How to Protect Your Privacy on Social Media
Social media is a part of most people’s lives in the modern world. Some people have one account on their preferred network; others have multiple accounts across a variety of platforms. These types of networks provide unique opportunities to stay in touch with friends and family, meet new people and share information. However, there can also be major concerns for privacy for those that do not actively manage their social media settings.
We have teams of experts on hand who can help anyone who has suffered a privacy breach on social media to restore their online reputation. There are many tactics that can be employed to protect an online reputation through social media, most of which are more effective if they are used before a breach occurs.
Privacy Settings
When first setting up any social media account, it is likely that the default settings will leave the account open to the public. Social media networks will automatically want people to deploy the settings that suit the purposes of the network, rather than the individual, but there are always options to change these.
Practices such as using a pseudonym or at least never divulging a full name on social media can go a long way towards protecting your own privacy. Modern employers are likely to run a social media search on potential new hires; if the accounts you hold are not in your name, they will be far less likely to find any information you would rather was kept private.
Privacy settings should be as restrictive as you can manage, even allowing ‘friends of friends’ to see your posts could result in hundreds of thousands of potential viewers. Everything on your profile should only be visible to your specific list of friends or followers to help prevent breaches of privacy.
Purging Past Posts
It may be quite a time-consuming job but purging any past posts that could be harmful in any way to your online reputation is always a good idea. Many of us have profiles or accounts with information dating back many years. Our more youthful selves were likely not as circumspect when it came to deciding what types of information should be shared. Spending some time scrolling through past posts and permanently deleting anything that could be detrimental to current activities such as job hunting may prove invaluable.
Linking Accounts
Where one person has multiple social media accounts, they will often give the option of linking those accounts together to simplify sharing information between them. This is not necessarily a good idea if you have privacy concerns, particularly where some accounts are used for friendly socialising and others for business networking. For example, you may not wish your personal Facebook page to share information with your professional LinkedIn profile.
Limit Friends and Followers
In the UK, the average person has about 500 friends or followers on their social media accounts. However, they likely only know a small proportion of these people in real life. Some of us like to collect friends; some use social media to make contacts for work or a new project; others simply accept every request that comes their way. Having someone you don’t know on your friends list limits the effectiveness of having settings that only let ‘friends’ see your posts. If you are having or believe you may have issues with data privacy on social media, now is the right time to unfriend anyone you don’t actually know, trust and want to connect with.
We work with thousands of clients to protect them from online data breaches and to help remedy social media privacy breaches once they have occurred. A proactive approach is best, but you can always contact us if you feel you might need help dealing with an online privacy attack.
