If you’re being cyberstalked on Facebook, the order of your next moves matters more than the moves themselves: save the evidence before you change anything, then lock down your account, report the behavior to Facebook and to law enforcement, and ask a court for a protective order if the stalker has threatened you or made you fear for your safety. Federal law treats cyberstalking as a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, and every state has an anti-stalking or electronic harassment statute of some kind.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261A – Stalking Working through the steps in the right sequence gives you the strongest position whether you end up pursuing criminal charges, a civil lawsuit, or both.
Save the Evidence Before You Change Anything
The instinct is to block the person and delete every trace of them. Resist it. Those messages, comments, tags, and friend requests are your evidence, and once they’re gone, reconstructing a timeline of harassment becomes very difficult. Preserve first, act second.
Screenshot every piece of unwanted contact: the stalker’s profile page, every message thread, every comment on your posts, every tag, and any fake profiles you’ve spotted. Make sure each screenshot captures the date, time, and the URL from your browser’s address bar. For disappearing content like Stories or live videos, use a screen recorder to capture the behavior while it’s still on screen.
Facebook also lets you download your full data archive, including message histories, through the “Your Information” area of your settings.2Facebook. Report Something on Facebook Save the archive somewhere the stalker cannot reach: an external drive, or a cloud account they’ve never had access to.
Then organize everything chronologically. A simple spreadsheet does the job: one row per incident with columns for date, time, type of contact, and a short description, with the matching screenshot attached or linked. Investigators and attorneys will both tell you that a clean, organized evidence file is the single most persuasive thing a victim can bring them.
Lock Down Your Facebook Account
Once your evidence is safe, tighten every privacy setting. Stalkers rely on defaults that most people never touch, and a few minutes of adjustments cuts off a lot of access.
- Limit who can send you friend requests to “friends of friends” instead of “everyone.”
- Turn off the setting that lets search engines link to your profile, so your account stops appearing in Google results.
- Disable the options that let people find you through your email address or phone number.
- In Messenger’s privacy settings, restrict who can send you message requests and block messages from people you aren’t connected to.
- Set your default audience for future posts to “Friends” rather than “Public,” and use the tool to retroactively limit the audience of past posts.
- Turn off location-sharing features and stop using check-ins, which broadcast where you are in real time.
Scan your friends list for accounts you don’t recognize. Stalkers routinely build fake profiles that mimic mutual friends, and anything unfamiliar or newly created should come off the list.
Report, Block, or Restrict on Facebook
Every profile, post, comment, and message has a reporting option through the three-dot menu. Pick the category that fits the behavior, such as harassment or threats. Facebook’s moderation team reviews reports against the Community Standards and removes content that violates them, warning or suspending the account behind it. Reporting also creates a record on Facebook’s side, which matters later: if the stalker keeps creating new accounts after being banned, that history of prior reports strengthens your case with the platform and with law enforcement.
You have two additional tools for cutting off access. Blocking prevents the person from seeing your profile, finding you in search, or contacting you through Messenger. It is the strongest tool Facebook offers, but it won’t stop someone determined to spin up a new fake account. Restricting is a quieter option when you’re worried that blocking might provoke escalation: a restricted person can only see posts you’ve set to “Public,” their comments on your posts are visible only to them and to you, and Facebook sends no notification that anything has changed.
Report to Police and, If Needed, the FBI
When the behavior involves threats, makes you fear for your physical safety, or has continued despite your efforts on the platform, contact your local police department. Bring the organized evidence file. A clear timeline backed by screenshots is far more effective than trying to describe the harassment from memory.
A police report creates an official record that becomes the foundation for everything that follows. Protective orders, federal referrals, and civil lawsuits all benefit from having law enforcement documentation behind them, and even if your local department isn’t equipped to handle a complex cybercrime, the report itself carries legal weight.
If the stalking crosses state lines, or your local department doesn’t pursue it, you can also file a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at complaint.ic3.gov.3Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Complaint Form The online form asks for your contact information, details about the subject, a written description of what happened, and any financial losses involved. You don’t upload your evidence through the form; IC3 asks you to hold the originals for law enforcement to collect. Because Facebook operates across state lines, online stalking through the platform can trigger federal jurisdiction even when both of you live in the same city.
