4 Ways to Enjoy a Risk-free Online Social Networking Experience
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4 Ways to enjoy a risk-free online social networking experience
Perpetrators of phishing, scamming and identity theft have found a veritable gold mine in social networking sites. All too often, users of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter inadvertently make themselves easy targets for these kinds of activities.
Here are four ways to protect yourself and your information online.
1. Always check your privacy settings.
While Facebook sets your privacy setting to your contacts by default, other social networking sites do not. In fact, some display your profile to the general public. Make sure that you make use of a site’s privacy settings to allow only your friends, family, loved ones and contacts to view your profile.
In line with this, do not add just anybody as your contact. If you are keeping a personal profile, then make sure that you only have people you personally know in your contact list. If you are on social networking sites to play online games, or to market your brand, it might help to create a separate account for this purpose. You can limit the amount of personal information you have on these accounts.
2. Think twice before you post something.
For one, do not post your hometown if this has been set as your secret password question. Make sure that your post does not have personal information in it, or other identifiers like a landmark near where you work.
In no circumstances should you announce where you would be at a particular time. This way, lurkers would not be able to pinpoint where you are at any time.
3. Would your mother approve of that picture? Would your boss like what you wrote on that blog post?
Most people feel very comfortable expressing themselves on their MySpace blog, or twitting about their latest escapades. Some find it appropriate to share party pictures of themselves and their friends getting plastered. Others brag about what their companies are doing that they even share trade secrets on their profile updates.
Before you put up content and blog posts, think twice about the implications of these. Would you be comfortable having your boss read through your rants about work issues? Would it paint a good and professional picture of you, or would it turn potential employers off?
What may be cool for you now might not be so for other people.
4. Never post your e-mail address.
Your e-mail address is the lifeblood of your social network profile. It is where you get site updates, including your password in case you forget it. If you have occasions wherein you need to post your e-mail address, then use an alternate one.
While you are at it, make sure you use an e-mail service that does not rely on security questions for your password recovery. If you do use one, make sure that the answers are not easily seen on any of your social networking profile. One good question would be something that is not about yourself, or something that is not easy to guess. You can also have a non-sequitur answer to your secret question. Like answering Charlie’s Angels to the question, “Where is your hometown?”
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