking your trafficker, and” Unfriending”/” Unfollowing” all of your trafficker’s friends or mutual friends you cannot trust. Blocking a user from a social network site, provides extra levels of privacy and security. Always consider that anything shared on a social networking site can eventually find its way to your trafficker and/or someone that might pass on this information, even innocently.
New Email Account
Create a new email account from one of the free email providers such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail or Hushmail.
New Username
Choose a gender-neutral, non-specific username that is not similar to one you have used before, not yourname@. Don’t reference favorite hobbies or birthdates in your username, or anything that might alert your trafficker to your identity.
Online Address Book
If you use the address book associated with your email program, do not enter sensitive information into the address book. If your email program automatically enters email addresses into the address book of people you’ve replied to, you may be able to disable that feature. You may also be able to disable the automatic name completion feature, which fills in an email address after the first few letters are typed.
Sent/Deleted Emails
You can prevent items from being saved in your Sent folder by disabling that feature in your email. You can either set your deleted items folder to be cleared daily, or simply empty it at the end of each email session.
Blocking/Filtering Emails
You can block incoming emails through your email program. You can select to block specific email addresses, or addresses ending in the same address (e.g. name@address.com or any email that ends in address.com.) You can also choose to have designated senders' emails sent to a specific folder. This will allow you the ability to read the emails at a time that is convenient for you, and allows you to have a copy of the email should there be threats, etc.
