I had a rather funny conversation with a good friend
of mine today. The conversation had to do with me asking this friend yet again
when he is going to join Facebook. The answer he gave made me laugh. It was “when
I stop hearing terrible reports about girls getting raped” when I told him you
just need to up your privacy settings, and raping is not because of Facebook,
you just need to be intelligent about it he asked me to teach him how to make
it better. He also mentioned the fear that his cousin’s Facebook account has
been hacked a few times. My friend, you know who you are, please do not take
offense at this blog post. Rather I hope that in my research, and a bit of
person experience, that all who read this can learn to be techno-savvy enough
to protect themselves from danger.
It did however surprise me that there are still
ignorant people out there about how to protect yourself when it comes to safe
internet usage and social networking. I mean come on people, we are not in the
dark ages anymore! If you would not walk down the street in scampy clothing, or
wearing a big gold watch because of safety, then you would not do that with the
internet either. If you would not walk through certain dark alleys at night,
why would you frequent those on the internet?
So for those of this who are reading this and feel
like you just jump forward 30 years into the technology age and don’t know how
to handle it, how do you protect yourself? How can you be careful about what you
share and don’t endanger yourself?
Lets start with defining “Social Networking”
Social Networking is not only
Facebook. It is defined as “a platform to build social relations among people
who, for example, share interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life
connections.” From Wikipedia, the article goes on to say it is an “individual-centered
service. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, pictures, posts,
activities, events and interests with people in their network.”
So we could say some common social networking sites
include GooglePlus, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and the
like. Although such services as Whatsapp, BBM and Mxit are instant messaging
services, they also border on being Social Networking sites, therefore these principles
should always be used with your instant messaging as much as they are used for
your social networking.
What are the Rules/Principles you should always keep
in mind?
1.
Passwords
– I know all sites that ask you to have a password say that you should have a
different password for each site. I ask you, who is the superhuman that can
remember 5, 10, even 20 passwords that include numbers, letters and symbols as
well as a unique username for each? No one that I know of! So what do I do?
Well, I use a unique password for my email account, which I change weekly. But
for all my social networks that I use regularly, I use one password that gets
changed once a month on all the accounts. At least that way I keep it pretty safe.
To date, my facebook account has never yet been hacked, although I did once
accidently hack into someone else’s account, and I still don’t know how it
happened. But my twitter account has been hacked once.
2.
Privacy Settings
– This is one of the most important points you can try to keep in mind. Not all
social networking sites are the same.
a.
Facebook and
LinkedIn, as well as BBM for example have pretty high privacy settings. They
can be set that only certain people can find you, that only certain people can
contact you and that only certain people can comment on or view your posts. I
like that, it is a good thing to have and to use. Personally I like to keep
these settings as high as possible on these sites.
b.
GooglePlus,
Twitter, Pinterest and Whatsapp are typical “not private” networks. Yes, some
of them have a degree of privacy that you can use, and it is good to use it.
But some of them, like Twitter are meant to be used so that you can be found by
just anyone. I particularly do NOT like the systems that both Whatsapp and
GooglePlus use as there anyone (including random stalkers) can see your profile
and contact you if they have your contact details from times gone by.
3.
What you share
– As a general rule, always remember once it is out there on the great big interweb,
it will never be erased! It may be hidden, but if someone is looking for it, it
will be found.
a.
So NEVER EVER
share questionable photos of yourself or others on any form of social
networking or instant messaging. If you are not sure what type of photos I’m
talking about, think of the photos you would never want your grandmother to
know about, or the photos you would rather burn than let your kids see, if
those people should never see them, it’s a good indicator that you should never
share them with anyone. Delete them, right now!
b.
As for information,
would you go to your local community notice board and leave a note that says “114
Baker Street will be vacant for the week because owners are going on holiday to
Swaziland”? No! So neither should you leave that information out on social
networking sites. Would you leave a photo of your pretty 7 year old daughter
with a note that says “My daughter is so sweet. Her name is Abigail, and she
goes to Durban Primary School, she’s in Grade 2 and gets off of school at 1pm
every day”? NO, of course not, it would be ludicrous to subject your child to such
dangers! So why would you expose her to dangers on the web? If you are asking
what I’m talking about, those mothers who share a picture of their little one
in school clothing and say “just picked up Johnny from school” on twitter,
those are what I’m talking about.
c.
