Do not keep these things on your Facebook

For many years, Facebook has been one of the biggest social media sites on the Internet. However, due to the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal, thousands of people have been deleting their Facebook accounts.

Since this scandal revealed that people’s Facebook information was used for political purposes without their consent, everyone is being urged to completely wipe their Facebook accounts from the site.

Even for those who want to keep their Facebook accounts active, it is best to remove personal information that can be used for dangerous purposes. These are nine pieces of personal information that should certainly be removed from a person’s Facebook page.

A birthday is a crucial piece of information which should never be shared with the public. Knowing someone’s birthday can be one step toward accessing things like that person’s bank account and other personal details.

A phone number is another crucial piece of information that should not be shared. There is nothing beneficial about making a phone number public. At best, it can allow a person to acquire admirers, but at worst, it can allow other people to stalk that person.

According to Robin Dunbar, a professor of psychology at Oxford, humans can maintain about 150 stable relationships. Dunbar did a study of 3,375 Facebook users. He found out that, out of all their Facebook friends, only 4.1 were considered dependable, and only 13.6 actually showed sympathy during an “emotional crisis”. Therefore, it is best to unfriend the many Facebook friends who aren’t there for anything. This can make for a much healthier social media experience.

It is best to remove pictures of one’s children or young family members. People from previous generations never had to consider what their children might want to see about themselves online in the future. Therefore, parents aren’t asking these questions when they put up pictures of their children. However, this is an important question to consider. Taking down pictures of young children also protects their privacy.

Be sure to also take down any information about where any children or young family members go to school. Not only can this help protect them, but it can also protect all the children who attend those schools.

Turn off all location services on Facebook. People often forget that turning them on at home actually gives away one’s home address. Also, turning on location services while accessing Facebook from a mobile device can let anyone know where someone is at a given time. Turning off location services can both protect a person and that person’s family.

Never publicly post the time and location of holiday plans. Insurance companies even reject claims of people who publicly post their holiday plans on social media sites. If someone’s holiday plans are publicly posted on social media, it is a direct invitation to any burglars who want to rob that person’s house.

Posting credit card details is never a good idea. This is a direct invitation to anyone who wants to use or rob someone else’s credit card account.

Some people post pictures of their boarding passes to show off the holidays that they are taking. However, posting these pictures is not a good idea. The barcode on a boarding pass is unique to each person, and it can be used by other people to find the information that was given to the flight company.

Image by Simon Steinberger from Pixabay (Free for commercial use)

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