Privacy

[deephiance]

Ladies and Gents,

Please take a moment to read this.

Please check all your privacy settings on all social media and dating websites and APPS, including OLD websites.

This includes MySpace, Google+, YouTube, Facebook and any other social media or dating websites/APPS along those lines.

Double check what you are sharing with people you don't know, do a web search on google or yahoo and see what results come up, all this will only take 10 minutes of your time maximum.

I have always been complacent about what people can see about me and it has resulted in someone E-Stalking me and uncovering semi-nude photos, which I would only be too happy to share with anyone here, as they are 15+ years old, but they were found on MySpace, and account that I had completely forgotten existed.

I am not the slightest bit embarrassed by them, my only concern was my friends have children that are accessing the internet and if they did the simple search that was done by my stalker, they would have found those photos and that would have been uncomfortable.

Also make sure that you have things like 'comments' set so that you can moderate comments before they become public, or disable comments all together. My stalker is having a great deal of fun after signing up to a fake account in youtube (Who does that?), and leaving crass and lewd remarks on my YouTube videos, viodeo's that feature my pet dogs and my aquarium set ups, but what he didn't know is after the first comment I changed my settings so that every time he commented, his comments were hidden...but now they are completely blocked.

So please, protect yourself and protect those around you by spending the next 10 minutes double checking your security setting

[Cuddly]

Thanks for the tip.

I am sorry to hear about your E-stalker, but happy to learn that he's got nothing on you. #waterguns

[InbetweenDreams]

Totally forgot about MySpace... So I went in and luckily all my photos were locked... But nothing I wouldn't have normally shared... However, I am going to go ahead and delete the account since MySpace is completely not relevant to me anymore and funny thing is apparently I was using it as late as 2009... I didn't think I was on MySpace that long...

But those are all very good things to bring up, we make accounts and forget about them, leaving a digital paper trail that someone can exploit.

Stalking is all the way around creepy, although may not always be malicious like that it is still an invasion of privacy. Unfortunately not the only time someone has had a stalker on here...

[IanSaysHi]

In cases like this, dragging up someone's personal history does not reflect badly on the victim. Unless you have lived in some kind of frozen bubble of time or lived down a well all your life, everyone has a history of some kind and it's completely irrelevant . The only cases where history is important is if you've some kind of responsibility for others which the person in question's history may have some bearing or if you're standing for a career in politics.
Call out someone for their behaviour and let people judge that if they want to; but researching someone's past to try and - well whatever it was that was attempted to be achieved here - is just bizarre.

[sillyboy86]

I never liked so much to be photographed even before the social networks so...
But I agree with you, always check your privacy setting before doing something you could regret.

[CorsacReborn]

Personally I think anything that could be considered social media should start with a "how to" on keeping yourself safe using that particular site or app before you can sign up for the first time.

Too many people are eager to just sign up to a website or apps without realising what risks they may be taking, and too many are too eager to post semi nude pics of themselves or pics of their children. Many people have seen what being relaxed on security can do when they have someone pose as them online, and in a lot of these cases it can turn out to be someone that they know.

I only really have a twitter and google account these days although I'm not sure if I've enabled google+, either way I don't post anything at this time so I have nothing to regret in the future. My Facebook account was deleted over 2 years ago because I found it to be a breeding ground for unsavoury behaviour with people who I knew, people can have my number if they wish to stay in touch.