The internet is very small. A simple Facebook search of your name and personal details like your job, address and mobile number can be revealed if you do not have the right privacy settings.
What can hackers do with these details ? They can potentially hack your credit card details or use these information to scam those around you. These hackers have violated a law :
“Only use Sensitive Information for marketing purposes with the consent of the consumer concerned.” – Association for data-driven marketing & advertising (2018), Code of Practice
How easy can your data be found? Lets talk about the application Zenly. When I heard about it, I couldn’t believe the functions it provides. Zenly allows you to constantly be able to see the location of the friends you add, and you would know whether they are at home or they are out partying. It also shows your phone’s current battery percentage. While this maybe a handy application to have, I felt disturb when people started sending me question such as ” Late for school? ” and ” Remember to charge your phone” and have since deleted the application.
We must be careful with whatever information we share, so here are some tips for you to better protect your personal data :
- Add only your friends on social media
- Do not post pictures of sensitive information such as your credit number and NRIC number
- Use a complex password for all account made over the Internet
- Do not click on any suspicious links
- Privatise your accounts for maximum security on social media
Next, we talk about influencers.
I’m sure that most of us follow at least one influencer on social media. Influencers are people with a high number of followers—some in the thousands, and some in the millions. High followers counts are critical for so-called influencers, a budding market of amateur tastemakers and YouTube stars where advertisers now lavish billions of dollars a year on sponsorship deals to reach out to their huge follower base.
But did you know , that there are fake “influencers” ? While these “influencers” on Instagram have a high follower count, these followers usually have gibberish sounding names and do not have any photos. These followers are called bots and “influencers” purchase them in bulk. Just how many of these accounts are there out there?
Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s largest social media platform.
Why do people purchase these followers? According to data collected by Captiv8, a company that connects influencers to brands, an influencer with 100,000 followers might earn an average of $2,000 for a promotional tweet, while an influencer with a million followers might earn $20,000. Imagine making that much money just buy typing something under 280 characters—a very tempting offer for many.
The bottom line is, not everything on the Internet is real, and not every person you come across social media is an actual human being. It is of paramount importance to thread carefully while browsing the Internet and do not trust anyone you do not know personally. What are your thoughts ? Comment down below !!
Mark Blog 
Hey Mark, after reading your post, I felt like we should be extra careful when sharing locations on an app or using social media that shares your personal information. As we know, these services are free, thus we users become the product. Anyway, thanks for sharing, I have decided to change my instagram account to a private account instead of a public account!
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Hi Jaslyn, yes by changing your Instagram to a private account will allow only your friends to have access to your profile. But don’t forget there are hackers out there creating fake accounts imposing as your friends to gain access to your profile too. So please monitor your following and remove any suspicious profile or you can check with your friend personally if that account belongs to them.
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Hi mark, this was an eye opening post. I will be much more conscious of what i share online and to be mindful of my privacy setting on such social media platforms. It is shocking to know how my favourite influencers popularity on social media might not be authentic.
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Hi Romeo! I am not saying all the influencers work that way. Some of the influencers they may buy followers from the start but after gaining popularity the followers would be authentic, so do not be too disappointed !! A good way to spot is these influencers have an unusual follower-to-engagement ratio therefore usually their post have few comments or likes.
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Great insights! As much as how the internet has benefitted us, there’s a dark side to it. We should always be aware and should always think twice before putting something up online. I always live with this mindset, “what if I get hacked?”. Cybersecurity has been constantly improving just because hackers are also getting smarter. And yes, the use of bots are very real today. We should learn to distinguish from what is real and what isn’t. Many a time’s I get scammed emails from reputable companies such as PayPal, FedEx, amazon but they are just imitators with the intention to scam. My advice would be to always check the full email address of the sender. If the email contains many letters inclusive of combination of weird symbols then it’s obviously a scam.
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Hi Nicholas Delfino! Thanks for commenting! Yes, there are many scam emails sent by reputable companies making it very hard to trust anything on the net. There are mistakes that hackers which you can keep an eye on. Hackers usually are lazy to change the date and the address they are coming from. If you realize of any scam emails, please head over to their official website and make a report there as it can better improve their service and prevent such incidents to occur again to you and to others.
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Hey Mark! I agree with all that you’ve shared on how vulnerable our privacy is.
I keep my information private by not explicitly sharing all that I do on social media. Everyone is constantly sharing what they are doing, what they are eating on platforms such as Instagram Stories, and this exposes their location to all that can see them. I also make use of features such as “close friends” on Instagram Stories to better secure my privacy. This feature allows me to reveal my stories to a select few followers whom I am comfortable sharing with.
What are some other ways that we can secure our personal information?
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Hi Charmainder !! Thanks for the comment. Close friends bubble is definitely a way to limit your personal information to only whom you are comfortable with. Other measures will be not entering any sketchy website moreover purchasing any items from it. Personally, I was victim before and purchased speakers from a sketchy website before, and I was devastated after a few days my bank balance became 0. For my different social media platform accounts, I made it a point not to have the same password, otherwise, if a hacker so happen to obtain your password, they will have access to all of your different social media accounts.
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