Five safety tips for young people online

To ensure the promotion of safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, the international world safety day is celebrated on February 8, annually.

With the theme ‘Together for a better internet’ everyone is expected to have a more empowering experience online when sharing with the people they care about and engaging with the communities that catch their interests the most.

According to Facebook, here are five safety tips for young people to observe online.

Define your circle

So, to get the best experience out of your interactions with people online, it is safer to connect, like, and follow people and pages that you share the same interests with and also those with whom you have many mutual friends with. Always remember to manage your network by friending people you know and following people you find interesting but don’t know personally, such as a celebrity. You can also unfriend and unfollow pages of people and celebrities whenever you like. You can also choose to block profiles of people you no longer want to be in touch with. When you block someone, they won’t be able to find you in a search, start conversations with you or see things you post. In addition, people you block can no longer tag you, invite you to events or groups, or add you as a friend.

Report violating content

Much as we try to be careful around the people, communities, videos, and comments that we see online, we’re oftentimes confronted with content that violates what we stand for. There is a link on nearly every Facebook post for reporting abuse, bullying, harassment, and other issues. “Our global teams work 24/7 to review things that you report and remove anything that violates our Community Standards and the vast majority of reports are reviewed within 24 hours,” the company said. The best way to report abusive content or spam on Facebook is by using the Report link that appears near the content itself. To report a post, photo or comment, click on the top right and choose the option that best describes the issue, then follows the on-screen instructions.

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Keep your account safe

Keeping your account safe should always be a priority. The first and most important step in ensuring this is your password. Passwords need to be easy for you to remember but at the same time hard for an intruder to figure out. While creating your password, keep the following in mind- use passwords that are hard to guess. Make sure they are at least 6 characters long and use a combination of numbers, letters, and special characters. Also, use a different password for each of your accounts. That way, if someone learns your password, they don’t have access to all your accounts.

Do not share your passwords with other people.

Engagement control

Did you know that it is now easier to limit the number of interactions from people you are not interested in? When you want to take a break from someone, changing your privacy settings will help you see less of their posts, photos, or comments they are tagged in. They will also see less of yours.

Notifications fatigue

We like being on top of the news and information around us, but things can get a little bit too much sometimes. If your phone is always lighting up and blinking with notifications that are distracting, you can now manage this for a better social media experience. Adjust the notification settings follow on your phone in three simple steps,

Click at the top-right corner and select Settings.

Click Notifications on the left.

Click to adjust how you get notifications and what you get notified about.