Set expectations about timing. Cyberstalking investigations are slow, and not every report ends in an arrest. What the report does right away is establish a documented pattern, so that if the stalker escalates, every prior filing strengthens the response.
Get a Protective Order
A protective order (called a restraining order in some jurisdictions) is a court order that legally bars the stalker from contacting you, monitoring you online, or coming near you in person. Violating one is a separate criminal offense, and under federal law, stalking someone in violation of a restraining order carries a mandatory minimum of one year in prison.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261 – Interstate Domestic Violence
To get one, you’ll need to show that the harasser’s conduct was intentional and repeated, and that it either placed you in reasonable fear for your safety or caused substantial emotional distress. This is where your evidence file does the heavy lifting. Most jurisdictions do not charge filing fees for harassment or domestic violence protective orders.
In urgent situations, a judge can issue a temporary or emergency order before the stalker has a chance to appear in court, providing immediate protection while a full hearing is scheduled. If you don’t know the stalker’s real identity because they’ve been operating behind fake profiles, you can still file against a “John Doe” and later subpoena Facebook to reveal the person behind the account.
Check Your Devices and Other Accounts
Cyberstalkers rarely confine themselves to one platform. If someone is monitoring you closely enough on Facebook to track your movements, assume they may have reached further.
- Change the passwords on your email, social media, banking, and any other accounts, using a device you trust rather than one the stalker may have touched. Use a unique password for each.
- Look through your phone for apps you don’t recognize. Unexplained spikes in data usage can point to monitoring software running in the background.
- Review which devices are currently logged into your accounts and revoke access for anything unfamiliar. Keep Bluetooth off when you aren’t using it.
- Check every app and account for location-sharing settings. If you share a phone plan with the stalker, or were previously on a family plan together, call your carrier and ask whether any location-sharing services are still active.
- If the stalker seems to know your physical location despite your digital precautions, a hidden GPS tracker on your vehicle is possible. Law enforcement or a mechanic can check for one.
The same principle applies here as on Facebook: document before you change access. If you suspect a device is compromised, capture evidence of the compromise before you wipe or replace it.
What Counts as Cyberstalking, and What the Penalties Are
A single rude message is not cyberstalking. The legal threshold is a pattern of repeated, unwanted conduct directed at a specific person that serves no legitimate purpose and either causes substantial emotional distress or puts the target in reasonable fear of physical harm. On Facebook, that typically shows up as fake profiles built to monitor you after a block, floods of messages or comments, tracking you through tags and check-ins, publishing your private information, or direct and veiled threats. The stalker doesn’t have to say “I will hurt you” for the behavior to qualify; courts recognize implied threats, and a pattern of showing up where you are after watching your check-ins can establish reasonable fear without a single threatening word.
Federal cyberstalking is a felony with a baseline penalty of up to five years in prison, and the sentence rises sharply when the stalking causes bodily injury, uses a weapon, or involves a victim under 18.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261 – Interstate Domestic Violence5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 2261B – Penalties for Stalking of Children A federal felony conviction can also carry a fine of up to $250,000.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 3571 – Sentence of Fine State penalties vary, but cyberstalking is commonly a misdemeanor on a first offense and a felony for repeat offenses, violations of protective orders, or threats involving weapons.
Separate from any criminal case, you can file a civil lawsuit against the stalker for damages, including compensation for emotional distress, therapy costs, and lost wages. The civil case runs independently of a criminal prosecution, so you can pursue both at once, and the burden of proof in civil court is lower than at a criminal trial.
Where to Get Help Right Now
You don’t have to work through this alone. A few organizations specialize in exactly this situation:
- National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233, for support, safety planning, and referrals. Stalking frequently overlaps with domestic violence, and this hotline covers both.
- Cyber Civil Rights Initiative crisis helpline: 844-878-2274, which also provides referrals to attorneys and mental health professionals who work with online abuse.
- FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: complaint.ic3.gov, especially useful when the behavior crosses state lines.
If you’re in immediate danger, call 911. Cyberstalking that includes threats of violence or evidence that the person knows your physical location is an emergency, and police can respond to it whether the threat started online or not.