← Back to all posts

Taking Back Your Story: How Women Are Reclaiming Their Online Presence

January 20, 2025 • Second Dawn Team

You deserve to feel safe, seen, and in charge of your story.

If the internet has made you feel powerless, you are not alone. Many women and girls report harassment, stalking, sexualized images they never agreed to share, and the feeling that their name no longer belongs to them when searched. Research from Pew and Plan International shows how common this harm is, and how deeply it affects daily life.

Knowing this does not fix the pain, yet it can quiet the blame that so many survivors carry.

What happened is not your fault.

When the World Tilts

When something harmful appears online, the world tilts. Your heart races. You replay every click.

The first step is not technical. It is a pause.

  • Drink water
  • Sit somewhere you feel steady
  • Name exactly what you saw and where

If you are in immediate danger, contact local emergency services.

If you feel unsafe in a relationship, confidential support is available around the clock from the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which can help you make a plan tailored to your situation.

What Reclaiming Looks Like

Reclaiming your story means shaping what defines you next. It begins with:

  1. Safety: securing yourself first
  2. Clear choices: understanding your options
  3. Support: connecting with people who can help
  4. Gentle habits: sustainable practices that lighten the load over time

This is not about perfect vigilance. It is about calm, workable steps that respect your energy and your pace.

If you can take only one step today, that is enough.

The First 24 Hours: Capture and Rest

In the first twenty-four hours, focus on two things: capture evidence, then step away.

Save What You Need

  • Take screenshots that show URLs, timestamps, and account handles
  • Keep a simple log with dates, links, and what happened
  • Advocates at the NNEDV Safety Net project offer plain guidance for this documentation because patterns matter

Your notes can reduce the number of times you have to retell the story.

Then Step Back

After you capture what you need:

  • Close the apps
  • Rest
  • Ask one trusted person to help monitor links so you are not pulled back into the comments

The First Week: Protect and Reduce

Over the next week, protect your accounts and reduce the spread.

Secure Your Accounts

  • Change passwords on email and cloud accounts
  • Turn on multi-factor authentication (2FA)
  • Review which devices and apps have access

Reduce Visibility

Then decide what you want removed first.

If sexual images of you are in search results or if someone has linked your name to explicit content that is not yours:

If your home address or phone number appears in search results:

These steps do not erase the internet. They reduce visibility and buy you breathing room.

Survivor-First Tools

If an intimate image was shared without consent, there are survivor-first tools that let you act without uploading the image.

StopNCII.org

StopNCII.org creates a digital fingerprint of your content on your device and shares only that fingerprint with participating platforms to help block sharing. You never upload the actual image.

Take It Down (NCMEC)

For images taken before you were 18, NCMEC's Take It Down works similarly and allows anonymous reports.

These services help stop the spread while you work on removals where the image is hosted.

Reporting to Platforms

Reporting to platforms can feel heavy. Keep it simple and steady.

How to Report

  1. Use the site's reporting form
  2. Attach your screenshots
  3. Be clear and brief about what you're requesting

If There Are Threats or Stalking

You can report to law enforcement with support from a trained advocate. RAINN's guides explain how to document tech-enabled sexual abuse and what to expect if you choose to report.

You can come back to this at any time. Your timeline is your choice.

Quieting Your Information Footprint

As the first week ends, begin to quiet your information footprint.

Quick Actions

  • Search your name and remove unnecessary contact details from bios and public profiles
  • Consider opting out from people-search sites that publish addresses and phone numbers

About Data Brokers

Recent reporting shows some data brokers hid their legally required opt-out pages from search engines, which makes this work frustrating. Manual removals still help, and consumer testing found do-it-yourself opt-outs often work faster than paid services.

Pace yourself or ask someone you trust to handle a few requests each week.

The First Month: From Crisis to Calm

Across a month, the goal shifts from crisis to calm.

