Keeping your information safe on social media

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Social media is a great place to catch up and share photos with your friends and family. Any place that you share information about yourself is a target for identity thieves and those who might want to use your generous nature for their own gains. What can you do to keep social media a safe place for you to interact with those you may not see very often?

Keeping your account secure

Protect your password. Be sure to choose a password that’s hard to guess and never share it with other people. Do NOT allow your passwords to be saved to your browser.

Beware of fake sites. Scammers sometimes create fake sites that look like a social media login page. Be sure to check the url in the address bar before typing in your login information. For example, the real Facebook site is www.facebook.com. Anything else is suspicious.

Logout if using a shared computer. Be sure to logout of social media sites if you share a computer with other people or are using a computer at an internet cafe at a library or business.

Friend/follow requests. Accept friend and follow requests only from people you know. If you think you’re already friends with them, be sure to check before accepting a second request.

Suspicious links. Be wary of suspicious links, even if they appear to come from a friend.

Extra security features. Many social media sites such as Facebook offer additional ways to protect your account. You can usually find these options in the menu under Settings. Using a computer to access these features often offers more options than accessing from a mobile device.

Facebook options

General Account Settings. In the General Account Settings, then Settings, Facebook allows you to edit your name and username as well as add a Legacy Contact that can manage your account should you pass away. You can also deactivate your account here.

Security and Login. Under Security and Login, you can choose friends to contact if you get locked out, see where you’re logged in, change your password, set two factor authentication and more.

Hiding Posts. If someone posts something on your timeline, you can hide or delete it by clicking the (…) in the top right of the post and selecting hide or delete. You can also block the person who posted it so they will not be able to post to your timeline in the future.

Block People. If someone is bothering you on Facebook, you can block them by accessing the Settings menu and choosing blocking on the left side menu. Enter the name of the person you want to block and click block. They will not be able to see things you post, tag you in their posts, invite you to events, start a conversation or add you as a friend. If that’s more than you want, you can also Unfriend them and/or block messages from them in messenger.

Avoiding Scams

Scams often happen when people create fake accounts or hack into existing accounts or Pages. They use these fake pages to trick you into giving them money or personal information because you think they are someone you know and trust. Some common scams include:

Romance – People who begin a romance scam are trying to build a trusting relationship with you online so that you feel that you know them. The conversations, typically including romantic and flattering messages, may go on for weeks or months with the goal of gaining your trust before asking for money.

Lottery – These scams often impersonate people or organizations you know and promise large winnings once you submit a small amount for fees or taxes.

Loans – These scams promise guaranteed loans at low rates once you submit a small up-front fee.

Access Token Theft – A link is shared with you that requests access to your Facebook account and instead of being a legitimate app, it’s a way for spammers to access your account and spread spam.

Privacy

To quickly assess your privacy settings, you can perform a “Privacy Checkup” which can be located under the Quick Help section by clicking on the ? at the top right.

On the Privacy menu, Facebook lets you set who can see your future posts, review everything that you’ve been tagged in and limit the audience of your past posts. You can also set how and who can find you on Facebook.

You can also set who can post to your timeline, who can see your timeline, hide comments containing certain words and control how and who tags you in their posts.

Other help

Facebook offers many resources to help you navigate security on their site. Click on the ? at the top right to see the options.

We hope that you never encounter security issues with your social media accounts and that you are able to use those accounts to connect and share with those you care about. These security measures will help you enjoy social media the way that works best for you.

Please remember that Allegacy will never request personal information on social media and never post account information on social media, even in a private message.

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