HOW TO KEEP YOURSELF SAFE ONLINE

A guide for kids, teens, and young adults to keep your personal information to yourself.

Why did I make this guide? Quite simply, I feel that younger people don't know how to keep themselves safe & private online anymore. Public social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok have made far, FAR too many young people comfortable with sharing their private information with the masses of the internet, and I can't begin to express just how unsafe that is.

WHAT SHOULD BE PUBLICALLY AVAILABLE?

In my opinion, you should only put the bare minimum of yourself on your public profiles. For example, in my 'about me' section of my website I only have a nickname - which I recomend for EVERYONE to use a nickname - for myself, my general age range (for younger people to know how old I am, in case they don't want to follow an adult), and the country I live in. I don't have my real name, my exact age, the region of the country I live in, my gender, or sex listed as, quite frankly, it's nobodies business to know those things about me. Those are things I can reveal to individuals if I choose to, but none of those things need to be public knowledge! This is in effort to protect myself as much as I can as I can never be sure who's on the other side of the screen and what their intentions are; this is important for anyone at any age, but it's paramount for younger people to know this. Unfortunately, a vast amount of social media users seem to think they need to have absoutely everything about themelves listed, starting from their full name and all the way down to whatever mental illnesses they have. This is exceedingly dangerous in a myriad of ways. You might not think it's a big deal to put your full name on social media, but it really is. Sites like Facebook and Twitter (both very public social media sites where people attach their online personas to their personal selves) have nearly done away with the aspect of staying anonymous online, and that's dangerous considering not all social media should be used the same way by everyone. For instance, it's fine for public figures to have a Twitter that verifies exactly who they are as this actually protects them (or it did before Twitter was changed to X, but I digress) from people trying to impersonate them since it gives them a way to prove it's actually them, but it's not the same for the average person. Your followers that you don't know and will never meet don't need to know your name, or your home address, or your birthdate, or whatever else social media has made you think needs to be out there for just anyone to see. That is your personal information that should stay private. Consider this: you may not directly link your social media together because you don't want people to be able to follow all your sites, but what if you use your real name in your Twitter or TikTok profile? Now someone has a way to search for you on the wider internet, and you can find a LOT about someone from only their name; now consider you have other things about yourself listed. If someone only has your name they might not be able to definitely find you, that's true, but if you have other personal things listed that starts to narrow things down. Each piece of personal info you put online only makes it easier and easier to find you, and believe me when I tell you there is an unknowable amount of predators online who want to find vulnerable people. If you're young, you're vulnerable; extremely vulnerable.

HOW CAN YOU PROTECT YOURSELF?

If privacy is important to you (and it should be!) I think having the following be easily available is fine:

A nickname. This is better than having your real name as it makes it harder for people to search for you, especially if your real name is an uncommon one. You can use a nickname from your real name (i.e. going by Jess if your name is Jessica), but I would say going beyond this is even safer. Take me, for instance; my name isn't Luna, and my real name is nowhere close to it. I chose my nickname as I absolutely LOVE the moon and as there are many, many things called or referred to as Luna it's not all that unique so if someone were trying to search for me in particular, it would be pretty hard to sift through all results related to 'luna', plus it wouldn't turn up anything except this website. You can do something similar! You could name yourself after a colour, or a flower, or a characater you really like, or just go by the username that you commonly use. All those are fairly neutral and safe to use! If you only follow one rule to keep yourself safe, this is your best bet. People can do so muchwith just your name; don't give them it.

A basic age range. Nobody needs to know your exact age, and they certainly don't need to know your birthdate. If you're a minor you could simply put that you're a minor, or put that you're in your teens. If you're and adult, you can do something similar; people knowing you're an adult or what age range you're in is enough. I do think age is a somewhat important piece of infomation as some adults aren't comfortable following minors, and vice versa. You can always choose to reveal your birthday to certain people, but it shouldn't be public. Also, this applies to your zodiac sign! I don't mean you shouldn't reveal your signs if you want to, but please be careful doing so. As astrology charts are based on the exact time and place you were born, this can give a lot of information away! I know astrology is fun (and to many people, quite serious) but it's not always safe.

The country you live in. This isn't something inherintly bad to post as most people can usually figure out where you're from based on posting patterns by basing it on what timezone you live in and the language you speak, if they try hard enough. However, I would still say to keep it vague; if you live in America, that's all people need to know. Nobody needs to know what state, province, territory, or prefecture you live in, but they especially don't need to know the city you live in! Even if you live a massive city (say, you live in Tokyo, or São Paolo, or Los Angeles) it's still best to be on the safe side and keep where you live to yourself.

What pronouns you go by, if this is something you consider people should know about you. This along with your gender/sex are completely up to you whether or not to disclose as they're fairly risk free for people to know!

