Tracy Leah is a loving mother of three. She’s also an expert on social media security. In fact, she’s attended and given seminars about social media security for the US government, and for a number of fortune 500 companies.
It’s safe to say that when this mom gives advice about keeping your kids’ social media account safe and secure, you’d better listen.
Recently, Tracy listed a number of tips and tricks for parents on Quora. Here are her 10 tips that can help keep your kids safe and secure on Facebook and other social media platforms:
1. Manage security options
“Lockdown security options on your account by clicking every setting option and limiting everything, including who can see your FB friends (click, only you).”
Make sure when your children are logging into their Facebook accounts that you’ve managed their security options. Ensure that you’ve filtered who can see what, and what they can see. You don’t want them, nor do they need to be, associating with people that they don’t know at a young age.
2. Mask personal information
“Don’t enter your real birthday or any personal bio information. People who know you already know your information.”
Your younger children don’t need to be revealing anything too personal. Disguise or mask their more personal information so that there’s minimal risk as they browse through Facebook. After all, there are tons of strangers out there!
Keep your family safe. Click next to read more helpful tips for maintaining security on Facebook!
3. Take caution in uploading photos
“Cautiously select photo’s of your children and avoid providing information on where they go to school, their ages, location – everything.”
Once again, you want to make sure your kids aren’t sharing anything too revealing. As Leah says, school, age, and location, are all things that should be avoided in their photos and status updates.
4. Only accept friend requests of known people
“Only friend people whom you know well, and unfriend anyone whose posts are all ‘public’ – even if they are your friends because their setting will allow others to see your posts and information.”
As mentioned earlier, your kids don’t need to be associating with people they don’t know. One of the best ways to do this is to make sure that the only people on their friends list are acquaintances. That way they’ll only be on a network of friendly faces!
5. Don’t oversaturate the newsfeed
“Avoid over-sharing. Stalking is prevalent on FB, prevention or limiting such abusers can mostly be achieved via through the security settings.”
If your kids are posting more and more content, they’re more susceptible to becoming a target of unknown users. You can limit what is seen, and what they can see through security measures, but be sure to warn them about the dangers of oversaturating their newsfeed.
6. “What do I want others to see?”
“Assume everyone can see everything, and consider what you really want other to know about you and your children.”
Make sure that your kids are aware that what they share becomes public and that they run the risk of sharing too much information, or images that may or not be intended for a specific group of people. If they understand this, they may be more cautious when posting, but make sure that you understand that very same concept as well. What do you want others to see or know about your kids? The less the better in most cases.
Keep your family safe. Click next to read more helpful tips for maintaining security on Facebook!
7. Check security settings after updates
“Recheck your FB security settings after every FB ‘update’. I discovered settings often they revert back to defaults, making some of your information public again.”
Settings sometimes return to default after a big update. If you don’t realize this, then you may be exposing your kids to internet dangers after an update has completed! Make sure whenever there is an update that you are making sure the security settings are to your liking.
8. Post vacation photos and statuses AFTER you return
“Don’t post vacation photos until you return. I posted a picture on FB while on vacation with my kids. When we returned, our house had been burglarized. And I have my setting locked down, but I’d friended too many people – I then limited my friends to less than 100 – all of whom I knew well.”
It’s nice to share your traveling experiences with your social media group, but do you really want a whole network of people knowing that your house is empty? Your kids may want to post on social media the next time you go out of town, but make sure that they wait until you have returned from the trip to share the photos and posts.
9. Don’t like pages unless you know the operator
“Avoid ‘Liking’ pages unless you know the owners personally. Often, you’re unknowingly permitting the owners of the ‘Liked’ pages to full access to your information and your contacts; which the page owners can then use, sell and/or target advertising.”
It’s easy to “like” the silly community pages that post harmless memes, or goofy photos. But what you’re really doing is accepting a friend request (in essence) and allowing them access to everything they need to know. Make sure that your kids aren’t liking communities or pages unless they know the operator themselves or through you.
10. Update frequently
“Frequently check and update your safety, privacy, app and game access, advertising, friend, posts view, and pages settings.”
Having learned the importance of the security options and functions Facebook has to offer, you’d be wise to make sure that these settings are up to date. Just make sure you’ve checked to see if the settings are maintained after the update.
READ: Find out why this mom shared her every major parenting mistake on Facebook
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