"I See You"
These days EVERYONE USES SOCIAL MEDIA. Whether you use it for business, personal, or have ill intentions. You never really know who's on the other side of the screen. They make look like a nice person, but there's no way to say otherwise. I've gathered some hidden gems about protecting yourself as best as possible on social media!
No Such Thing as Private: The internet is like an elephant -- it never forgets. While spoken words leave little trace and are quickly forgotten, written words endure in the online environment. Whatever you post, tweet, update, share -- even if it's deleted immediately afterward -- has the potential to be captured by someone, somewhere, without your knowledge. This is especially true of social networking sites including private messages shared between two people and postings to a private group. There is no such thing as "private" in the world of social media because anything you put up can potentially be grabbed, copied, saved on someone else's computer and mirrored on other sites -- not to mention hacked by thieves or subpoenaed by law enforcement agencies.
A Little Birdie Told Me: Every time you use Twitter, the government keeps a copy of your tweets. Sounds crazy, but it's true. According to the Library of Congress blog: "Every public tweet, ever, since Twitter's inception in March 2006, will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress... Twitter processes more than 50 million tweets every day, with the total numbering in the billions." And experts predict the information will be searched and used in ways we can't even imagine. (This gives new meaning to the phrase "A little bird told me...")
You Play, You Pay...in Loss of Privacy: Online games, quizzes, and other entertainment apps are fun, but they often pull information from your page and post it without your knowledge. Make sure that you know the guidelines of any app, game or service and do not allow it unfettered access to your information. Likewise, be cautious about responding to notes shared by friends along the lines of "10 Things You Didn't Know About Me." When you answer these and post them, you're revealing personal details about yourself that may enable others to figure out your address, your workplace, the name of your pet or your mother's maiden name (often used as an online security question), or even your password. Do enough of these over time and someone who is determined to learn all about you can read the answers, cross-reference information obtained through your friends' pages, and glean a surprising amount from these seemingly casual revelations.
To read more on social media safety see these sites:
https://www.thoughtco.com/social-networking-safety-tips-for-women-3534076
https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/technology/safety-family/social-media-safety-tips
https://www.rankraft.com/blog/social-media/social-media-safety-10-tips-for-women/