HOW TO FURTHER PROTECT YOURSELF

Use separate emails for personal and private use. I would recommend having different emails for things like school and emailing people you personally know (I know email isn't as popular as it used to be but some people still use it!) and having a different one for private use, i.e. one that you use for your accounts. I say this because I know a lot of people who use their real names for their email handles it and it would be best to have this as far removed from social media as it can be, especially if you use your email as a contact! I personally use Proton for things like my social media accounts as it's a safe & secure service, but if you don't want to try a new site and only keep emails separate that's fine.

Limit the amount of pictures/videos you post of yourself, and what information is revealed in them. I know this might be hard to do considering how popular apps like Instagram and TikTok are, but it's a good practise to not post too much of what you look like online. If you do take pictures/videos of yourself, try to limit revealing locations that can tell where you live, such as a landmark or the name of a business.

NEVER EVER SEND NUDES. I cannot stress enough just how important this is, but especially if you're a minor. Nobody ever needs to have naked pictures of you, no matter how much you may love each other. Once you send a nude picture of yourself, you lose all control of it and that can become very, very dangerous. This can open you up to sextortion, or a potential crime as - even though you've taken the picture of yourself - it still constitutes as child pornography; being a minor yourself doesn't protect you against this.

HOW CAN YOU PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNTS?

Never ever give out your passwords to anyone, no matter who they are. The passwords you use for you accounts are only ever for you, unless (and this is really the only reason I can think of) you run a joint account with someone. Otherwise, keep them safe. How exactly can you keep them safe? First things first - and I know I've just said this, but it bears repeating - is to never tell someone a password; this is the absolute best way. Second, you can use a password manager! These are extensions that you add to your browser that save your passwords so that you don't need to remember them, which brings me to the third way to keep your passwords safe: Make your passwords as random as you can. The more random, the better. Using combinations of upper case and lower case letters is a great way to lessen people being able to guess your passwords as they are always case sensitive, and most passwords are required to have this be the case, anyways. You can add numbers and special characters as well, if the site you're joining allows it. FireFox (which I truly think everyone should use if they aren't doing so aleady) suggests very strong passwords automatically when you make a new account anywhere - I'm not sure about Chrome/Chromium browsers - and automatically remembers them for you. [Small note about having your passwords saved in your browser: While this might seem safe, it might not always be the case! If someone other than you uses your computer they can get access to all of your accounts without needing to validate anything as there's no way for your browser to know who someone is and you don't need to sign-in to your account to access your saved passwords. This is something to keep in mind if you're thinking about whether or not to get a password manager.] Fourth, change your passwords if you feel someone might know what they are. It used to be recommended to change your passwords regularly, but these days having strong passwords is usually good enough and you shouldn't need to change them. HOWEVER, if you think someone has somehow gotten a hold of an account, change your password right away; you should also change your password if you use a site that's had a data breach.

Don't make your passwords too easy! It might seem fine to have a password that's easy for you to remember, but they could also be easy to guess! Things to avoid are having overly simple passwords. 1234567, qwerty, thisismypassword would all be considered easy to remember but also very easy to guess so it's best to stay away from them.
Don't reuse your passwords for more than one site! This is because if someone gets access to just one password of yours, they could access any account that uses the same password.
Don't give out the answers to your security questions! Security questions are things like 'what's your mothers maiden name?', 'what was the name of your childhood pet?', 'what is the name of the street you grew up on?'; these are used as account recovery questions and the answers are to be kept to yourself to verify your idenity if you lose an account for whatever reason. If someone knows the answers to these, they could gain access to an account without knowing your password.
Use Two-Step Verification. Two-Step Verification is a way to keep your accounts more secure as simply using your password will not sign you into an account; you will need to input a secondary code. These are usually done by third-party apps and services.

OTHER THINGS THAT ARE GOOD TO KNOW

Be careful about what you say online. This can be interpreted as not bullying or harrassing people, yes, but it's also important to remember not to talk about illegal activities publically - for instance, talking about abortion if you live somewhere with strict abortion laws - and you should especially not talk about it if your real name is attached to your social media. Think about it like this: if you wouldn't say something to a person of authority, don't say it somewhere that it can be attached to your real identity.

Conclusion

If you went into this unsure of whether or not internet safety is important, I hope I've at least given you something to think about, if nothing else; if you choose to employ any of these methods going forward, that's great! My greatest wish is for the youth of today (and everyone, of course) to feel safe on the internet as it's such a wonderful thing to be a part of, but it can also be used in horrible ways. Your wellbeing should always be top priority for you and I hope I've given you some ways to take control of it to make your time online a better experience.

Stay safe out there, kids ♡