Question

List and explain any three social media etiquettes that individuals should follow to protect their safety and privacy online.

Hint:

To test your privacy posture, perform a search on your own name in an incognito window. This will reveal your public digital footprint, showing you exactly what information strangers can see about you.

Answer 1

Step 1: Understanding Social Media Etiquettes for Security:
Social media platforms are collaborative, public-facing environments. Maintaining privacy and personal safety requires following specific behavioral guidelines (etiquettes) designed to reduce digital footprints and limit exposure to bad actors.

Step 2: Explaining Three Key Etiquettes:
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• Think Before You Share (Avoid Oversharing): Users should never broadcast highly sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) --- such as live geographical locations, home addresses, phone numbers, school schedules, or boarding passes. This data can be scraped by bad actors to commit identity theft, execute targeted phishing attacks, or track movements.
• Secure and Restrict Profile Privacy Settings: Do not leave profile settings open to the general public. Users should configure privacy settings to restrict account visibility exclusively to verified friends and family. This limits how much access search engines and strangers have to personal photo archives, posts, and timelines.
• Exercise Vigilance with Connections and Friend Requests: Do not accept random connection or follow requests from unknown profiles. Attackers often deploy clone accounts or social-engineering bots to gain access to a user's private network, gathering information to exploit their trusted circle of contacts.