Being Safe on Social Media

Do you use Social Media?

Are you aware about the privacy settings ?

Is your personal information safe?.....

As we all know,

 

 Statistically, there are more than 3.7 billion monthly active social media users in the world which accounts for more than half of the world's population out of which, more than 448 million users are from India. And maybe you are one of them, so it is necessary for you to be aware about the steps to secure your social media account or page.

1. Remove Confidential Information: Delete your personal details which may reveal your identity to the hackers.

2. Limit your audience in privacy settings.

 

3. Control Privacy in Tagging & Timeline. 

 

4. Remove access to apps and websites you don't use or are not secure.

 

5. Disable information shared with advertisers.

 

6. Delete your Activity record so that it will not have detailed log of your activity.

 

7. Hide your profile from search engines .

 

8. Keep your location data private.

*These are just suggestions for being cyber secure. Nobody is compelled to follow them.

Nowadays, social media is being used by each and everyone of us for various purposes like staying in touch with friends, entertainment, networking or job related communication. So, it is very important that we are aware about the privacy settings and the security of our personal information. 

 

In today's world, Internet and social media is a boon to the world but it comes along with the our responsibility to be safe and secure while using it. Especially, social media's popularity and adaptability is rising day by day which is a good sign for technological advancement, but it is utmost important to understand one's duty and actions to be secure in the digital world.

 

It isn't always harmful to share information over the internet or any social media but one should

conscientiously understand different scenarios and situations when it could turn out to be dangerous. 

Social Media includes many platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tumblr, TikTok,etc. Every platform has different age groups of user base. So, it becomes very important for each and everyone to understand the policies, terms & conditions and privacy settings related to all the digital platforms.

  

 

' Getting Viral ! ' 

The word 'viral' was used only for viral infections or fever, but there is a paradigm shift in its use case.

In today's fast-moving world, content & information also flies from one person to another. Content like news, photos, videos, GIFs, messages, links,etc are mostly found to be the main source of the 'viral wave'. People tend to share these without having complete knowledge or awareness about it. For instance, if a news or a message claiming to be real is received by A then he/she tends to believe it in first glance without going in to its depth to check its truth. Moreover, they share it to their network/group/connection/followers/friends which misleads them. This is basically the act of spreading rumours and sensational misleading information. This can also be termed illegal in some cases. This virality can sometimes be really dangerous and can lead to violent or unintended actions.

This virality is also sometimes used by people for marketing purposes. Marketers spend huge amount of money just to get a particular content 'viral' because this in turn will supposedly help them earn profit. While, this also has a downside for the users as they may get wrongly influenced by the viral content. This is because psychologically, when the same information or data is being fed to the brain then the brain majorly processes that particular data which may influence the decision-making or the conscience of a person.

Hence, this wave of virality is bound to stay atleast for now, so it is the user's responsibility to be conscious and have presence of mind when interacting in the digital world. 

 

                                

' Scam '

This is the most commonly used word when a person gets robbed off anything. In the context of social media, it could be data, money or anything else. For instance, scammers ask for the user's personal information in a deceitful way or send some links which may contain malware through which they forcibly get access to the user's system/computer. A scammer needs more intelligence to scam than one needs to protect. Hence, there are many other ways in which these scams could happen, but the motive could be nearly the same. The social media companies are trying their best to stop these fraudulent activities, but it is the user's duty to be aware about these traps and try to think twice before clicking.

* T & C apply

In the real world, everyone is told to read a letter or an agreement before signing it, similarly, in the digital world  it is equally important to read the agreements, *terms & conditions, privacy/data policies, data regulations,etc, before clicking Agree & Continue. I know that few people would showcase an excuse of scarcity of time for reading the ' long & unimportant stuff ', but if one can spend hours scrolling the literal 'unimportant' content on that social media platform, then reading the supposedly 'unimportant' should be given a priority of atleast one-tenth of it.

 

On the flipside, social media can be used for the purpose of knowledge gathering or global awareness. One can follow knowledgeable contents like world news, tech & innovations, mythology, geography & history,etc. It can also be used as a education platform as many people teach variety of things for free on these platforms. These platforms are a great source of general knowledge. Also, many small businesses have flourished because of the advent of these platforms. They were able to reach millions of people just through a mobile phone and  run their business online. Especially, during the pandemic social media was the only place for entertainment, news, business, etc. There are many other instances where social media has been a boon or a source of happiness for people.   

Thus, social media platforms or anything over the internet has obverse and reverse. So, a person has  aware and thoughtful all the time. Social media has really changed the lives of many people in a positive way and has turned out to be a boon for them. Hence, using social media is not at all discouraged, but

                                               Think Before You Click