Discussion: How Do You Keep Yourself Safe Online?

Hello everyone!

The Internet can be a positive medium, if used wisely. However, there are many opportunities for negative incidents to occur, which is why one wants to keep themselves safe, when being online. Unfortunately, there are people out there who may want to purposefully bully or attack you online, or even cause hacking-based activities within your personal accounts. It is important to keep yourself safe online.

What do you do to keep yourself safe online?

Ideas

- Do not give out any personal information to anyone online, and take caution with the photos/videos which you post of yourself online

- Use nicknames instead of your personal name, when creating Internet accounts, i.e., social media

- If you are bullied online, you can have a rebuttal to a bully's remark. You can question the bully as to why they said what they had said, in order to clarify where they are coming from

- You can purposefully choose which sites you will use, if you find that bullying is a perpetual problem within a certain site

- Protect your personal accounts by using appropriate security measures. For example, Gmail offers a two-step security verification option, whereby you can add your cell phone number to your account, and have a text message sent to your cell phone, to be inputted each time that you log in

- Try ignoring what a bully/bullies has said, in order to walk away from the negativity, and move onto something else

- Report any negative incidents or behaviour to site administrators or managers, and see what support they may be able to provide to you

So, how do you keep yourself safe while being online? Your comments are welcome!