How private is your profile?

Privacy Settings

 It's a new age! It's an age where one of our main concerns is our profiles. Social networking has become a significant element in the lives of people all over the world. With just one click, you can find out what's going on in someones life by looking at their pictures, skimming through status updates, and reading posts. Letting our friends and loved ones know what's happening isn't so bad, but how do we keep people we don't like or know away from our profile?

The social networks, Facebook and Twitter, have several privacy setting that can be set to help protect you from individuals you don't necessarily want looking at your profile. But do all privacy settings work? Can they really keep people from looking at you? In this entry I will share with you how the media is currently covering current privacy setting issue and some tips they have for protecting yourself.

In a Feb 18th article in The Telegraph, Kara Grammell outlined specific, yet simple ways to protect yourself online while using social networks. Some of her ideas included setting up a new email account, being choosy about friend acceptances, checking your credit report regularly, and controlling your privacy settings.

Social networks are designed to make it very easy for other people to find you. Make sure that your privacy settings are set correctly. Facebook offers users control of their privacy setting within the "My privacy" section of the site. This can be reached by clicking on the "Privacy" link in the upper right-hand corner of any page on the website. From within the privacy section, you have control of all of your privacy settings and can fine-tune who will have access to your profile and activity on the Facebook website.

Earlier in January CNBC  aired a documentary entitled The Facebook Obsession. The documentary walked through much of the growth of the social network, talked about its positive aspects, but also hit on the topic of privacy settings. It told the story of a teacher who lost her job because she made a post on Facebook that she thought was only going to be seen by her friends. However, because Facebook had made changes among privacy settings, her post was reveal to basically everyone. Here is a link the full documentary.

Joe Cassels of techradar.com, wrote very specifically on how to manage your privacy settings. In his article 20 Facebook privacy settings tips, Feb 21st, Cassels highlighted the importance of keeping on top of privacy setting management because of the constant changes and new developments within Facebook. The article walks through several steps to keep this settings exactly where you want them.

Privacy settings on Facebook

As you have read there are several ways to be protect ourselves within social networks. Keeping up with the media is a good way to keep your awareness up about privacy settings. Try your best to keep yourself safe online.