General Tips on using Social Networking platforms safely

Social media have become an evident part of our life. We share out updates with
our friends, family and anyone who is concerned using social media. But the
hackers can use this information to steal sensitive data and hack your account.
Given below are some of the general tips on using social media.

 Always ask the questions:

o Who can access the information I am putting online?
o Who controls and owns the information I put into a social
networking site?
o What information about me are my contacts passing on to other
people?
o Will my contacts mind if I share information about them with other
people?
o Do I trust everyone with whom I'm connected.
 Always make sure you use secure passwords to access social networks. If
anyone else does get into your account, they are gaining access to a lot of
information about you and about anyone else you are connected to via that
social network. Change your passwords regularly as a matter of routine. 
 Make sure you understand the default privacy settings offered by the social
networking site, and how to change them.
 Consider using separate accounts/identities, or maybe different
pseudonyms, for different campaigns and activities. Remember that the key to
using a network safely is being able to trust its members. Separate accounts
may be a good way to ensure that such trust is possible.
 Be careful when accessing your social network account in public internet
spaces. Delete your password and browsing history when using a browser on
a public machine. 
 Access social networking sites using https:// to safeguard your username,
password and other information you post. Using https:// rather than http://
adds another layer of security by encrypting the traffic from your browser to
your social networking site. 
 Be careful about putting too much information into your status updates –
even if you trust the people in your networks. It is easy for someone to copy
your information.
 Most social networks allow you to integrate information with other social
networks. For example you can post an update on your Twitter account and
have it automatically posted on your Facebook account as well. Be
 particularly careful when integrating your social network accounts! You may
be anonymous on one site, but exposed when using another.
 Be cautious about how safe your content is on a social networking site.
Never rely on a social networking site as a primary host for your content or
information. It is very easy for governments to block access to a social
networking site within their boundaries if they suddenly find its content
objectionable. The administrators of a social networking site may also decide
to remove objectionable content themselves, rather than face censorship
within a particular country.

Posting Personal Details

Social networking sites ask you for a good deal of data about yourself to make it
easier for other users to find and connect to you. Perhaps the biggest vulnerability
this creates for users of these sites is the possibility of identity fraud, which is
increasingly common. In addition, the more information about yourself you reveal
online, the easier it becomes for the authorities to identify you and monitor your
activities. The online activities of diaspora activists from some countries have led
to the targeting of their family members by the authorities in their homelands.
Ask yourself: is it necessary to post the following information online?

 birth dates
 contact phone numbers
 addresses
 details of family members
 sexual orientation
 education and employment history

Friends, Followers and Contacts

The first thing you will do after filling in your personal details with any social
networking application is establish connections to other people. Presumably these
contacts are people you know and trust – but you may also be connecting to an
online community of like-minded individuals that you have never met. The most
important thing to understand is what information you are allowing this online
community to have.

When using a social network account such as Facebook, where a lot of information
about yourself is held, consider only connecting to people you know and trust not
to misuse the information you post.
Status Updates
On Twitter and Facebook and similar networks, the status update answers the
questions: What am I doing right now? What's happening? The most important
thing to understand about the status update is who can actually see it. The default
setting for the status update on most social networking applications is that anyone
on the internet can see it. If you only want your contacts to see the updates, you
need to tell the social networking application to keep your updates hidden from
everyone else.

To do this in Twitter, look for “Protect Your Tweets”. In Facebook, change your
settings to share your updates with “Friends Only”. Even if you switch to those
settings, consider how easy it is for your information to be reposted by followers
and friends. Agree with your network of friends on a common approach to passing
on the information posted in your social networking accounts. You should also
think about what you may be revealing about your friends that they may not want
other people to know; it's important to be sensitive about this, and to ask others to
be sensitive about what they reveal about you.

There have been many incidents in which information included in status updates
has been used against people. Teachers in the US have been fired after posting
updates about how they felt about their students; other employees have lost their
jobs for posting about their employers. This is something that nearly everyone
needs to be careful about.

Sharing Online Content

It's easy to share a link to a website and get your friend's attention. But who else
will be paying attention, and what kind of reaction will they have? If you share (or
"like") a site that opposes some position taken by your government, for example,
agents of that government very might well take an interest and target you for
additional surveillance or direct persecution.
If you want your contacts (and of course the administrators of the social
networking platform you use) to be the only ones who can see the things you share
or mark as interesting, be sure to check your privacy settings.

Revealing your Location

Most social networking sites will display your location if that data is available.
This function is generally provided when you use a GPS-enabled phone to interact
with a social network, but don't assume that it's not possible if you aren't
connecting from a mobile. The network your computer is connected to may also
provide location data. The way to be safest about it is to double-check your
settings.
Be particularly mindful of location settings on photo and video sharing sites. Don't
just assume that they're not sharing your location: double-check your settings to be
sure.

Sharing Videos and Photos

Photos and videos can reveal people's identities very easily. It's important that you
have the consent of the subject/s of any photo or video that you post. If you are
posting an image of someone else, be aware of how you may be compromising
their privacy. Never post a video or photo of anyone without getting their consent
first.
Photos and videos can also reveal a lot of information unintentionally. Many
cameras will embed hidden data (metadata tags), that reveal the date, time and
location of the photo, camera type, etc. Photo and video sharing sites may publish
this information when you upload content to their sites.

Instant Chats
Many social networking sites have tools that allow you to have discussions with
your friends in real time. These operate like Instant Messaging and are one of the
most insecure ways to communicate on the internet, both because they may reveal
who you are communicating with, and what you are communicating about.
Connecting to the site via https is a minimum requirement for secure chatting, but
even this is not always a guarantee that your chat is using a secure connection. For
example, Facebook chat uses a different channel to HTTPS (and is more prone to
exposure). It is more secure to use a specific application for your chats, such as
Pidgin with an Off-the-record plugin, which uses encryption. Read the 'Pidgin –
secure instant messaging' hands-on guide.

Joining and Creating Groups, Events and Communities

What information are you giving to people if you join a group or community?
What does it say about you? Alternatively, what are people announcing to the
world if they join a group or community that you have created? How are you
putting people at risk?

When you join a community or group online it is revealing something about you to
others. On the whole, people may assume that you support or agree with what the
group is saying or doing, which could make you vulnerable if you are seen to align
yourself with particular political groups, for example. Also if you join a group with
a large number of members that you don't know, then this can compromise any
privacy or security settings that you have applied to your account, so think about
what information you are giving away before joining. Are you using your photo
and real name so strangers can identify you?

Alternatively, if you set up a group and people choose to join it, what are they
announcing to the world by doing so? For example, perhaps it is a gay and lesbian
support group that you have set up to help people, but by joining it people are
openly identifying themselves as gay or gay-friendly, which could bring about
dangers for them in the real world.

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Adopted from: https://securityinabox.org/en/guide/social-networking