Facebook Safety… is there such a thing? Probably not… but you can limit the risk.
Most of this is common sense stuff…
- Never put personal info out there… full name (first and last is bad enough) , address, phone, etc. The less info you make available the better off you will be. Even be careful how the numerous pieces can be put together over time to complete a personal picture of you personal information. One entry tells how old you are, another time tells of your birthday… now they have your date of birth. Things like that.
- Never write about things you’re going to do announcing that you won’t be home on vacation… so the house is empty.
- Never announce that you won the Lottery… everyone will bug you for money… Just send me a private email… it will be our secret!
- Never write anything that you wouldn’t want the world to see.
- Never write anything critical about work etc… that could come back to bite you. Saw that someone wrote how they were suppose to be out sick from work and went the Atlantic City to gamble… now that’s a no brainer. Also saw how someone wrote that their boss, a woman, was stupid, and they hated their job… someone just might relay your thoughts and feelings to your boss… and you could be looking for a job you do like.
- Never write anything that taken out of context that could show you being troubled… or write something in “jest”… “I could just kill them”… ya never know, something might happen and you’d be the #1 suspect… hope you have a great alibi.
- Yep, Friends list… well there’s a questionable picture. My list is short, family, close friends and work friends. And with good reason… I’ve seen friends lists that have 200+ friends… some 500+ friends… do I really want all those people knowing more about my daily or weekly life… probably not… so I keep my friends list rather selectively short. It’s not a popularity contest to see who can reach 1000 friends. Besides, you never know who is going to have the your info available for them to see. And you can’t trust facebook to have functional controls and safeguards to limit the info you make available.
- I also limit photos permanently posted to facebook. I thin the posts (delete) so that only a limited number of posts or pictures is available at any one time. Most people leave them wall ongoing… someone could go back through months and years of posts to gather your information for whatever purpose. It’s not to say that they can’t keep an ongoing “saved” file on your posts over time… but they can’t just get everything all at once from a wall that goes back to the beginning of time.
- It’s also probably a good practice NOT to open or click on forwarded links to unknown sites or download forwarded files via links on facebook unless you know the source… this is a tool frequently used by hackers… and all these cute little forwarded posts for you to forward to ten people with links to cute little stories or videos… well… why not just hold a gun to your computer like Russian Roulette and pull the trigger and see how much you can do it before the computer is no more… not to mention the personal info that hackers will get from your pc before they destroy it. Don’t open them, don’t repost them… it will be safer for you and all your friends. I’ve even deleted some facebook friends cause they continue to play this high risk game!
Keep everything light hearted and limit your friends list to those close or important to you. Acquaintances… well… that’s what E-mail or letters are for. “Letters”? … I remember them… that’s when you actually sit down with pen and paper and physically write on paper… yes, write on the actual paper… what you want to tell the other person. Then put it into an envelope, seal it, address it, stamp it, and take it to the post office to mail… at which time that person will get you message several days later… if it doesn’t get lost in all their junk mail. Wasn’t this a archaic practice? Or you could just call them on the phone… buh. Or text them! In any even… keep your facebook friends list small… people in the circle of trust. Everyone else can email, call, or text. BTW… I always have a secondary email for everyone less than close friends.
Just a couple of thought on safety… don’t make yourself a target.
