Online Safety and Social Media

The internet is an incredible place! It’s filled with information, knowledge and opportunities. But, it’s also a place where there are risks. This blog focuses on online safety and social media.

It’s important to be able to identify online risks, manage your data and privacy options, understand how your personal data is collected (and used) and use strategies to ensure you are reducing online risks.

Sharing information online:

Firstly, we need to cover the importance of limiting what information you share online. Whether that’s with a company, a person you know in real life and speak to online, or someone you’ve met online. It’s important to set boundaries regarding the information you share. If you want to keep information private, keep it private. Personal information such as your address or bank details should definitely be kept under wraps! There’s several options for anonymity across social media, but you also need to think about businesses storing cookies when you visit their websites.

Of course, we often need or want to share personal information, if you can do so in person – that’s always the best option. But in some circumstances we might need to talk to our friends about a personal issue we’re having in order to build healthy relationships and help us manage situations or everyday worries we’re having. You should only do this with a person you trust.

In other circumstances, you might need to share information with a company. For example if shopping online, you may need to provide a delivery address or your card details. You might need to contact the bank online and in order to do so, provide some personal details, you could also be setting up a subscription with a service such as amazon prime.

Using experience and building your knowledge, providing these details is not a safety risk. However you may have noticed sometimes you receive emails which seem a bit off. This is known as phishing. This is a socially engineered attack created to steal data. This can be login details or credit card information. Usually, an attacker pretends to be a trusted company or person, leading you (the user) into a false sense of security and tricking you to think it’s okay to share the information.

The attackers who use phishing scams are often very clever – they’ll use the branding of a company you trust or message you privately with an offer you can’t resist. The first step with this kind of scam is to look for any typos and check the email address the message has come from, usually it will be clearly labelled with a business name, but if you click to see the actual email address – it will be something completely random. For example, instead of info@apple.com you might see info@appley.com (or something similar) alternatively, once you’ve got past the saved username ‘Apple’ the email could just be a random combination of letters and numbers. If you’re ever unsure, it’s best to check with someone you know and trust, like a family member or teacher.

Another tool fraudsters use are online quizzes and questionnaires. An example of this might be promising to tell you your personality type, or which celebrity you look like, in exchange for your data. These online posts often include terms and conditions which allow the data you enter to be sold to third parties. It also means the app developer can obtain a lot of information about you from your profile, friends and IP address. With that in mind, it’s best to avoid any online quizzes like this you see online, especially those which take you off the platforms you are on and onto other sites. Polls on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram Stories where you answer just one question are usually safe and built within the platform by a content creator.

Sharing opinions online and forming opinions based on what we read:

We know we need to be sensible in sharing information about ourselves, but we need to consider the impact of sharing opinions online. Of course, we are all entitled to opinions and freedom of speech. But when being vocal about our opinions online – we need to be extremely careful, the information you share can be taken out of context. We aren’t expecting racist or homophobic slurs to be put online, but it’s important to consider extreme viewpoints and how they might influence you, or how you might be influencing others.

Not only this but, online media outlets disproportionately feature exaggerated or inaccurate information about situations. This is known as clickbait. You might see a newspaper article with a heading which really grabs your attention, then read the article and realise that actually – the heading had nothing to do with the article and was taken completely out of context.

In terms of the covid-19 pandemic, you’ll have noticed a lot of negative news being shared and a lot of extreme viewpoints – whether that’s from those who think the government has managed the situation really well or the opposite. So it’s important to be able to take a step away and form your own, well researched opinions.

It’s also key to be able to notice when all the negativity we absorb from the media is starting to affect us. If you spend all day reading information online about a particular subject, social media will present you with more information on that subject – that’s how their algorithms work – it’s to keep you tuned in to their channels, whether it’s Facebook, Tiktok or any other platform.

You might have noticed how sometimes you look at certain types of information online and you are suddenly being targeted by sponsored posts which advertise the products or services you’ve been looking at. This online personalisation can be great if you’re conducting research before you make a purchase, but it’s important to critically assess bias, reliability and accuracy of the digital content you are absorbing – especially with how easy it is for businesses or individuals to manipulate the content they share online.

Cookies:

Not the tasty, chocolate covered kind, but the small pieces of data stored on your devices. They remember your activity, such as items in your shopping cart, which can then result in an email from a business persuading you to buy the items you didn’t check out with. Additionally, there are tracking cookies and third party cookies which are used to build long term records of your internet behaviours. These records are used to influence your decisions based on your online activity and habits.

We’ve put together a list of tips for when it comes to managing cookies and your personal data:

• Read what you give consent to
• Adjust your privacy settings on google and social media platforms
• Don’t open emails or download attachments that look suspicious
• Disable your location settings on snapchat and other apps
• Delete any of your old content or unused platforms
• Log out of public computers
• Don’t accept requests or messages from people you don’t know
• Don’t use WIFI hotspots
• Only allow necessary cookies instead of clicking ‘accept all’
• Select permissions for apps and websites carefully
• Look out for the lock icon on your web browser to ensure any websites you use are secure

Next, we need to consider the information we share about others and that others share about us. For example, you’re on a night out and someone comes up to you and kisses you on the cheek – without your permission. A friend finds this hilarious, quickly takes a snap and puts it on their stories. Your boyfriend sees the photo (and everyone else you know) and quickly there’s a whole stressful situation being formed, completely out of context which is victimising you. This is known as Social Media Defamation.

Another example of social media defamation needs us to take consideration as to how we communicate with others online, if we’re using text – there’s no body language or tone of voice to accompany your message. Again, this can mean what you’re trying to say is taken in the wrong way and can be used against you when taken out of context.

Social Media Defamation is a term used to describe information being presented online about another individual, this can be published to a social media website, platform, or app, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. This information can be images, text and other forms of media which are out of context, inaccurate, false or deliberately painting you in a negative light. Often, an individual who is trying to defame you will be trying to generate hate and bullying, attempting to turn people against you or trying to break up your relationship.

The Minclaw website will tell you all about the law when it comes to Social Media Defamation, how you can protect yourself, various examples of defamation and what to do if you’re a victim of Social Media Defamation.

To manage and reduce the risk of Social Media Defamation, try to remember the following:

• Understand what you see on social media is not always real life
• Don’t react, people who post this kind of material are looking for a reaction
• Keep important conversations or escalated arguments to face to face meetings

Where to find more information if you’re worried

There are lots of research guides online to help with safety on various social media channels. We found this particular website provides lots of helpful resources: https://nationalonlinesafety.com/guides

Finally – we really recommend watching ‘The Social Dilemma’ on Netflix. The documentary will teach you a lot about how social media platforms work to keep you engaged and scrolling. You can find a snippet here.

Thank you for reading our blog, we hope you found it helpful.