Fear of losing privacy on Facebook is one of the most common social networking fears I hear. People are concerned their personal information will become private, that everyone will know what they are doing or their financial data will be at risk.
While internet hacking does occur, your best defense begins with use of good general internet best practices. This is the best protection for your internet privacy.
- Never share personal information or anything you are uncomfortable with others seeing. Even with privacy settings, things can get out and become public on any site.This goes for for comments, pictures, video or any other medium. My benchmark is this: Would I feel comfortable with my Mom or Grandmother seeing this remark or picture I posted? If the answer is “no”, I know it is a comment which should not be made public.
- Use strong passwords and change them often. Create mnemonics to help remember your passwords. For example: “every good boy deserves fudge” -> egbdf.
- Use a different passwords for each site so if someone gets access, they cannot get into all of your accounts.
This is some risk with any internet site. By using internet best practices, you are more likely to retain your privacy and keep your data secure.