Social media sites and apps are everywhere; there is one for everyone and their specific interests. While it's true that these sites are built for sharing, it's easy to forget that once something is shared it can be hard to take it back. This page is dedicated to providing information on how you can #ProtectYourPrivates on social media.
You can make some simple adjustments to your Facebook settings and habits that will increase your privacy:
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Utilize Facebook's privacy shortcuts and settings to ensure that you know who can see your information
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Understand how to recognize sensitive content and behavior and how to report it
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Remain conscientious of your social media habits:
- Only you should know your password
- Be careful when logging in on devices that you don't own, and be sure to log out afterwards
- Consider any consequences your posts can have before posting
- Customize your privacy settings and check them often. Platform updates may adjust how the privacy settings work.
- Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know personally. Be especially wary if you have no mutual friends with the person sending the request.
- Inform Facebook of any suspicious activity you see on their site
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Everything you might want to know about Facebook and how you can #ProtectYourPrivates on it can be found on the Facebook Help Site
It's important to ensure that your Twitter account is secure. Here are some articles on how to maintain privacy on Twitter:
The amount and depth of information you provide on social media is entirely up to you. Review posts, photos, and videos for sensitive information before posting. You should also be sure to only post your location when you want to. Find out more about how media can contain your location without your knowledge, as well as how to disable this feature on your devices.
Ask your self the following questions while using Twitter:
- Who is capable of seeing my posts?
- Am I posting personal information?
- Are my posts private?
- Can I trust all the people that see this information?
Everything you might want to know about Twitter and how you can #ProtectYourPrivates on it can be found on the Twitter Help Center
- Report questionable posts
- The Instagram application allows for direct reporting to the Instagram team in cases of illegal content or posts that violate their terms of use.
- Limit who can view your posts
- Review who can see each post before completing upload through Instagram Direct to only share with certain people.
- Enable profile privacy
- Utilize Instagram's privacy settings to keep posts from being publicly accessible.
- Consider whether or not you should tag your location
- Posting your location may not always be a good idea. You may have to disable automatic location tagging.
- Block when needed
- If you are not comfortable with certain people viewing your profile, you can block them from seeing your content.
Everything you might want to know about Instagram and how you can #ProtectYourPrivates on it can be found on the Instagram Help Center
Snapchat
- Limit who can view your story
- If you want, you can make it so certain people can never see what you put on your story.
- You can also create separate stories for your closest friends, a group of people on a trip with you, or just your family for the more sensitive things you may share.
- Take yourself off SnapMap
- It's never a good idea to let everyone you know see where you are at all times. Remove yourself from SnapMap, or limit it so just a few close friends can see you in case of an emergency.
- Don't post sensitive personal data
- Snapchat no longer prevents screenshotting, so don't post things with your address, social security number, or bank info visible.
Everything you might want to know about Instagram and how you can #ProtectYourPrivates on it can be found on the Snapchat Safety Tips and Resources