Social Media Security

Decades ago, in the expanding internet social media lands, securing one’s online presence, while keeping yourself safe IRL, was far less complex. Now, times have changed, as many social media gathering places are littered with bad actors and other hostile threats. Almost everyone uses social media daily, WE, the Anonymous collective comprised of individuals, use it daily. This guide will cover how to remain safe using social media, not only for ourselves, but for the collective as a whole, as well as the general public.

Separating your RL identity and securing your personal info from your social media presence, is quickly becoming more crucial. Many people still use a handle which closely resembles their RL identity, and this can be a grave mistake, with harsh lessons being learned from it. Whenever you consider starting up a new social media account, it’s highly advisable that you separate the RL person from the online one. This provides an extra bit of protection against hostiles online, looking to cause harm. It’s a good practice to get into, so let’s all start using it.

The first course of action before even starting an account, should be to do up a plan of it’s purpose, what qualities you want to express with the identity, and what information you are or aren’t willing to divulge. While most social media sites ask for a name and other personal info, this doesn’t mean you *have* to provide them with the real info. Plan out a name, birthdate, place of work and other details that you find acceptable to expose, but none of them real and based off yourself, or anyone you know. Use an entirely different email address as well to start each new social media acct. I can’t express enough how important it can be to separate each SM presence as it’s own unique identity. Ideally, this strategy should be used for every social media account you create.

The only exception to this should be if you’re intentionally using the same handle over different platforms. Even if this is your plan, still use different email address, “real” name and DOB etc in setting the accounts up. That way, even if ONE account somehow becomes compromised, it’s not going to have as much impact on the others. If someone manages to gain control of your one account, they’re not going to be able to use that info to access your other accts, even if the handle is the same. Additionally, with each email and SM acct, be sure to make use of any and all additional account security features such as recovery and 2FA.

[[security:2fa|2FA]]

All this use of fictional information in your account, might be tricky to remember for some, so you can (and should) create a text file or something for reference. Keep this info secured, preferably on a backup drive or USB stick along with any other password files or account recovery info.