Keep your data safe on social media

Everyone has heard of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many more popular social media sites. Most of you (and your kids) have at least one account on two, maybe four or more different social platforms. Plus, if you work in marketing or customer outreach at your company, you’ll know how important a social media presence is for talking to customers and advertising. 

It seems like everyone and every business is sharing every last detail of their lives, both personal and professional. Even when you have set your personal account to private, sharing only with friends, you’ll see ads that were displayed on the platform, tracking you around the web.

With regular user data leaks and reports of hacks causing ‘lost’ data on these platforms, you are probably wondering how you can protect your private personal and professional data. 

Take back a bit of control with these five easy steps:

1. Control your cookies: Block tracking cookies so that the advertisers on your social media platforms don’t trace your steps across the internet and build a comprehensive profile on you. Here’s how to delete cookies in your browser. If you want more comprehensive private browsing, use an app with built in privacy like the Findx app for mobile devices, or install an ad-blocker in your browser on your computer.
2. Browse with a little more privacy: This goes hand-in-hand with controlling your cookies – Safari, Chrome and Firefox all let you browse with slightly more privacy, but note it’s not fully private. To truly browse in private, you have to block tracking actively.
3. Switch to services with stronger privacy: Instead of using the social media platforms and big tech companies for more sensitive communications, there are better chat programs, file sharing services, and a private search engine like Findx that will help to protect your online privacy.
4. Think about what you share, before you share it: Think twice before you share your full name and contact details, photos of children in their school uniforms, a post about your shiny new entertainment system, or a meeting with a potential merge partner.
5. Revise your privacy settings: Run through the settings for who can see your shared posts, tag you in photos or posts, add you as a friend or colleague. Most social media sites now allow you to bulk-update privacy settings on old posts.

Do a little each day. Commit to taking these and other small steps, ones that you can complete in less than 5 minutes each day, to keep your data safe on social media.

Tips for parents to talk about online safety 

Children are growing up with social media, but may not be aware of how to safely use these services. After all, children don’t want to read the terms and conditions – get more tips for how to talk to children about online safety.

Join a new alternative to traditional social media

Mastodon is a social network based on open web protocols and free, open-source software. It is decentralized like e-mail.  Visit findx.social and find more information