the internet is not as private as we like to think, even in our own little corners. as much as i wish people just understood that you shouldn’t mess with people’s personal lives, they clearly don’t. i know i’m ridiculously paranoid but here are some of the guidelines i go by and would encourage anyone worried, especially younger people, to consider.
do not feel guilty if you want to use a fake first name on here. this goes double for those of us with unusual names; even without a last name, if you even have an unusual spelling of your name that could be a good idea to maybe keep off your blog.
password-protected private tumblr accounts, private twitter accounts, and private instagram accounts seem to be the best way to make sure that only the people you want to see your private content will. even so, anything you post on these will still be available on your devices.
when you make friends on here, be absolutely sure you trust them before telling them details about your life, even things like the city you live in or what general job you have. when i’m deciding if i trust someone on here, i look at what they’ve shared on their own blog: is the entirety of their online experience interacting with 5-10 young women on here by liking all their posts and sending them asks constantly? maybe they’re trying to make friends. maybe they’re not. if you feel unsafe, BLOCK. you don’t owe strangers on social media information about your life or anything else.
if you give personal social media out to online friends with public social media, be careful of how you interact with them there. for example, it’s happened before where someone i follow on here has linked their public instagram and i’ve gone to it and seen comments that are clearly from their stan friends. if you see something like this, click back!!! they clearly didn’t want you to see it. but if your online friends post about their public social media on their stan accounts, don’t interact with it with your social media that reveals any info about your personal life.
last but most importantly, use your judgement. nothing and no one is completely safe. if there’s information that would seriously endanger you if people in your life found out, be extra careful if you want to post about it online. make it so that if someone in your life stumbled across it, they wouldn’t know it was you. if people in your life see or use your phone, delete any social media apps before they could find them and see account names.
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