Tips for maintaining privacy while using social media
Tips for maintaining privacy while using social media
There is absolutely no doubt that social media had tremendously transformed the lives of the young generation, as well as the elders. Just ask anyone around if they have heard of Facebook? You'll be surprised to know that almost all of them have heard about it one way or another.
It's truly unavoidable. Social media are here to stay and most likely to be that way for the decades to come. While many would praise the development of technology that bring us together, few would ask: Isn't there privacy anymore? Is it possible to keep our private stuffs private without completely isolating ourselves from the exciting, round-the-clock world of social media?
If you're one of those few, this piece of article is for you. Here, I'll provide you some tips to maintain your privacy on some of the most popular social networking sites on the web.
Facebook
Changing Facebook's privacy control is a nightmare to even the most technologically savvy person. It's a well-known fact that Facebook have a long history of being irresponsible with the privacy data of its users. No doubt that its a great site for social networking, but with few preventive measures, you can still enjoy your social experience on Facebook.
First of all, change the default "Sharing" controls. Facebook's recommended option for sharing your private information are as follows:
"Everyone" can see your bio, photos and quotes.
"Friends of Friends" can see your birthday and tagged photos and videos.
"Friends" can comment on posts and view your contact information.
Unless you want to let your fiance to see photos of you fooling around with her best friend, you might want to change all of your settings. You can do this by clicking on the "Custom" option. After changing your settings accordingly, click again on "Apply these setting". You're done.
Secondly, you should also change your "Basic Directory" settings. Default privacy settings for the directory are tailored to meet the advertising needs of Facebook. Have you noticed that most advertisements you see on Facebook revolves around your areas of interests? For this, I recommend that you allow "Everyone" to send you friend requests and search you on the network, but only allow "Friends of Friends" or "Friends" to send you messages, see your friends list, education, interest and etc. This way you can prevent unwanted advertising traffic sent to your profile while you remain connected with personal friends.
Twitter
Thank god, Twitter's privacy controls aren't even half as complicated as Facebook's privacy control.
Basically in Twitter, you only have two options. "Protect your tweets or don't. When you "protect" your tweets, your status updates are only made visible to those you "follow" on the network. Otherwise, your tweets are made fully public.
Also, watch out for shortened URLs (such as "bit.ly"). Clicking on these links might lead you to malicious or spam sites. Use your best judgment before you click on those links.
Linked In
Like Facebook, LinkedIn's default privacy settings leaves much of it's user's privacy data open to public. How do we control it?
LinkedIn has controls which determine who can/cannot contact you directly. In "Profile Settings", you can control what information to be available for public view. You can select which parts of your profile you want to be seen by public.
In "Email Notifications", you can determine whether or not you want to receive "Introductions" and "InMails" from 2nd and 3rd degree users in your network. For all we know, they may or may not be the "business oppurtunities" you're actually interested in.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn also allows advertisers and market researchers to target you based on your "non-personally identifiable" information. You should choose the "No" option to turn this setting off if you're not comfortable with it.
Lastly, make sure that "Profile and Status Updates" are set to your preferences. You can choose whether your profile changes published on your company's profile or whether you want your "connections" to see your status updates.
Besides these sites, there are virtually thousands of social media sites on the web, which I can't cover in this short post. Whatever it is, you should always use your best judgment to determine what information about you should be available for public viewing and what should not.
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