Keeping Your Social Networks Secure

How To Protect Yourself On The Internet

 

Photo by: ka052000
Countless college students today are a part of a social network. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace – socializing on the Internet can wreak havoc on your life in ways you may not be aware of. Despite significant warnings, most people simply don’t take their privacy seriously enough, or fully comprehend how the Internet works. Keep yourself out of trouble by keeping your personal life private.

WHY YOU SHOULD HIDE: When you put a scandalous picture of yourself on the Internet, it will be there forever. Even if you think you’ve deleted it – do not underestimate the Internet or it’s marvelous memory. While it may be fun to document your social life, you risk the chance of incriminating yourself with every post. For this reason, it is crucial to keep your social networks secure. Make sure to privatize your information, so you can avoid your professors and RA’s from seeing you in a compromising position. It goes even further than that, too. Think of your future job and what would happen if they did a search of your name in a search engine. What skeletons would they find in your closet?

Photo by: birgerking
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF: FaceBook offers many different privacy settings that provide you with security. For example, you can control and customize who see’s what. Perhaps you want to post a photo that you only want your friends to see. Most people forget that if you don’t specificy this in your privacy settings, then any person that is friends with a friend of yours has access to your photos too. This also means protecting your photos from being accessible to anyone with a social network account of their own. Another great privacy feature is the safety notifications Facebook offers, which will notify you when an unrecognizable device is attempting to access your account.

Photo by: iCrossing
HOW TO FIGHT THE HACKERS: There are a plethora of hackers just waiting for you to slip up and share your most intimate information with them. They’ve even started to create websites that look exactly like Facebook. When you enter your login information in the clone website, you’re giving them access to things you just don’t want them to have- trust me. The same thing goes for Twitter. While it is fairly newer social network than Facebook, it is still just as important that you protect yourself by protecting your tweets.

Remember: It’s best not to share your phone number or address on a social networking site. Your real friends should already have that information. Take your safety seriously. Don’t let your social life sabotage your future!


Feel free to post comments about your social network experience. 

Regards,

Stacy

 

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