Six ways to secure your social media
We are taught how to stay safe online from a young age about and the reasons behind doing so. This is especially true when it comes to social media as it’s now a part of our daily lives.
This blog will provide tips for keeping yourself safe online – specifically when using social media. We’ll look at the advantages of setting up privacy and security settings, as well as how to deal with offensive content.
What are the risks?
Over the years, social networking has become an important part of life. Users can socialise, share the latest events, photos, and videos with their network, and stay in touch with friends from around the world. In light of these benefits, it can be easy to overlook the risks such as:
- stalking
- bullying
- identity theft
- hacking
To make the best use of social networking while avoiding the risks, users should be aware of the following guidance.
1. Check what others see about you across social media
The easiest way to find out what exists online about you is to enter your name into a search engine. Check image searches to see if old profile photos appear that you may have forgotten about.
This is also a quick way to find any fake accounts which have been created under your name. When this happens, there should be an option to report the profile to the service provider and specify that it’s a spoof account. Read more guidance about what to do for each platform (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) on the UK Safer Internet Centre blog.
2. Check your privacy settings
For your profile
In your privacy settings, you’ll be able to set your profile to private. This means that only people you have accepted into your network can see your profile.
For certain content
If you don’t want to share a piece of content to your whole network, you can usually create a virtual group of ‘close friends’. This means they’ll be the only people in your network able to view the photo or post.
2. Be careful of oversharing
Social networking relies on individuals sharing information. Sites like LinkedIn, for example, rely on users sharing information about where they work, their work history, their team names and their location.
In these instances, we should be careful not to divulge too much information on public forums. Hackers can use this information to answer security questions on other accounts in attempt to gain access.
Thankfully, most social media platforms allow you to limit the activity which is shared from your account to other people. On LinkedIn, this includes your friends, friends of friends and everyone else. This means that you can control what personal information can be viewed by anyone who doesn’t have you as a friend, such as your date of birth, hometown and previous place of employment. Most sites also allow you to create a virtual group of ‘close friends’. This allows you to share photos and personal information with your specified sub-group rather than your entire network of online connections.
3. Quality not quantity
On social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, it can be exciting to gain new friends or followers.
If you were to look through the network, it is easy to find members with high numbers of friends, which could inspire a competitive streak in trying to gain more friends than others.
A high number of friends, however, is not always positive. Some of these accounts can be problematic by introducing spam into your feeds, whilst others may even have criminal intentions. When accepting friends and followers, be sure to accept people who you know in real life.
4. Block or unfollow unfriendly content
Every social media has an option to block another user. Familiarise yourself with this when you join a new social media site. Once you have blocked an account, they will no longer be able to view your profile or contact you.
Instagram has released a feature which gives users the option to block their account, or to block their account and new accounts they may create.
6. Be careful what you post
Unfortunately, the internet does not have a delete key. This means that every comment, photo, and video that you post online will most likely stay online forever. Removing the original (for example, a picture on Twitter) doesn’t remove any copies that other people can make.
You can’t “take back” a remark you regret making or get rid of an embarrassing selfie you took and decided to upload. Don’t put anything online that you wouldn’t want your family or a future employer to see.
7. Report hate crime
If you think that anything you are sent or tagged in on social media might be a hate crime, report it. Find more information on how you can report hate crime on the Police Scotland Website.