12 min read
Criminal Defense
Social Media Harassment: Legal Protections & Remedies
Most people assume social media harassment is something you just have to tolerate—block the account, report the post, and move on. They figure the law hasn't kept up with technology, that online behavior isn't really the same as real-world threats, or that law enforcement won't take a harassment complaint seriously if it happened on Instagram instead of in person. That assumption is wrong, and in Colorado, it's the kind of wrong that leaves real victims without protection they're legally entitled to while harassers continue escalating behavior that courts treat as criminal.
Whether you're dealing with threatening DMs, a coordinated smear campaign, someone posting your private information online, or an ex-partner who won't stop contacting you across multiple platforms—Colorado law has specific tools to address it. The gap between what most people think is legally actionable and what Colorado courts actually treat as harassment is significant, and understanding that gap is the first step toward protecting yourself or defending against accusations that don't accurately reflect what happened.
Why Social Media Harassment Is More Serious Than Most People Realize
The stakes in social media harassment cases go well beyond hurt feelings or temporary embarrassment. Colorado law recognizes online harassment as capable of causing the same harm—sometimes worse—than in-person conduct, and the legal consequences for harassers reflect that. A harasser who operates exclusively through social media faces the same criminal exposure, civil liability, and court-ordered restrictions as someone who shows up at your door.
Here's what's actually on the line in Colorado social media harassment cases:
For victims:
Court-issued protection orders that prohibit all online contact, criminal charges against harassers carrying real jail time, civil lawsuits for damages including emotional distress and reputational harm, and emergency injunctions to get damaging content removed
For those accused of harassment:
Criminal charges ranging from Class 3 misdemeanors to Class 5 felonies, restraining orders that restrict your online presence and daily movements, civil liability for significant monetary damages, and permanent criminal records that appear on every background check
For everyone involved:
Employment consequences, child custody implications, professional licensing issues, and long-term reputational fallout that can outlast any criminal sentence or civil judgment
Colorado courts recognize that online harassment rarely stays online. Documented patterns of digital harassment are treated seriously in criminal proceedings and civil protection order hearings, and failing to address it early gives harassers time to escalate, creates a longer paper trail, and gives prosecutors and plaintiffs' attorneys more material to work with. The decision to wait and see what happens almost never produces a better outcome.
Understanding Social Media Harassment Under Colorado Law
Colorado doesn't have a single statute called "social media harassment." What it has is a body of criminal laws—primarily the harassment and stalking statutes under the Colorado Revised Statutes—that courts and prosecutors have consistently applied to online conduct. The platform doesn't insulate behavior from legal consequences. What would be criminal harassment in a series of voicemails is equally criminal in a series of Instagram DMs.
Under C.R.S. § 18-9-111, harassment includes repeatedly communicating with someone in a manner intended to harass or alarm them, making obscene communications, and repeated contact after being asked to stop. None of these statutes require in-person conduct, and Colorado courts have long held that electronic communications—texts, emails, DMs, comments, posts—fall squarely within their scope.
The key elements prosecutors and civil courts look for are intent combined with impact. Communications designed to harass, threaten, intimidate, or cause substantial emotional distress, combined with conduct that actually produces that effect, form the core of nearly every social media harassment claim in Colorado. A single offensive comment is unlikely to meet that standard. A weeks-long campaign of threatening messages targeting someone across multiple accounts almost certainly does.
What Qualifies as Social Media Harassment in Colorado
Not every unpleasant online interaction rises to the level of legally actionable harassment. Colorado law examines specific types of conduct, patterns of behavior, and the nature of communications to determine whether harassment has occurred. Understanding what qualifies—and what doesn't—matters whether you're a victim trying to assess your options or someone who's been accused and is trying to understand exactly what you're facing.
