How to Remain Private on Social Media
by Aimee Cartwright
While it’s possible to navigate social media safely with open accounts, there is no doubt that social media privacy is a smart move for many – particularly education professionals, healthcare workers, and anyone else in a safeguarding role.
Today, we’re going to explain why maintaining privacy on social media can be beneficial, as well as offering expert social media privacy tips.
Reasons to Keep Social Media Private
Safety
Having a private online presence significantly reduces threats to your safety, whether that be fraud, stalking, robbery, or cyberbullying. To keep your social media private is to protect yourself against such risks.
Employability
If your social media accounts are locked down, and there is no adverse content linked to you online, your online presence cannot negatively influence your employability.
In a world where pre-employment Social Media Checks are becoming increasingly common, this provides you with a significant advantage over other job applicants.
Boundaries
There is freedom in knowing that strangers and acquaintances can’t access information about you online. Opting for a social media private life demonstrates healthy boundaries around privacy and allows you to share more personal content without worrying about safety.
How to Make Social Media Private
Delete old accounts
One of the biggest social media privacy issues is being unaware of old accounts that may contain adverse or overly personal content.
Make sure you look for old accounts across all social media platforms and deactivate these profiles in the account settings.
Check your privacy settings
It’s crucial to keep a close eye on all social media privacy settings, as they can change unexpectedly and threaten your online security.
We recommend blocking open access to your posts, photos, likes, groups, friends or followers list, and anything else that you would like to remain private.
Keep in mind that most private accounts still have some publicly available information, such as usernames and icons, so make sure you investigate these settings too.
Update your friends/followers lists
Even if your social media is completely locked down, if your content is open to old acquaintances, you are not enjoying total privacy.
Make sure your friends/followers list is only populated with people that you have approved to consume your online content. It’s wise to review this list on a regular basis as your preferences may change.
Turn off location access
Too often, social media users discover that they have been allowing location access for a long period of time without realising. Make sure location access is turned off for every social media site you use.
The safest option is to turn location access off completely but switching it off when you are not using the platform is the next best privacy measure.
Block access from third-party apps
Another common mistake with online privacy is giving third-party apps access to your accounts and forgetting to review this. This can be easily managed by reviewing the site’s third-party settings and blocking access from any apps you are not comfortable with.
View your account from another person’s device
To check whether your social media is as private as you hope, search for your account from someone else’s device and review accordingly.
Some platforms even allow you to gain a third-person perspective of your account in your settings, and we recommend doing this regularly to ensure you hold onto privacy when policies change.
Contact
If you have any social media privacy concerns, don’t hesitate to contact us for more information:
Telephone: 0800 468 1688
Email: info@sp-index.com
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