Social Media Shenanigans: They Stalk Amongst Us

Hunched in the corner of the coffee shop, book in hand but eyes fixed on the group of women seated at the adjacent table, busy with lunch time lattes. The silent shadow ambling a few metres behind you, your sixth sense tingles, you turn around but see nothing. The odd ball that seems to be everywhere that you are except you can’t recall where you have met before. Sounds like a scene out of Criminal Minds and this used to be the way stalkers spent most of their days. Let’s not forget the scene where the police walk into a room and find one hundred photos with the victim’s best friends head chopped off and the stalkers grinning face pasted in.

Gone are the days when people needed to be in your immediate vicinity for you to start thinking that they have too much access to you and your life. Your posts tell us more than just where you ate last night and which Netflix series you are currently enjoying. If I go back on some of your posts, combining your activity on all your social media accounts, I’m pretty sure I could accurately analyse your online behaviour and give you some uncalled-for insights.

But don’t be alarmed. Breathe. I don’t have the necessary skills to do anything with the information I glean. Think about it though. How many people who are your ‘followers’ and ‘friends’ have access to your life? They are able to watch your videos on repeat, able to page through your photo albums at leisure and can download your photos and create a coffee table book without you ever knowing it? They stalk amongst us people!

Let me give you a real-life example. I once suspected that someone was way too interested in our lives. When I eventually lost my patience and addressed it, I was told, “I resent the inference.” The inference that you are a stalker? Well, I took it upon myself to do a little digging into said persons social media accounts. I discovered a changed pattern of behaviour since we had met, tweets that revealed a lot and let’s just sum up with-you can tell a lot about a person from their pins on Pinterest! Creating a pinboard and storing images that are going to reveal your interests and what you are up to is not the smartest move. Wait, read on don’t go scrambling to check your pinterest account just yet.

Now if you think I’m going to huff and puff about this stalker, I’m not. The biggest fool in this scenario is ME. Ignorance of privacy settings made it possible for people to use my social media pages as a picture journal to sift out our favourite things to do, favourite places to be, to dig into days gone by and find things that were suddenly ‘things we had in common’. Here’s what I learned from this:

Accountability:

It is YOUR responsibility to check your privacy settings on any social media platform and ensure that the people who have access to your accounts are the ones you want to have access to it. Differentiate between your business and private accounts. Yes, the big guys can be fined for failing to adopt proper security measures but by then its too late. You chose to sign on for an account. You need to play an active role in securing your information.

SAY NO:

You do not have to provide personal information where it is not an intrinsic element for a service or product. Why would you say yes to actions like using your microphone, tracking your location, or access to your photo’s if it is not integral to the purpose of that product or service?

Consistency:

You cannot check your settings once and then assume all is well in the Cyberverse. Check them regularly and make sure you are comfortable with the privacy settings. You are allowed to have second thoughts and change your previous selections. You can manage your settings so that they remain the same on any device.

Knowledge is power

Social media platforms offer guidance about their privacy tools. Look at the guidelines or FAQ’s and adjust your settings accordingly. The same applies to your devices. Take the time to get to know it or suffer the consequences.

My final thoughts on this would be:

• Do exercise common sense

• Do turn off options that allow sharing of too much information

• Do check privacy settings on devices given to your kids.