Illustration of a young Aboriginal woman looking deep in thought at her laptop which has a pattern on it. She has dark skin and long dark hair.

U Right Sis? aims to empower Aboriginal communities to identify and respond to technology-facilitated abuse (TFA), equipping young people and women with the knowledge and skills to navigate the digital world safely and respectfully.

Green speech bubble: "Everybody deserves to use technology freely, creatively, and without harm!".

Blue speech bubble: "When someone uses technology - like social media or their phone - to threaten, harass, impersonate, stalk, monitor, or otherwise abuse another person."

Technology can also be used to facilitate online financial abuse, sexual abuse, image-based abuse, and emotional abuse, among other harmful behaviours.

TFA is done to control, instil fear in, and humiliate another person.

The four most common technology-facilitated abusive behaviours are:

Harassment

Icon of a phone with 136 missed calls, ringing loudly.

Can look like non-stop texting, calling someone at their workplace until they get in trouble, or constantly messaging on different platforms.

Impersonation

Involves the creation of fake profiles with the intention of humiliating, threatening, controlling or causing harm to another person.

Monitoring / stalking

Icon of a phone with a map, showing a red dot moving, and lots of exclamation marks.

Can include the use of spyware or apps to track someone, or using a new platform or profile to contact someone after being blocked.

Threats

Icon of a phone with a red angry message and lots of vibration noises.

Can include threats to harm or kill directed either at the victim-survivor, or at children, partners, pets, and/or property.

Although anyone can experience TFA, it has gendered dynamics as it intersects with domestic, family and sexual violence (DFSV) and is a form of gender-based violence.

Women experience more sexual coercion, tend to suffer more severe psychological impacts from TFA and are more likely to experience it from a male perpetrator.

Certain other groups, like LGBTQIA+ people, young adults, people with disabilities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are at greater risk of experiencing TFA.

Good and bad ways that technology can be used:

Good ways to use technology:

Keeping passwords private
Reporting abusive comments
Supporting and organising community events
Keeping connection to family and friends
Logging out of shared devices
Celebrating your partner
Sharing and having a laugh
Only sharing images with consent
Respecting boundaries
Reporting fake accounts
Checking the facts before sharing

BAD ways to use technology:

Sharing photos without consent
Spreading harmful content
Keeping tabs on people
Shaming and victim-blaming
Reading your partner’s messages
Financial abuse
Adding fuel to the fire
Racist online comments
Calling non-stop or sending lots of messages
Family retaliation and revenge
Smashing or taking phones

About half of Australian adults have experienced TFA at least once.

And one in four have perpetrated it. A red person icon next to three brown people icons.

TFA perpetration is somewhat common, with one in four Australian adults self-reporting engaging in TFA behaviours at least once. It often occurs within relationships and has been identified as an emerging trend across intimate partner homicides.