Most sites have
a “Public area” and a “Messages” area. “Public Areas” are for events,
posts/statuses and photos. Those are seen by all whom you allow to see your
account. Take special care to ensure those posts are ALWAYS above board. Eg. Your
whatsapp/bbm profile photo & status, your facebook & google plus status.
The “Messages” area is somewhat private between just you and one (or more) particular
other person, although you may be more frank and open in these sections, you
should always remember as above, once its on the web, it never comes off. If
you share a photo or message with someone, once it is in their hands, they may
do anything with it, including sharing it with the world. This is like on your
emails, Facebook messenger, bbm messages and even whatsapp messages. So
although more private, it can become public. Be careful.
4.
Who you share with
– As important as the “What you share” is the topic on who you share with. In
fact, this may even be one of the most important topics of all. My personal
rule is “If I don’t know them in person, they are not my friend.” Those
teenagers on facebook who have 200 – 500 friends, are truly putting themselves
in danger’s way. There is no possible way that they actually know that many
people personally, therefore they do not know who is a rapist, who is a thief, who
is going to try hurt them or who they can trust. We already said with privacy
settings on certain sites, you cannot control who you share with. But for the
sites you can control who you share with, be clever about it. If you get a
friend request, only hit the accept button if you actually know the person. Not
if you know someone who knows the person, but if you actually personally have
met before. That is a surefire way to keep safer. Also, if you are on the open
sites, like GooglePlus or Twitter, you know that you cannot be entirely
private, you know that there will random freaky people out there. If you begin
to feel uncomfortable for even one post that they send to you, BLOCK them. Do
not be afraid to do this, nor feel guilty.
For times when
you feel you don’t really know the person, but they may be a useful business
contact, make another account for your business. Always keep your true friends
and family, and your random business associates separate. That way you can
share only what you want to with the two different groups.
5.
Don’t take anything too seriously – Really, don’t take anything too seriously. There
will be the occasional hack, there will be the occasional hater. Don’t take
them seriously. If your account has been hacked, change your password, report
the hacking to the site admin & apologize to all those who you have on your
network. If someone that you know personally starts harassing you or acting weirdly,
ask them if they have been hacked. If they have not been hacked, then have a
straight out heart to heart with them that you don’t feel that kind of behavior
is acceptable as your friend, if they don’t change, remove them from your
friend base. I was also asked about another scenario where “a girl’s profile
photo was taken and pasted onto a porn photo, so it looked like that girl was
posing for porn”. Seriously, don’t take that too serious, some kid could do
that with a photo from a school yearbook too. You cannot blame social
networking for doing that. You also cannot blame people for thinking you’re a
slut if you have a racey picture (the type taken in the bathroom, or on the
hood of a car), or for thinking you’re a lover of violence if you have a
picture of Bruce Lee on your profile photo (profile photo is also known as an
avatar, it is the photo/picture you use to let others recognize you on your
social networking sites). Just remember to laugh and that those who truly know
you will know that you are not the type of person to have your face on a porno
picture.
6.
A few last tips:
No one likes to
be invited to hundreds of games, birthday, and gambling apps. So don’t do it!
You will be
notified every time someone likes/+1s our posts, comments on your post, sends
you a message, sends you anything. Pretty much its going to drive you mad with
notifications. You can easily adjust this by going into your settings and clicking
“notifications”, its pretty simple to understand, just read instructions.
It can be
addictive, you will find yourself spending a lot of time online suddenly. The
addiction should die down in a few days, if it doesn’t, then you don’t really
have a life. Don’t worry, all you need to do now is go onto www.geocaching.com and suddenly you wont
be spending all your time on social networking anymore, but instead you’ll be
running around like a madman looking for lost treasure in the park.
NEVER, EVER go
meet a random stranger you came into contact with on social media! If for some
unknown reason you really have to meet this person, make sure you choose a
public place and take at least one, preferably more, close friend/family member
with you.
Have fun!
