This week, we read about some of the dangers on social media. Despite the various privacy concerns that we constantly face on these social networks which we had used extensively to share our lives with the world, there seems to be no real urgency for most people to take proactive actions in order to mitigate the risks to their privacy on social media. Therefore, I am putting these six simple tips out to remind ourselves what we can do to better protect our personal information on social media sites that we frequently use.
1. The first tip is to recognise that nothing is temporary in the online environment. Even if you posted something and delete it later, you will never know if someone has already copied it. Therefore, always think carefully before you put any information out there, especially stuff that is personal to you.
2. Manage your privacy settings. It always pays off in reviewing who you are connecting with, and what information you are sharing with them.
3. Don’t fill out ALL your social media profile. Review your personal profile information and only share things that you deem necessary. Putting your personal phone numbers, birth dates and family details on social media is not exactly the best thing to do if you care about your privacy online.
4. Use strong passwords, change them frequently, and adopt multiple passwords for different social media platforms. This is rather intuitive, as you do not want anyone, in a case of a phishing attack, to lay their hands on your ONE password and the access to all your social media accounts.
5. Turn off location settings on your social media platforms. By default, a lot of such platforms have direct connection to the GPS feature of your mobile devices, revealing your current location unknowingly to strangers who may access your profiles.
6. When you do not need them anymore, remember to CLOSE your old social media accounts and delete as much personal information from them as possible.
Do you have any tips to share? Please comment below.