The 10 biggest mistakes people make on Facebook
When I was doing research on internet security and how social media has changed people’s lives, I came across an article on Facebook and some of the mistakes that people make when creating their profiles. I found myself to be one of the victims. This article which was posted on www.itworld.com discussed some of the mistakes people make especially in terms of creating account privacy.
Social networking is fun and its now important in terms of information sharing but if you are not cautious it can be very dangerous. I found this article to be worthy sharing especially to those who wish to be on social networking platforms like Facebook.
“Facebook is fun — until somebody gets fired, divorced, infected with malware, or worse. Don’t let these things happen to you.”
1. Using your account strictly for promotional purposes People do this on Twitter all the time (and we secretly hate them for it). But if you only use Facebook to drive people to your site/article/my miserable life, you’ll find yourself being quietly unfriended as well as ignored. Make at least half your posts personal and your peeps will find the promos more palatable.
2. Getting too personal Did we really need to hear the intimate details of your latest Jagermeister jag or see photos of your recent colonoscopy? We think not. And neither will your prospective employers
3. Drunken commenting You’ve had a few pops, so you log onto Facebook and begin leaving comments on people’s photos and posts. They seem absolutely hilarious at the time, but in the cold hangover light of morning you just look like an ass
4. Falling for the “I’m an old friend you haven’t seen in 20 years and I’m stranded in London could you please wire me money” scam
5. Slagging on your boss, co-workers, friends, or significant others We all got gripes. But in the meatspace they tend to dissipate over time; on Facebook they’re forever, or as close to it as the digital world generally gets. They may fall harmlessly into the digisphere or they may come back to cause you a world of pain — there’s just no way to know.
6. Being duped by malware. These are typically spread via outrageously titled wall posts like “Claim you share!!, You have won $10 000.
7. Logging in from a free public WiFi hotspot. (Like the one at public center in Africa Unity Square garden) First, there’s the question whether that “Free Public WiFi” network really is a free hotspot generously provided for your use by some benevolent business establishment, or in reality an “evil twin” honeypot that’s out to capture your information. And even if the hotspot is legit, because Facebook uses an insecure sign on protocol, your user name and password could be stolen by anyone sniffing the WiFi network (or by using Firesheep, a program designed to specifically target log-in cookies for popular social networks).
8. Friending people because their profile pictures are hot You get inundated with the most banal updates and/or spammy self promotion you can imagine. Worst case: They turn out to be bait for some scammer trying to socially engineer information out of you.
9. Clicking ads inside Facebook Platform games. Because you really don’t know what information those Facegames are sharing with advertisers, despite what they may claim
10. Accepting Facebook’s default privacy settings You can make your public profile almost negligible, thanks to Facebook’s enhanced privacy settings. But Facebook wants and needs you to share your data with the world for its ad model to work, so its default settings are still pretty generous with your information. Take my advice: Go as private as you can and let the others take the heat.