Although these are common sense, some people see nothing wrong with the types of things that they post on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.
This article is a condensed version of an article published by AARP with some added advice from Awesome admins.
1. Never post personal information, including your Social Security number (not even the last four digits), phone numbers, your actual birthday (month and day, or month, day and year), place of birth, present city and state, your home address, or personal account information.
---- These things can be used to open bank or credit card accounts, or even to take out loans in your name.
----- If you already have any of these things on your Facebook account, either delete it or click ONLY ME on the privacy to hide them from friend and public view.
---- Where you type in names of your family members and/or relationships, you should select a specific audience who can see their names (certain friends), not the whole world (Public). This keeps a hacker from providing the names of your family members for loan applications, opening new bank accounts, and credit cards.
---- Did you know that when Facebook asks you for a phone number to keep on your account that you don't have to give it to them? They will keep asking, but you should keep on ignoring. It says right on the screen that no one will be able to see it but you and that's not true. Facebook users who put a phone number on their account are more likely to be hacked than those who did not provide a phone number. If you feel that you must put a phone number on your account, set it to ONLY ME so everyone can't see it.
2. Avoid posting a full frontal picture of yourself on social media sites. A con artist can copy the image and use it to create a photo ID and steal your identity.
---- Never post ANY pictures of the real you, your real family, or even your pets because if and when your account gets cloned or hacked, you have made it very easy for your whole life to be stolen.
---- For your profile picture, use pictures of famous people, landscapes, flowers, game icons, etc but don't use your own real personal pictures. If you want to show someone a picture of your grandchildren, be audience specific on the privacy, then delete ii tafter it has been viewed.
3. Review your privacy options for each of your social media accounts. Go to privacy settings and restrict your information so it can only be viewed by people you name on the post.
---- Check your privacy settings WEEKLY, and don't forget to use Facebook's VIEW AS feature. This allows you to see what strangers see when they look at your account.
---- Make a list, name it something like Family or Game Friends, select the appropriate names for it. Now when you go to select an audience, the name of the list is what you type in so that only those people see what you have to say. This is especially important if you have personal pictures on your account. Narrow down the audience to a few named people, and not to your whole friends list or the public at large.
4. Don’t post things you may want to delete later. Deleting never totally deletes because nothing you post online is every truly gone. Think twice about the pictures or comments you share before you share them. (
---- Facebook has a long memory and so does Google's WayBack Machine. Sharing is a big thing on social media. It gives one's posts a very far reach. Also, not all posts that are shared are worthy of sharing. READ before you POST.
---- If you are sharing something that promises money to a cause because you shared,
OR
asks you to complete a few steps to get free coins for games,
OR
plays on one's sympathy using pictures of sick children or abused animals,
Then DON'T SHARE THE POST.
---- No one benefits from the thousands of shares except the satisfied guy sitting back in his recliner watching his one post go viral, while he is oblvious to the plight of the sick children, abused animals or the people who got ripped off by not receiving free game coins.
5. AARP says to take advantage of VIEW AS feature once a month. Awesome admins would prefer that you use VIEW AS once a day, 7 days a week to view your profile as others see it.
---- Every time Facebook does an update, something on your account will change. It might take you a day or two to figure out what was changed, but we guarantee that something was.
---- To View As On Twitter, log on, click your picture, and select “View Profile.”
---- To View As On Facebook, click on your name to view your profile, select VIEW AS which is set at PUBLIC. You can toggle from stranger (public) or type in the name a friend to see the difference in what information is visible on your account to each audience.
October 2018
MK
This article is a condensed version of an article published by AARP with some added advice from Awesome admins.
1. Never post personal information, including your Social Security number (not even the last four digits), phone numbers, your actual birthday (month and day, or month, day and year), place of birth, present city and state, your home address, or personal account information.
---- These things can be used to open bank or credit card accounts, or even to take out loans in your name.
----- If you already have any of these things on your Facebook account, either delete it or click ONLY ME on the privacy to hide them from friend and public view.
---- Where you type in names of your family members and/or relationships, you should select a specific audience who can see their names (certain friends), not the whole world (Public). This keeps a hacker from providing the names of your family members for loan applications, opening new bank accounts, and credit cards.
---- Did you know that when Facebook asks you for a phone number to keep on your account that you don't have to give it to them? They will keep asking, but you should keep on ignoring. It says right on the screen that no one will be able to see it but you and that's not true. Facebook users who put a phone number on their account are more likely to be hacked than those who did not provide a phone number. If you feel that you must put a phone number on your account, set it to ONLY ME so everyone can't see it.
2. Avoid posting a full frontal picture of yourself on social media sites. A con artist can copy the image and use it to create a photo ID and steal your identity.
---- Never post ANY pictures of the real you, your real family, or even your pets because if and when your account gets cloned or hacked, you have made it very easy for your whole life to be stolen.
---- For your profile picture, use pictures of famous people, landscapes, flowers, game icons, etc but don't use your own real personal pictures. If you want to show someone a picture of your grandchildren, be audience specific on the privacy, then delete ii tafter it has been viewed.
3. Review your privacy options for each of your social media accounts. Go to privacy settings and restrict your information so it can only be viewed by people you name on the post.
---- Check your privacy settings WEEKLY, and don't forget to use Facebook's VIEW AS feature. This allows you to see what strangers see when they look at your account.
---- Make a list, name it something like Family or Game Friends, select the appropriate names for it. Now when you go to select an audience, the name of the list is what you type in so that only those people see what you have to say. This is especially important if you have personal pictures on your account. Narrow down the audience to a few named people, and not to your whole friends list or the public at large.
4. Don’t post things you may want to delete later. Deleting never totally deletes because nothing you post online is every truly gone. Think twice about the pictures or comments you share before you share them. (
---- Facebook has a long memory and so does Google's WayBack Machine. Sharing is a big thing on social media. It gives one's posts a very far reach. Also, not all posts that are shared are worthy of sharing. READ before you POST.
---- If you are sharing something that promises money to a cause because you shared,
OR
asks you to complete a few steps to get free coins for games,
OR
plays on one's sympathy using pictures of sick children or abused animals,
Then DON'T SHARE THE POST.
---- No one benefits from the thousands of shares except the satisfied guy sitting back in his recliner watching his one post go viral, while he is oblvious to the plight of the sick children, abused animals or the people who got ripped off by not receiving free game coins.
5. AARP says to take advantage of VIEW AS feature once a month. Awesome admins would prefer that you use VIEW AS once a day, 7 days a week to view your profile as others see it.
---- Every time Facebook does an update, something on your account will change. It might take you a day or two to figure out what was changed, but we guarantee that something was.
---- To View As On Twitter, log on, click your picture, and select “View Profile.”
---- To View As On Facebook, click on your name to view your profile, select VIEW AS which is set at PUBLIC. You can toggle from stranger (public) or type in the name a friend to see the difference in what information is visible on your account to each audience.
October 2018
MK