18 PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL WAR I fully acknowledge that and grappl[e] with how I could keep myself and my family and my loved ones safe and continu[e] the work that I do and I have no answers yet. Although Li is in Canada, her digital life is highly intertwined with activists and family members based in Hong Kong and China. She fears that if her online accounts are compromised, the safety of these people could be put at risk. This fear leads her to self-censor her online activity. As Li explained: [I am] self-censoring in a sense where I’m telling my friends not to do something as basic as mention me publicly on their social media accounts. [...] Posting a photo of your lunch seems perfectly normal in Canadian standard, but if I post a picture of my lunch my thought goes to okay [...] where I have lunch, now they know where I am. It changes such little, and such big, aspects of my life. [...] I am keeping a distance from my friends, so they could be safe, to the point that I can’t post a picture of my lunch and tag where I had lunch. Li feels like it is not just a few people who are digitally targeting her; it is a global super- power. Li knows this reality is true for many dissidents who have fled to Canada and wishes the government would do more to acknowledge it. She has reported her experiences of being harassed to the police in Canada, but the police have said there is nothing they can do. Li also thinks that social media companies need to do more to protect their users and the data that users have entrusted to them. Digital Transnational Repression and Self-Censorship Participants adopted practices of self-censorship, such as using extra caution in online posts, in the face of digital transnational repression. A political and human rights activist from Balochistan noted that they were “very careful and afraid of doing things that might be leaked or monitored or used against [them].” A Yemeni journalist (identified as Ahmad later in this report) explained that repeated targeting affected him on a “personal level,” so he refrained from political expression unless “necessary” on Facebook. A Syrian activist described that they felt unsafe and did not want to publish personal information online. They expressed that they could not “speak openly,” “connect with people openly,” or “post whatever” they felt like online. For another Syrian participant, the fear of digital targeting led them to withhold information from family in Syria. For example, they did not feel comfortable telling their parents that they had resettled in Canada as a refugee.