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 and also any older “personal” accounts with your ACTUAL info, from the newer ones without it. 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 account. 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 accounts, even if the handle is the same. Additionally, with each email and SM account, be sure to make use of any and all additional account security features such as recovery and two-factor authentication.

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.

Now that you've gotten your intended social media account actually set up, you're going to start posting on it, so the first rule of thumb should be considered: Never presume anything that you say or do on social media, is “private”. This is probably one of the top mistakes people make because even if your account is fairly locked down to where only specific people can view it's contents, each of those people is still a security risk. They can, and might, just screencap what you're posting and release it into the wilds of the interwebs without your knowledge or consent. One day you might get in a disagreement with an online “friend”, next thing you know, all your most personal thoughts and comments are being distributed, with random unknowns commenting and possibly reposting. They can even leak it offline into your RL friends or family if they've managed to find any of them via your account.

Choose your content and words wisely with the understanding that nothing really is private. A good habit is just to avoid discussions regarding where you went to school, past jobs, details about RL family or friends and absolutely includes posting personal pictures. Images posted on an account can always be downloaded and reverse image searches can produce quite good results, tracing you to your other social media spaces. So if you've posted an image on a secured account and also on a personal account with your RL name, those two might be connected if someone decides to dig up info on the image. Suddenly, they've found your other account with your real identity, NOT GOOD. Remember: the online folks aren't your RL circle, so keep that shit separate, because the two worlds colliding can result in an epic shitstorm in your life. Nobody needs that.