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During week five I took charge of my privacy settings on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. We use social media for various reason such as keeping up with friends and family or reconnecting with old friends. Doing so leaves us vulnerable to identity thieves. The best way you can manage your privacy is to properly manage your social media privacy settings. Privacy is a fundamental right. It enables us to create boundaries and protect ourselves from unwarranted interference in our lives. The social media accounts I have are Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. I only use Instagram to post photos, memes or quotes once in a while and I very seldom use LinkedIn. I have been more involved and interactive on my Facebook page than any other social media platform. Therefore, I have my settings on Facebook extremely strict because I’m so involved in this account. 

Privacy is important to me because I don’t want to be completely vulnerable to social media platforms. There’s already enough information out there about me that I share on social media and I want control over who has access to it. I have pictures of my daughter and me on Facebook and it’s important to me that everyone doesn’t have access to my images, and I limit who they’re shared with. I have even stricter settings on my Facebook account after learning various things from weeks three and four on privacy and safety. My post can’t be shared, friends can’t tag me in photos without my approval. Others can’t see my list of friends when they visit my profile. I decide whether friends can post on my timeline or not by reviewing posts that friends tag me in before they appear on my timeline. I have control over face recognition so that Facebook can’t recognize me in photos and videos. My locations settings are off and Facebook can’t access where I’m at or my location history. 

While doing a privacy checkup I cleared my Facebook activity which included information that businesses and organizations shared with Facebook about my interactions with them. I also changed a few settings on my Instagram page like hiding offensive comments and manually approving my tags and I turned my activity status off. Having these settings in place gives me control over my information and makes me feel more in touch with how I share my information. I feel like my information is protected to a certain extent. Having control of my settings also allows me to express myself selectively.

When was the last time you did a privacy check on your social media accounts? If you haven’t done so lately you must do so to protect your personal information. Social media privacy policies enable members to customize their account settings and allow members to control who sees their posts. Facebook has a new privacy checkup tool which enables users to see how their data is being used and displayed. Check it out by clicking the link below. 




Harrison, Ashanta. “Privacy Settings.” 2020. JPEG file.

Comments

  1. Thanks for the detailed post. It sounds like you've done a great job managing your social media accounts which is a great example for your daughter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I try my best to keep my Facebook page private, but for some reason people are always able to find me and message me in Facebook Messenger. I just cant figure out why this happen if messenger is part of Facebook; don't they have the same features. It kinda scares me that I can't find my own Facebook page when I search it , but other people can find me.

    ReplyDelete

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