Social media such as Facebook etc give opportunities for people to find and interact with almost anyone from all over the world, but not all are fishes in the sea, some are sharks.
My message goes to people who are relatively new to Internet, for instance elderly people.
Don't accept invitations from any stranger who wants to be friends with you. At least do some thinking or research before you do. This is just ONE example of what can happen. Your new "friend" looks up all your friends and sends invitations to everyone. Since I've been working with charity in India, this is a general practice for a person to find sponsors in the West for instance. In reality you need to know the consequence of every individual setting in your Facebook account to really be sure what information is available to the general public, ie anyone.
So what you might think? - I want as many friends as possible. The more the better. Ok, but your childhood friend Sara may not want a stranger to be able to read HER profile if let's say she has a protected identity (just to make the message clear).
Or you might think - I'll block him! Well that person can have alternate accounts or use friends to click into your profile. It's like the famous " everybody knows everybody" and in social media that is the case. I have lots of experience based on the above and my other issue related to men wanting to be friends. I know ways to find anyone or anything on the Internet so if I can do it just imagine how many other people can do the same. It's the whole bloodhound scenario. They have a bait and can sniff it out and find it easily even though it is impossible for a human being. ..the difference? ... the hound has an incredible nose.
Think twice before you accept or share things from a friend's page. I don't want my son's face on the Internet and smudge any pic with his face online. .. yet if I Google. ..well there he is. Troubling.
Big deal who cares about you? You're not rich and famous! You might say. Ok, personal experience tells me that it's enough that ONE strange friend/person does.
Yes, I use Social Media like almost everybody and I even write a blog. I'm just a little bit extra careful with online information. I don't just click YES on everything. It's ok to say no. It's kind of like checking left and right before you cross a street. Your life in your hands, your responsibility, easy thing to do, potential huge consequences. One black piece of marble on Taj Mahal changes the whole pictures. I hope to get my point.
I guess we've all made real and good friends online, but we also read stories of young girls being found by pedofiles or a child clicking YES, ending up in a game purchase of $1000.
Just to reaaaalllly push the suspicion level to the max. Your online FRIEND could really be Jeffrey Dahmer if you knew who that was. Basically a really bad person.
Life is not black and white like this blog message, 99.99% of people are good and most people are really just looking for a friend. A true friend. So that's the other side of the coin.. all the fantastic good things that come with Social Media and Internet. The people who genuinely do good charity work and the people on the other side of the world that provides financial means; contacts established on Facebook. The long lost childhood friend you find on Facebook or the chat rooms where people help each other through situations where everything offered by society has failed.
Just think twice and learn how to drive before you take your Ferrari on the Autobahn. Ok?
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