Hokie Wellness to host keynote on preventing and mitigating technology-enabled abuse

Shannon Atkins

18 Mar 2024

Hands type on a mobile phone in a dim room. — The March 21 event will present tools to prevent and address evolving technology-enabled abuses including AI-generated explicit images, leaked explicit images, and digital stalking, tracking, and harassment. Photo by Tayten Allison for Virginia Tech.

The expanding reach of artificial intelligence (AI) and other technologies is also expanding the potential for online exploitation.

To share tools and strategies for anyone to prevent and mitigate technology-enabled abuse, Hokie Wellness and the Sexual Violence Prevention Initiative present “Why We Don’t Need to Be Tech Experts to Stay Safe in the Digital Age,” a keynote by Adam Dodge, founder and CEO of endTAB.

The talk will take place Thursday, March 21, from 7-9 p.m. at the Graduate Life Center Auditorium, 155 Otey St., Blacksburg, with an option to attend by Zoom.

No registration is needed for the free, in-person event, which is open to the public. Those who wish to attend by Zoom can register online. Closed captioning will be available. If you have a disability and desire accommodation, please email hokiewellnesssvp@vt.edu or call Chelsea Cleary at 540-231-4889.

Meeting an evolving digital threat

Tech-enabled abuse is a rising and evolving trend in sexual and interpersonal violence that includes harms such as AI-generated explicit images or leaked explicit images; digital stalking, tracking and harassment; and catfishing, or using a fake online identity to defraud.

Broadly, technology-enabled abuse means using technology to coerce, stalk, harass, or harm another person.

“While technology-enabled abuse can affect everyone,” said Chelsea Cleary, sexual violence prevention specialist with Hokie Wellness, “we see a trend across universities that young adults experience high rates of these harms.”

Cleary engaged Dodge, an internationally recognized digital safety expert, to expand the ability of the university and broader community to recognize, talk about, and prevent technology-facilitated abuse.

“It’s crucial that our students have the language and knowledge of digital threats to protect themselves and their community.” said Cleary. “We want them to know as much as possible so that in case something does happen, they can identify it and know that what they or a loved one experienced isn’t normal – it’s violence and there is help. They don’t have to go through it alone.”

Practical tools for digital safety

Cleary said the event will support anyone concerned about their own digital safety or that of people they care about.

"With so many of our faculty, staff, and community members supporting young adults in their professional and personal lives, we want to equip them with knowledge to keep their loved ones safe,” she said.

Cleary said the event also aims to help reduce the shame and stigma surrounding sexual or interpersonal harms that can be especially acute when they arise from new technologies.

The keynote will empower attendees with information on:

Nonconsensual tracking
Unauthorized account access
Image-based sexual abuse and catfishing
Online scams
Emerging issues including synthetic nude images, voice cloning, and stalker ware

Participants can expect to come away with practical tools for digital safety, including how to: