Information Security
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Protect Your Information and Identity
Stay Secure on Social Media

Social media sites and apps are everywhere, for everyone, and practically everything. While these sites are built for sharing, it's easy to forget that once something is shared it can be hard to take it back. 

Facebook

You can make some simple adjustments to your Facebook settings and habits that will increase your privacy:

  1. Utilize Facebook's privacy shortcuts and settings to ensure that you know who can see your information.
  2. Understand how to recognize sensitive content and behavior and how to report it.
  3. Remain conscientious of your social media habits:
    1. Only you should know your password.
    2. Be careful when logging in on devices that you don't own, and be sure to log out afterwards.
    3. Consider any consequences your posts can have before posting.
    4. Customize your privacy settings and check them often. Platform updates may adjust how the privacy settings work.
    5. Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know personally. Be especially wary if you have no mutual friends with the person sending the request.
    6. Inform Facebook of any suspicious activity you see on their site.

Everything you might want to know about Facebook and how you can protect yourself on it can be found on the Facebook Help Site.

Twitter

It's important to ensure that your Twitter account is secure. Here are some articles on how to maintain privacy on Twitter: 

The amount and depth of information you provide on social media is entirely up to you. Review posts, photos, and videos for sensitive information before posting. You should also be sure to only post your location when you want to. Find out more about how media can contain your location without your knowledge, as well as how to disable this feature on your devices.

Ask yourself the following questions while using Twitter:

  • Who is capable of seeing my posts?
  • Am I posting personal information?
  • Are my posts private?
  • Can I trust all the people that see this information?

Everything you might want to know about Twitter and how you can protect yourself on it can be found on the Twitter Help Center and Safety & Security Section.

Instagram

  • Report questionable posts: The Instagram application allows for direct reporting to the Instagram team in cases of illegal content or posts that violate their terms of use.
  • Limit who can view your posts: Review who can see each post before completing upload through Instagram Direct to only share with certain people.
  • Enable profile privacy: Utilize Instagram's privacy settings to keep posts from being publicly accessible.
  • Consider whether or not you should use Photo Map: Posting your location may not always be a good idea. By default, photos are not uploaded to the Photo Map.
  • Block when needed: If you are not comfortable with certain people viewing your profile, you can block them from seeing your content.

Everything you might want to know about Instagram and how you can protect yourself on it can be found on the Instagram Help Center.

Google+

Everything you might want to know about Google+ and how you can protect yourself on it can be found on the Google+ Help Center.

LinkedIn

Everything you might want to know about LinkedIn and how you can protect yourself on it can be found on the LinkedIn Help Center and Security Center.

Pinterest

Everything you might want to know about Pinterest and how you can protect yourself on it can be found on the Pinterest Help Center.