Facebook has just launched an online safety guide for women, in partnership with Women’s Aid.

It's called ‘A Guide to Staying Safe on Facebook’ and is a tool to educate and empower women on how to protect their privacy online and use the many online safety tools Facebook has developed. It also provides tips to help women maintain safety and control over their information. The guide has been developed in collaboration with safety experts and NGOs in the field of women’s safety, such as the National Network to End Domestic Violence in the US (NNEDV). Women's Aid, the leading national organisation in Ireland to stop domestic violence against women and children, say that digital abuse often occurs within the pattern of domestic and dating abuse, both online and offline. According to Women’s Aid, online and offline stalking, damaging rumours, partners demanding access to private passwords and sexually explicit images being shared without consent are among common digital abuse issues reported through the helpline. Advice in the guide focuses on three general areas – security, privacy and having a trusted network. The guide educates women about protecting their password and setting up login approvals, login notifications and trusted contacts. A privacy check-up is recommended to manage and control who can see personal information and what is being shared. Women are also advised to define a trusted community. Here is breakdown of the advice: Select strong account security settings and notifications

• Protect your password
• Enable login notifications: Facebook will send you a notification if someone tries logging into your account from a new device or browser.
• Activate login approvals
• Set up trusted contacts: Trusted contacts are friends you can reach out to if you ever need help getting into your Facebook account.
• Check where you’re logged in
• Customize your notifications
• Do a security checkup

The second line of defence: take control of your privacy settings

• Select your audience
• Review and approve: There are two options within the timeline and tagging settings for reviewing content that is tagged. The first allows you to approve or dismiss posts that you are tagged in before they appear on your timeline
• Control links to search engines: If you don’t want search engines to link to your profile, you can adjust your privacy settings.
• Manage location privacy
• Use the ‘view as’ feature: You can see what your profile looks like to other people friend people you know and trust: Facebook is based on authentic identities, where people represent who they are in the real world. This helps you know with whom you are connecting.
• Do a privacy check-up

The third line of defence: define your trusted community

• Unfriending: To unfriend someone, go to that person’s profile, hover over the friends button at the top of their profile and select unfriend
• Blocking: Facebooks community standards explain what type of content and sharing is allowed on Facebook.
• Get help offline if someone is abusing, harassing or threatening you, take it one step at a time. We have put together some further information on digital safety, legal options, safety planning, housing options, reporting assaults, and refuge.

      ‘A guide to staying safe on Facebook’ in partnership with Women’s Aid is available to view on both the Facebook Safety Centre and Women’s Aid website here. Support is also available by calling the Women’s Aid 24hr National Freephone Helpline 1800 341 900.