Conduct that typically qualifies under Colorado law includes:
Repeated unwanted contact
– Sending multiple messages, comments, or posts to someone who has asked you to stop, blocked you, or otherwise made clear the contact is unwanted
Threatening communications
– Any message that places a reasonable person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury, including threats against the victim's family, children, or pets
Cyberstalking
– Repeatedly contacting, monitoring, or following someone online in a way that causes them to reasonably fear for their safety or suffer serious emotional distress
Doxxing
– Publishing someone's private personal information (home address, workplace, daily schedule, family members' identities) with intent to harass or enable others to target them
Impersonation
– Creating fake accounts in someone's name to damage their reputation, interfere with their relationships, or deceive their employer, colleagues, or community
Non-consensual intimate images
– Posting or threatening to post private sexual images without consent, which Colorado treats as a serious criminal offense under its dedicated revenge porn statute
Coordinated harassment campaigns
– Organizing or participating in targeted online attacks against an individual, even when each individual act might seem minor in isolation
False statements of fact
– Posting provably false information presented as true that damages someone's reputation, employment, or relationships, which can support civil defamation claims alongside criminal harassment charges
Criminal Charges: When Social Media Harassment Becomes a Felony
Colorado's harassment statute starts at the misdemeanor level for most first-time offenders, but several circumstances push charges into felony territory. Understanding where that line sits matters enormously—the consequences on either side are dramatically different in terms of prison time, permanent record consequences, and the long-term restrictions that follow a conviction.
Misdemeanor social media harassment in Colorado:
Class 3 misdemeanor harassment (up to 6 months jail, $750 fine) typically applies to first-offense cases involving repeated unwanted communications, minor threatening language, or continued contact after being asked to stop. Class 2 misdemeanor charges (up to 120 days jail, $750 fine) apply to more serious harassment patterns that don't yet rise to felony level. Even at the misdemeanor level, convictions create a permanent record, can affect firearm rights, and create lasting barriers to employment and housing.
Felony social media harassment in Colorado:
Stalking under C.R.S. § 18-3-602 is a Class 5 felony (1-3 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections) when someone repeatedly contacts, follows, or surveils another person in a way that causes them to reasonably fear for their safety or suffer serious emotional distress. If the stalking violates an existing protection order or involves credible threats of violence, it escalates to a Class 4 felony carrying 2-6 years DOC.
Colorado's non-consensual intimate image law (C.R.S. § 18-7-107) makes posting revenge porn a Class 1 misdemeanor for a first offense and a Class 6 felony for subsequent offenses—with felony charges possible on the first offense if the victim is a minor.
Factors that push charges from misdemeanor to felony level include:
Prior harassment or stalking convictions, even from years earlier or in different counties
Conduct that occurs while the harasser is already under an existing protection order
Harassment involving credible threats of physical violence or use of deadly weapons
Campaigns involving multiple coordinated participants targeting the same victim
Cases where the harassment is tied to other criminal conduct like blackmail, extortion, or coercion
Civil Remedies Available to Harassment Victims
Criminal charges aren't the only path forward, and for many victims, civil remedies offer faster relief and more direct compensation. Colorado law provides several civil options that operate independently of—and sometimes faster than—the criminal justice system. You don't have to wait for a prosecutor to decide whether to file charges before pursuing civil relief, and a decision not to prosecute doesn't eliminate your civil options.
Civil harassment lawsuits allow victims to sue for actual damages—lost income, medical and therapy costs, harm to business relationships—as well as compensatory damages for emotional distress. In cases of particularly egregious conduct, courts can award punitive damages designed to punish the harasser and deter future behavior.
Defamation claims apply when the harassment includes false statements of fact presented as true. If someone is running a social media campaign built on provably false claims that have damaged your reputation, employment, or business, Colorado defamation law provides a civil remedy that operates entirely separately from any criminal case.
Invasion of privacy covers situations like doxxing, posting private information without consent, and placing someone in a false light publicly—making them appear to have said or done things they never actually said or did.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress applies when conduct is so extreme and outrageous that it goes beyond all reasonable bounds of decency—a standard Colorado courts have found satisfied in severe coordinated harassment campaigns and sustained targeting of individuals.
Civil cases carry a lower standard of proof than criminal cases (preponderance of the evidence rather than beyond reasonable doubt), and they can proceed even when prosecutors decline to pursue charges. This means victims have meaningful options regardless of how the criminal side of the equation develops.
Protection Orders for Social Media Harassment in Colorado
Colorado civil protection orders are among the most powerful immediate tools available to harassment victims. A temporary civil protection order can be obtained the same day you file in Colorado courts without notifying the harasser in advance—there's no requirement that you give the other person a chance to respond before emergency relief is issued. Permanent orders follow a hearing where both sides present evidence.
