2. What is Social Media?
Social media is the social interaction among people in
which they are able to create, share, and exchange
ideas and information via virtual communities and
networks. It is an avenue which people use to
communicate and network with people from all walks
of life. It is a method used to keep in contact with
family, friends, and to find new ones. It is also a way
for companies to better advertise to their consumers.
3. Social Media Sites..
just to list a few
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Pinterest
Tumblr
AIM
Myspace
AOL
Google
LinkedIn
4. This guide will help you best manage
your security on social media
websites..
5. Read Your Social Media Websites Privacy Policy
BEFORE making an account.
6. Most privacy policies can be found right on the social
media website. If you have trouble finding it, simply go
to google “(insert social media site name) privacy
policy”
7. What might you find?
What you might find is this; I’ll use Facebook as an example:
Facebook privacy policies begins by stating that “Facebook is designed to make it
easy for you to share your information with anyone you want.” and it is up o the
persons discretion as to how much information they share. They provide a link for
user to review their default privacy settings, so they can change them if
necessary. Their policy contains eight sections; Introduction, Information We
Receive, Information You Share With Third Parties, How We Use Your
Information, How We share Information, How You Can View, Change or Remove
Information, How We Protect Information, and Other Terms. In order for a person
to sign up for Facebook they must provide a name, email, gender and a birth date.
During the registration portion the user is given the opportunity to give additional
information, but is not forced to do so, this is a portion they are able to “skip” over
if desired. In this part of the policy Facebook does mention they they may retain
the details of transactions or payments an user had made on Facebook, but will
only keep payment source accounts numbers after having the consent of the user.
10. Using Facebook as our example for this guide.
You have options of putting your: Current city, Birth
City, Birthdate, Place of Employment and Prior
employment, Places you’ve lived, Education,
Relationship status, and other varies contact
information.
*I caution you to share whatever you comfortable with
BUT, in my option, less is more!
12. Set your Privacy Settings to your liking. Facebook has
options such as:
1. Who can see my stuff?
2. Who can contact me?
3. Who can look me up?
Your options are: Friends, Public, Only Me, and
Custom.
*choose which best suits you!
14. Delete? What is that!
After reading the privacy policy you will realize that
removing information from your profile or deactivating
your account copies of information that you an user
has shared may remain viewable elsewhere because
it has been shared with others. Also, when you
deactivate your account your information is saved in
case an user decided at a later date to reactive their
account. Everything you post, tweet, or put on
Facebook is saved in an archive and can be retrieved
at any point.
16. People spend most of their day chronicling what they’re
doing, who they are doing it with, whether they are
happy, sad, or upset. Hardly anything is left to the
imagination or saved for face to face communication,
very little is kept to oneself. One of the best ways to
secure your privacy is to NOT over share!
18. Facebook keeps track of the actions a person takes on
Facebook. So any time an user adds a friend, become a
fan of a page, joins a group, create an album, “likes”
something, or attends an event that has been posted on
Facebook it is tracked. When accessing Facebook from
different devices be it a computer or your mobile device
they may collect information from that device about your
browser type, location, and IP address as well as other
sites you have visited. Plus, everyone doesn’t need to
know where you’ve been and who you’ve been there
with.
20. I understand that telling people to be careful is quite
cliche and extremely vague, but it is still good advice.
This of everything you do on your social media sites
as permanent tattoos that you can’t have laser
treatment on. Or think of it as your finger print. There
is only on YOU, and everything you say or do on your
social media sites traces right back to you.
