beware of social media

This might come as a shock to some people, the internet is a dangerous place to dwell unless you know your way round and what to do while your there. There are some nice people, some nice sites but some nasty stuff too. Stuff that wants your computer contents, your money or much, much worse.

If you treat it all very carefully and think before you post you might be ok. Bear in mind all social media wants you on their site and for you to stay there. Algorithms built in to their systems make notes of everything you do or say online and build a world for you. If you search for an item in google and it appears later in your Facebook feed this is intentional. If you look for certain videos in Facebook and suddenly your feed is full of them, again this intentional to keep you.

This is one of the ways that children especially can get caught out. If you look for diet tips for teenagers , for example then sites like u-tube will offer videos on bulimia as well as diets as both lose weight. If you research one person with links to a terrorist group in twitter they will offer you at least 3 more as people you might be interested in.

From search engines via social media and beyond they are creating what they want you to see, not necessarily what you want to find. A simple test is to have two or three people in the same room and attached to the same router. Get everyone to put identical words in to the same search engine and look at the results. In the old days everyone would get the most visited sites relevant to the search. Now each person will get a result tailored to them.

This could be partly negated if children avoided social media until the age they are supposed to be for access. Its 13 for twitter, same for Facebook without parents permission. Often people looking for underage children for their own needs will look in social media and pretend to be the same age, they may also give details of different websites the children can go to.

You might want to look at pictures and details you share on social media because of this. I regularly see photos of kids in school uniforms and details of the area they live in. Perfect details for a predator to start a conversation or simply to come looking for the child. Something innocent from a proud parent can be exploited. Also be careful telling the world you are off on holiday or already there. Tells a thief the house is empty, again be careful of any pictures showing off your new telly as this can be on a shopping list soon.

Always check your security settings and make sure your address isn't visible to anyone. I know many people use social media for photo sharing but be careful of what's there.

Another of the many scams is the fake adverts that appear, mostly tailored to you. I am a heavy metal fan and follow many bands through fan groups. Soon as i interact there are numerous adverts for dodgy t-shirts and other fake merchandise. these are mixed with faked likes and people pretending they are buying the rubbish. Look closely and you often see the poor photo shopping of a product on a musician.

Just to finish ruining everyone's day beware messenger , email and other personal communications. The sites that ask for full details for a survey or a quiz are harvesting information. The more you tell them the more they know about you and your habits. Soon you will be bombarded with emails based on your answers. If you say your single you will get dating sites, if you say no lie insurance you will be bombarded with offers.

It might seem obvious to most people that emails saying your bit coin is worth millions or someone you have never met has left you a fortune. As the scammers keep doing it then people must fall for it. Simple rule is if you didn't enter the competition you didn't win, if you don't know the person they didn't leave you a fortune and if you didn't buy bitcoin its not going to suddenly be a fortune.

Finally beware of people chatting in games or randomly asking you to chat. Some are genuine but its another way to con you. I get offers of Instagram and Facebook chats daily, if you look before agreeing you will see its a link to a porn site or similar. One thing i notice a lot is someone has thousands of followers but hasn't posted anything. Also yesterday while playing a word game downloaded from the play store I had 2 different people offering me a link to a wonder business opportunity.

Always think at least twice before you post and before you accept or share anything.