Protection orders in social media harassment cases typically require the harasser to cease all direct and indirect contact. Colorado courts interpret this broadly to include creating new accounts to circumvent blocks, having third parties pass messages, and any form of indirect online contact or monitoring. They can also restrict the harasser from being within a certain distance of your home, workplace, children's school, and other locations you regularly frequent.
Violating a protection order is a separate criminal offense in Colorado. A first violation is a Class 2 misdemeanor; subsequent violations are Class 1 misdemeanors. More importantly, if new harassment occurs while a protection order is being violated, prosecutors can use that to escalate the underlying charge level—turning what might have been a misdemeanor harassment case into something significantly more serious.
Colorado also issues criminal protection orders automatically when criminal harassment or stalking charges are filed. These run parallel to any civil order and remain in place throughout the entire criminal case, regardless of what either party wants or requests.
What to Do If You're Being Harassed on Social Media
What you do in the early days of a harassment situation can determine how effective your legal options are later. These steps matter whether you're pursuing a criminal complaint, a civil lawsuit, a protection order, or simply trying to stop the conduct before it escalates further.
Steps to take immediately:
Document before you do anything else
– Screenshot every harassing message, post, comment, or profile with timestamps visible. Note the URLs. Save everything to a location you control before reporting or blocking, because platform reports can result in content being removed before you've preserved your evidence
Preserve, don't delete
– Even evidence that seems embarrassing or that you wish didn't exist needs to be kept. Courts need complete pictures, and selectively preserving evidence creates credibility problems that defense attorneys and opposing counsel exploit
Report to the platform
– Major platforms have harassment reporting systems that can result in account suspension, content removal, and preservation of records that can later be subpoenaed. Reports create documented timestamps that establish exactly when harassment was flagged
File a report with law enforcement
– Even if police don't arrest anyone immediately, a documented report creates an official record, establishes the timeline, and is often required before courts will issue certain protection orders
Consult an attorney before responding publicly
– How you respond to harassment—including what you post about it on your own accounts—can affect your legal position in ways that aren't obvious until you're already in court
Apply for a civil protection order
– If you're experiencing ongoing harassment, a same-day temporary protection order can provide immediate relief while longer-term criminal or civil proceedings develop
What not to do:
Don't respond to the harasser directly, even to tell them to stop—every response creates additional documentation and can be used to argue mutual conflict
Don't delete your own posts or messages related to the harassment, even ones that seem unhelpful to your case
Don't post publicly about the situation or share the harassing content before talking to an attorney
Don't assume the harassment will resolve itself—patterns of online harassment almost always escalate when the harasser faces no consequences
Your Rights and Legal Options in Colorado
Whether you're a victim seeking protection or someone who has been accused of social media harassment, Colorado's legal system provides specific rights and defined processes. Victims have the right to pursue criminal charges, civil remedies, and protection orders simultaneously—these aren't mutually exclusive, and pursuing one doesn't foreclose the others.
Those accused of harassment have constitutional rights that apply fully in online contexts. Not every harsh, offensive, or unwanted online communication constitutes illegal harassment under Colorado law. Protected speech, criticism of public figures, negative reviews, and even pointed personal disagreements generally don't meet the legal standard for harassment. Context matters significantly—what looks like harassment from one perspective may have a completely different character when full context is considered. False accusations of harassment do occur, and people have the right to mount an aggressive, well-documented defense when charges don't accurately reflect what happened.
For both victims and those accused, early legal intervention consistently produces better outcomes. Digital evidence has a short shelf life. Platform records get overwritten. Witnesses become unavailable. The decisions made in the first days and weeks of a social media harassment situation frequently determine how proceedings eventually resolve—which is why waiting to see what happens is almost never the right move.
Get Experienced Colorado Legal Help for Social Media Harassment
Social media harassment is real, it's serious, and Colorado law provides meaningful tools to address it—whether you need protection orders, criminal charges filed against a harasser, or civil damages for harm to your reputation, career, and wellbeing. The Reputation Law Group represents clients throughout Colorado navigating both sides of online harassment matters, from victims seeking immediate protection to individuals defending against harassment accusations that don't accurately reflect what actually happened.
These situations move quickly and digital evidence disappears fast. Contact the Reputation Law Group today for a confidential consultation about your social media harassment situation.
