Oversharing on Social Media
Jan 07, 2019
It feels good(and maybe important) to share details on what’s happening in your life on social media, in fact, some people can’t go a day without posting it, but have you stopped to think the bad side of it? Well, besides the risk of boring your social media friends, there poses a risk of breach of privacy which escalates to possible security dangers you will be exposing yourself to. If you’re wondering how exactly this makes you a target of crime, here’s a real-life example- In 2017, Kim Kardashian was robbed in Paris hotel due to what investigators attributed to oversharing on social media. There’s more damage in sharing too much information on social media, see details below;
Identity theft
Posting your information such as phone numbers, full names, address and in some rare cases, credit card number give malicious people the opportunity to steal the information for their selfish gains. The effect is receiving strange calls, seeing other social media accounts in your account and details and in the instance of hacking, the hackers get a rare opportunity to access your private information including credit cards information.
Increasing risk of burglary
If you’re used to using location-based services on your social media account, it becomes easy to predict your movements and stalkers might take the chance when you’re away to raid your house. It also becomes easy to track you thus exposing you to more security dangers. You’ll never know who is snooping your data so be smart when you post.
Land yourself in trouble with the Tax Department
The tax man might be your Facebook friend and if you are sharing assets and $$ you’re not sharing with them that will raise the alarm to them.
Risk of job losses
It might be a bad day at work, but you can handle it without posting on social media. Your future recruiter might be interested to look at your activities on social media, ask yourself if what you’re posting today can make you lose that chance. People lose jobs due to posting about their bosses and the nature of work. Remember the internet never forgets and even though your boss might not be on social media, the information can reach to him/her through someone else (who’s probably eyeing your position).
How to prevent issues:-
- Limit what people who are not your friend can see on your profile
- Lock down your profile so only your known friends and family can see what you post on your social media walls. If you’re using Facebook, you can find this under the ‘Privacy and Security’ settings.
- When posting – select the people you want to see the post.
While sharing on Instagram stories, you can select a list of close friends who can see your posts. On Facebook posts, you can select ‘Friends’ and if you want to exclude some friends you can do it under the ‘Friends Except’ option.
- Ensure you don’t have your house set up as a geo tag
- Be selective about what you share and think of the implication this could bring.
Always safeguard your privacy on social media by limiting the information you share. It goes a long way in improving your overall security.
