Why do hackers love meddling with social media accounts? That’s because it’s the place where people love to talk and reveal lots of information about themselves. Social media platforms are also used to connect to various other accounts, including financial-related accounts, which should be very private. Hackers love stealing these accounts because they get a lot of benefits from just a single act of cyber crime. Once they stole an account, they can control it in the way they want, and they can also find lots of personal information about the user.
With the occurrence of cyber crimes becomes rampant in social media, it’s just getting more important for you to protect your online privacy when using these platforms. Remember that sharing about your life with your friends online is good, but you shouldn’t go overboard. Here are 5 simple steps to protect your online privacy in social media platforms:
1. Be Sure To Choose Your Online Friends Carefully
With social media like Facebook, when it is required for you to accept friend requests if you want to have more friends, you can come up with various types of people wanting to be your Facebook friends. The thing is, not all of these people you might know. Sometimes, even strangers and stalkers want to be your friends just to take a look at your Facebook feed. The words of the wise are this: you should choose your online friends carefully. If you know nothing about them, it’s better not to accept them as your social media friends since they might have a bad intention when they befriend you on social media.
2. Don’t Connect Your Social Media With Other Accounts
Nowadays, many websites provide convenience in accessing various online accounts by simply connecting those accounts with your social media accounts. For instance, if you discover a new website, and such website requires you to sign up, you can sign up to the website simply by connecting to your social media account. You don’t need to do this manually. However, if you are going this route when signing up to those websites, you are revealing lots of your personal information to those websites, which is why you shouldn’t connect your social media accounts with other accounts. It’s just better to sign up manually if you are concerned about your online privacy.
3. Don’t Share Information That You Will Regret Later
Ever heard about the internet being a permanent archive of information? Whatever you upload to the internet, it will stay there forever. So, make sure that you don’t share something that you might regret later. For instance, if you love sharing your photos with friends on Instagram, make sure that you are not “accidentally” sharing your private photos there. Not only it will risk your privacy online, it will also be a potential trigger for ruining your online reputation later on. You can share something worth sharing, but don’t forget not to go overboard with it.
4. Don’t Just Follow Any Links On Social Networks
Sometimes, your friends will share a post that contains links to third-party websites. The thing with this type of stuff is that you have to be aware about the security of those links. Such links might sometimes lead to potentially dangerous websites or even phishing websites. Be aware of each link that you click on social media since if you are not careful, it might expose your online privacy. Depending on who you follow on social media, as well as your social media friends, you will get a variation of links in their posts, which requires you to be selective on clicking only the links for trusted websites.
5. Change Your Privacy Settings
Most social media networks allow you to change your privacy settings and manage the way you use it. So, this is a feature that you should use a lot since you want to ensure that you use the platform privately. You can choose with whom you share your posts or who can see your full information on social media. You can also choose whether you want your social media account to be visible on the search engine or not. These settings are valuable to keep your social media accounts as private as you want them to be.
Those are the 5 simple steps to protect your online privacy in social media platforms. Without taking the necessary approach to keep your social media accounts private, unscrupulous people can easily reveal your real identity online and use such information for their own benefits. Since social media platforms are all about sharing your personal story, you have to be more careful in keeping it private for you. Remember that you need to protect your own online security and privacy at all times, even when you are using the social media networks.