- An Ounce of Discretion Is Worth a Ton of Privacy Settings
- Friend Management: The Key to Choosing Your Audience
- Controlling Who Sees What
- Keeping Applications in Line
- Facebook Security 101
- Reporting Abuse
- Phishing
- Beware of Links Bearing Trojans
- If You're Under 18
- Keeping a Low Profile
- Quitting Facebook
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
If You’re Under 18
If you’re legally a minor—or if you have family members who are minors using Facebook—you need to pay extra attention, and give extra weight, to the security warnings and safety tips in this chapter.
If You’re a Parent
If you have children of Facebook-using age, the first thing you should do is read through Facebook’s Safety page, at www.facebook.com/safety.
Make sure to talk with your children about the potential dangers that can arise online. Have them familiarize themselves with the basic safety and security tips in this chapter, as well as on Facebook’s Safety page. And stress that they should report inappropriate messages and behavior to you as well as to Facebook.
Facebook doesn’t allow children under 13 to access Facebook—and suggests that parents consider carefully whether children over 13 should be supervised when they use Facebook.
Just as you need to look out for your own privacy rather than depending on Facebook’s settings, you can’t assume (and Facebook doesn’t guarantee) that the site is “entirely free of illegal, offensive, pornographic or otherwise inappropriate material, or that its members will not encounter inappropriate or illegal conduct from other members.” Members are encouraged to report any such material, and full instructions on how to do so are given on the Safety page.
Finally, if you have children on Facebook who are minors, be sure to read the “If You’re Under 18” section, and have your kids read it, too.
The sobering reality is that people online are not always who they pretend to be, and predators do use the Internet to stalk and “groom” underage victims. Online bullying is also a sad reality, and people have been known to assume false identities for this purpose.
Facebook does its best to identify fake profiles and shut them down—and in fact has sometimes taken criticism for being too aggressive in its approach. But Facebook’s security team isn’t omniscient, and despite its efforts, fake profiles do get created and do get used for some dishonorable purposes.
In addition to the general security and safety tips shared elsewhere in this chapter, minors on Facebook should take these precautions:.
- Don’t post your address or phone number online, anywhere. Don’t trust Facebook’s privacy settings to limit access to them. Let e-mail be your first point of contact for anyone who doesn’t already have your number.
- Don’t friend anyone you don’t already know and trust.
- Make sure you familiarize yourself with Facebook’s privacy settings, and set them carefully. Check them every so often to make sure you’re still comfortable with the level of privacy you’ve chosen.
- Don’t arrange to meet anyone offline for the first time without other people you know and trust being present and knowing in advance about the meeting.
- Don’t feel obligated to post an actual photo of yourself as your main profile pic. Your profile picture can show up in all sorts of places on Facebook other than your profile itself (including search listings, Groups, third-party apps, and more), so it may be seen by people you aren’t friends with. Lots of people on Facebook use an avatar other than their own photo—such as an image of a pet, a favorite possession, or even an illustration—that says something about them but doesn’t compromise their privacy.
- Block anyone who sends you inappropriate communications (see the info on how to block people earlier in this chapter) and report them to Facebook (see “Reporting Abuse”). And as Facebook says on its Safety page, “We strongly encourage users under the age of 18 to talk to their parents or a responsible adult immediately if someone online says or does something to make them feel uncomfortable or threatened in any way.”