Automate What You Can

  • Put password rotation on a calendar
  • Review privacy settings so fewer people can tag you or view old posts without your review
  • If you worry about identity exposure, consider a credit freeze with the major bureaus

Create Safe Spaces

Keep one private space online where you can process with people who see you clearly.

Healing is not a straight line. Rest is part of the plan.

Your Legal Rights

You have rights. The legal landscape has shifted significantly in favor of survivors.

United States

In the United States, every state and Washington, D.C. now has a law addressing the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images. The details vary by state, yet the nationwide coverage matters because it gives prosecutors and courts more tools.

The Cyber Civil Rights Initiative maintains up-to-date state information and also tracks newer laws that cover sexual deepfakes.

The TAKE IT DOWN Act (2025)

There is now a federal law as well. On May 19, 2025, the TAKE IT DOWN Act became Public Law 119-12. It:

  • Makes it a crime to publish nonconsensual intimate images, including AI-generated deepfakes
  • Requires covered platforms to remove reported content as soon as possible and not later than 48 hours after a valid request
  • Directs the Federal Trade Commission to enforce these takedown obligations

This is not a magic fix. It is one more lever you can pull, and it increases the pressure on companies to act quickly when you report harm.

United Kingdom

If you are in the UK, the Online Safety Act created new offenses for sharing intimate images without consent and has been strengthened so that intimate image abuse is treated as a priority offense that platforms must tackle proactively.

These changes mean social media firms have to remove this material or face penalties. Survivors asked for a system that responds faster. The law is moving in that direction.

You Don't Have to Carry This Alone

Survivor-centered advocacy is available.

Support Resources

  • National Domestic Violence Hotline: Confidential support and personalized safety planning at all hours
  • RAINN: Guidance on tech-enabled sexual abuse, from sextortion to deepfakes, with options whether or not you want to involve law enforcement
  • Right To Be: Trains communities in bystander intervention so your circle can support you safely without escalating harm

You can choose one resource that matches your situation today and come back to the others later.

Scripts You Can Use

Below are short scripts you can adapt if words feel hard. Change them to fit your voice.

Asking for Help

"Something harmful is happening online and I feel overwhelmed. I need help saving links and filling out reports while I take a break from my apps today."

Reporting to a Platform

"I am reporting nonconsensual intimate imagery of me at [URL]. I did not consent to its creation or distribution. Please remove this content and any duplicates. I have attached screenshots with timestamps."

Formal Removal Request

"I am the person depicted at [URL]. This material was posted without my consent. Please remove it under your terms of service and applicable law. I can provide verification if needed."

Asking Friends to Help Monitor

"If you see anything about me that feels invasive, please do not comment or share. If you can, screenshot it and send it to me directly. I am taking steps to handle it."

Supporting a Friend

If you are supporting a friend, lead with belief and follow their pace.

How to Help

  • Ask what would help right now, then do only that
  • Offer to handle the screens and forms while they rest
  • Don't confront the person who caused harm without permission

Bystander guidance from Right To Be shows how to help without confrontation and how to document safely when asked.

Support works best when it centers the person harmed.

After the Takedown: Living Your Life

After a takedown, you still have a life to live. Set light boundaries that reduce friction over time.

Ongoing Protection

  • Review tagging and sharing defaults on social apps
  • Keep your contact info private where possible
  • Shift sensitive conversations to smaller, safer spaces

Monitoring for New Appearances

If you want extra peace of mind, Google's "Results about you" can monitor for fresh appearances of your phone, address, or email and alert you so you can request removal quickly.

You get to decide how visible you want to be, and you can change your mind later.

This Is Not About Perfection

Nothing in this plan asks you to be perfect or to spend hours every day patrolling the internet.

Reclaiming your story is not about becoming invulnerable. It is about knowing that when harm appears, you have a path back to yourself.

You can meet hard moments with care, choices, and people who stand with you.

You deserve digital peace.

Resources

This guide follows Second Dawn's mission to replace fear with clarity and to help survivors reclaim their stories, one step at a time.