Social media is a great tool for fun, entertainment, and staying up to date with friends and family.
In contrast, social media also presents an opportunity for great risk. Remember, everything we post online has a permanent digital presence.
So, how can we protect ourselves and our children?
Here are some ideas.
How to Spring Clean Your Social Media
Evaluate Your Friends List
Have you considered who can see all of your social media posts? Oftentimes our posts contain photos of our children or personal updates we wouldn’t want strangers seeing. How close are you with every person listed as ‘friends?’
First, take a few minutes to look through your friend list. If you don’t recognize names, start unfollowing.
Second, ask yourself, “Can I attest to each person’s character, and whether or not they should be viewing photos of my children?” or, “What might these people be doing with photos of my children?”
If unsure, unfriend.
Third, if you have no interest in what someone is posting, then most likely this person doesn’t need to know what your family is up to.
Review All Photos
It’s hard to remember what we had for dinner last week, let alone what we posted on social media 15 years ago.
Open your old photo albums and posts to review them. If these photos embarrass you, or you simply wouldn’t want your children to see, hit delete.
Also, consider each photo you have posted of your children. Ask yourself, “Would my child consent to this photo?”
If they are of age to make the decision, ask them. If they aren’t old enough to make such a big decision, pause and consider — would you want that photo of yourself on the internet?
Think twice before posting photos of your children on the toilet, in the bath, or without clothing on. It may be cute to you when they very little, but once uploaded, photos can be difficult to completely remove.
And with advances in artificial intelligence tools, including digitally altering photos and the creation of deepfakes, it’s tough to speak with certainty that your photos will be safe from any future misuse.
Overall, always be mindful of photos you post online of your children.
Enhance Security
To better secure your personal information:
- Change passwords every few months.
- Use strong passwords.
- Enable two-factor authentication (MFA).
- Avoid using your social media credentials to log into other apps. This gives third party apps access to your personal information.
- Review and update your privacy settings on each social media platform.
- Be aware of updates and changes.
- Limit the amount of information you share about yourself and your family.
Take time to learn how to enhance your own personal security on social media by researching articles and blogs. A great place to start is Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (cisa.gov).
Create Boundaries for Children
To promote safe use for your children on social media, consider these tips as a starting point:
- Join every social media app your child is on to learn everything there is to know about each app.
- Educate your child on personal information they shouldn’t share on social media.
- Set clear expectations regarding when your child should come to you if they hear or see something concerning on social media.
- Keep communication open to help encourage your child to come to you if something negative is said about them on social media.
- Define your boundaries with your child with regard to chatting with AI Chatbots.
- Remind your child that what they post today, their future employer or family members may see.
Furthermore, it’s important that we as parents take time to understand how are children are using social media and what they’re using it for. Take time to create guidelines and boundaries, and then clearly communicate them with your kids.
Check out Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency’s article Keeping Children Safe Online for more great tips.
Limit Personal Information You Share
Avoid sharing personal information about your children and yourself in your profile. This can make you susceptible to scammers and cybercriminals.
Without knowing it, you might be giving away answers to security questions within your social media profiles. Did you know the most common security questions include:
- What city were you born in?
- What is the name of your favorite pet?
- What high school did you attend?
- What was the name of your elementary school?
This information may seem harmless to share, but it can put you at risk — especially when we don’t know who or what is tracking and storing this information.
The less personal information you share online, the better.
Think Twice Before Posting
A good guideline to follow is only post what you would be comfortable with strangers knowing.
Before posting, try asking yourself, “Is this something I wouldn’t want my parents to have posted of me?” If the answer is maybe or yes, don’t post.
Rephrasing the question, “If my child was of age to give consent, would he/she?” Again, if you are unsure, it’s better to save the photo for yourself or in their photo album instead of sharing it for your thousands of ‘friends’ to see.
Even posting your location or schedule can be dangerous in the wrong hands. For example, wait to post your vacation photos until you’re back home.
Also, avoid posting information about your child’s school or teacher.
And of course, review what others post and tag you in. What you’re tagged in will reach all of their friends.
Social media is a powerful tool. Every social media platform we join, we’re sharing personal information about ourselves and our children. It’s up to us to educate and protect our and ourselves.
