Now, we live in a world where social media rules our lives. Let it be Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram, these are just a few of the many amazing social media websites that have captured our world and our attention. And no matter how hard you try you won’t be able to do anything about it. So, the question arises, if these social media networks offer us so much freedom then How to Protect Social Networking Accounts is a big question that needs to be answered for your sake.
The reason why these questions are being asked is simply that in these social media websites you offer to put up your information such as your address, your birthday and your full name. along with that, you post pictures and videos and thus it is a place where you can connect with the best and the worst people. You won’t know when someone evil is lurking behind and you won’t be able to do anything. Along with that, there is a very high risk of your information being hacked into and stolen.
The fact of the matter is that this is a cruel world where no one cares about anyone else’s feeling and emotions and no, due to social media there is a lot of material that can be found on a person that you want to destroy or just even hurt. So, there has to be a system that protects you from these online trolls and protects your personal and social information.
How to Protect Social Networking Accounts
Let’s just get into it, shall we? This is a serious issue that needs to be resolved or even been made aware of. So many young adults are putting up their information on Facebook that is not helping them in any way as they then can easily become targets of predators and evil people. What they need is an awareness that there are many different ways that you, as a customer of social media, can use and do to make yourself more secure and compact.
So here are some tips to help you stay out of trouble and safe and secure:
- The internet is forever. Now, this is a little information that many young and also old people forget. The internet is forever. You post it on the internet then it’s on their even after you die. Someone can screenshot it and then they can send it to their friends. What this point proves is be very careful about what you post on the internet as it may come back to haunt you in ways you didn’t think it would.
- Be very sure who you are making your friend. Now in the real world, you see the person, judge them quietly and then proceed to decide whether they are worthy of being your friend. But on the internet, everyone’s personality and persona are different. You can be anything you want on the internet and no one will be. so be very careful who you choose as your friend and whether you can trust them or not.
- Be very cautious of links from people you don’t know or links that may be looking a little dodgy to you. Even if they are from friends just be very careful because hackers are very busy stealing and hacking into secure accounts through interesting links that will spike your interest and make you want to know. Just be very careful of those suspicious links that may appear.
- Following up on the above-mentioned point make it sure that the accounts that you have are secure. Make your passwords strong and make sure that information is failsafe. Hackers always hack first into accounts that have weak privacy settings and weak passwords. So please make sure that you are safe and your information is kept safe by being proactive and getting a security system on your computer to save yourself from hackers.
- Be very aware that sometimes your social media accounts are linked as you may be using the same email for both or three of them. So if you post something on twitter it may automatically be posted on your Facebook and if you posted something risky on Twitter and your family is present on Facebook then you could get into the worst kind of trouble you could ever get.
- Turn on your GPS locations. Now, this can be a really big problem because recently snapchat introduced a geolocation feature on Snapchat that makes you and helps you see where your friends are. But if you have someone added who is not a great friend and you barely know them then they can take advantage of that and you may get and be in danger. So, turn off your location and be cautious in any way possible.
- Don’t reveal too much information. I know its very hard to not show your home phone number or social security number but seriously people this is for your safety. Please don’t show people where you live on social media and please don’t show pictures of your parent’s house your house or your workplace because that is a dangerous piece of information that you are providing and if gotten into the wrong hands could be a cause for so many other major problems.
- Manage your privacy settings, please. Don’t keep adding people just because you want more followers and don’t keep your account public because you want more followers because seriously this will cost you. All you need to do is get a privacy setting situation so that you will be able to use it in your favor. Please do that for you’re and your families sake.
- Ok, this one is something we all do so it’s necessary that you listen. Disable the auto login system. The reason for that is that if anyone has access to your phone or your laptop they will be able to use your social media account freely and you not even know until its too late. So be very careful and be very vigilant in these kinds of situations. All you need to do is disable it and yes, you’ll have to log in every time but hey, it better than being hacked isn’t it?
- Change your passwords frequently. This means that keep changing them regularly but not on the same day so that you are not predictable and you are not manageable in a way that you can be easily hacked into. Keep long and hard passwords but passwords that you can remember and you can memorize. All you need to do is look into the situation and think like a person who wants to protect their information as many times and for as long as possible.
- If you have any old accounts that you do not use and have discarded then please don’t keep them. Just log out and finish those account. Because the longer they stay sitting and stay inactive the longer and easier it is for someone to steal your information. so after you are done with an account delete it and remove it from your life. Just make sure that all important information is to you and not there as it will always be on the internet somewhere.
- Last but definitely not the least just be vigilant. Just be careful who you are talking to and who you are sharing your information with. Because the fact of the matter is that no matter how hard you try and trust a person on the internet you still don’t know them and you still haven’t seen them. So, you can’t really trust them. Do not tell them about the things that are very personal to you and give them information about passwords or share passwords because seriously that could cause you a big problem.
Just go over the above-mentioned points again and again so that you are completely and utterly aware of some of the many things that you can do to protect yourself from hackers and evil people.
Conclusion
The conclusion of all this and the entire article is that you need to stay safe and in order to stay safe, you need to be vigilant and aware of the situations and people around you an don’t the internet. This article is written to help you comprehend the simple fact that you are a strong individual and if you take the perfect and right steps you are able to change and secure your personal information with the ease of someone who is a pro. The only thing you need to do is be aware and just a little paranoid.
Hope this article was able to help you understand the basics of what precautionary measures you need to be taking to get secure and privacy protected. This is all that we can do to help you because at the end of the day the choice and the information is yours and if you chose to share it with the world then that is your choice to bear. Other than that, the hope is this article helped.
Faraz Butt 
Cybil