“Navigating Social Media Safely: A Guide for Women’s Online Security”

 Social media has become an important aspect of our lives in the digital age, giving us a platform for connecting with others, self-expression, and communication. It has provided possibilities for women’s education, empowerment, and networking. However, the digital world also comes with its share of risks and challenges concerning safety.

We will explore some tips and practices to ensure the safety of women, focusing on navigating social media and cybersecurity.

1. Protecting Personal Information

Privacy setting: One of the primary steps to secure your account is safeguarding personal information. It is essential to protect your social media account with privacy settings.

You can easily control who can view your post, who can comment on it, personal information, and friend lists. Limit the visibility of your content to trusted friends and family.

Be cautious with sharing: Avoid sharing sensitive personal information on the public platform, such as financial details, phone numbers, and home addresses. Fraud and harassment cases are increasing and gaining popularity on social media. So, make yourself far away from these frauds and create for yourself a safe digital world.

2. Set strong and unique passwords.

Create strong passwords: when you create a password for your social media account use special symbols and letters to protect your account. Women should avoid common phrases like birthday dates, nicknames and phone numbers. Ensure your password is robust and not easily cracked by anyone.

Password manager: Consider using a reputable password manager to keep track of your login credentials securely. Don’t share your password with anyone. Even your friends do not harm you intentionally but accidentally they reveal your password to someone. So, keep your password private and complicated.

3. Be mindful of oversharing

Think twice before you post: Yes, this is true. Women’s harassment cases are swiftly increasing in the new digital age. There are many sinister browsing social media to initiate friendships with women. Be mindful of sharing details about your whereabouts and lifestyle.

So, before sharing any content on social media, consider if it could be against you or compromise your safety.

Several cases rapidly gaining popularity through social media in the digital world. Be selective when you post or share any information on social media accounts. Nowadays, women are mostly active on social media and post all kinds of stuff, such as personal pictures, making it more harmful.

Location tagging: Avoid tagging your exact location in posts or check-ins, as this might reveal your whereabouts to strangers. Stalkers can easily find a way to reach you with your updated post.

Sometimes known people will also be harmful to us because we never know the evil intentions but outside behaviour always show a good side. Be careful with known ones also.

4. Recognize and report harassment.

Identify harassment: Learn to recognize cyberbullying and online harassment. It is essential to report and block users who engage in such behaviour.

People targeted women more than men, especially the age group of 14 to 26 because teenage girls are easily influenced by strangers if they speak softly and appreciate girls for their beauty. They use their fake ID and use fake names and pictures on their profile.

Report to Platform: Now most social media platforms have features to report abusive content and users promptly. Utilize the benefits of these features to maintain a safe online environment.

5. Be selective with friend requests.

Accept the request wisely: Accept requests only from people you know and trust in real life. Always being mindful of friend requests and avoiding strangers’ requests can help maintain a smaller, trusted online network.

Don’t accept the friend request of any fake profiles because they perform illegal activity and try to ruin your life. Sometimes, known people will also harm us through social media and they use for intentionally.

For example, Rahul and Sheena both study at the same college. Rahul and Sheena become good friends, and Rahul starts liking Sheena, but she only wants friendship with him. He proposed to Sheena on Valentine’s Day, but she rejected his proposal. He feels low and hurt and has decided to take revenge on her. How is she refusing me over Manish? Who is Manish? Manish is Sheena’s boyfriend, and they are both happy together. Rahul creates a fake social media account using Reena’s name and pictures to take revenge. They updated her pictures with bad captions and her mobile number on the fake social media account. After that, Sheena received hundreds of calls in a day. She is afraid and wonders why people call and talk about cheap things. She knew who created all this mess, and she spoke to Rahul and requested that he stop all this. He is angry, and he gives a threat to Sheena: I will ruin your life. Sheena filed the complaint against Rahul at the police station, and then she finally relaxed and felt safe. The police arrested Rahul and punished him, and then he realized our mistake and felt sorry.

Verify profiles: Be careful of fake profiles and verify the authenticity of any new request before accepting it.

6. Avoid clicking on suspicious links.

Phishing awareness: Be aware of phishing scams, which are deceptive attempts to obtain your sensitive information from emails or websites. Women should be cautious about clicking on any suspicious links or providing personal data in response to unsolicited messages.

Those women are illiterate and easily targeted by scammers because they don’t aware of any suspicious links. They only know about how to scroll social media. Women have learned to recognize any suspicious links and not click on them.

If you click, they get all your information and you can easily be trapped in a scam. And you don’t even recognize it on call. I am sharing my experience with all of you.

A few months ago, I got a call from an unknown number. I received a call from a lady who spoke from the other side. She said I am calling from the bank and your account has to be closed soon. I asked her to tell me in which bank I have held an account. She doesn’t have any answers and then I disconnect the call. Bank never called you like this and I know if I talked to her more so she wanted more sensitive information related to my bank account.

Secure browsing: Use secure and updated browsers that offer protection against malicious websites.

7. Update software regularly.

Operating systems and apps: Keep updated with the latest version in the operating systems, applications and antivirus to minimize the risk of vulnerabilities. It helps keep away from threats and run your system and apps smoothly. Updating apps is very crucial because they innovate their apps with different security features timely according to users need meets.

Following such news sources related to cybersecurity can empower women with the knowledge to protect themselves effectively.

As women increasingly participate in the digital world, it is essential to navigate it safely. For women, ensuring online safety involves protecting sensitive information, using strong passwords, and reporting any issues that evolve in your digital presence, which means maintaining a safe and positive presence in the online world.

Have a nice day 😊

Thanks for reading!

Reference by: https://bit.ly/45H2nxy