The talk about privacy has centered around big tech and governments around the world and how they are weaponizing data to control customer choices and even to manipulate elections.
The most famous of the privacy war is the Cambridge Analytica scandal which broke with respect to the election of US President Donald Trump. Facebook was swept in and Mark Zuckerberg himself came under intense scrutiny from the US lawmakers for the role lapses in Facebook’s system created for such manipulation to happen.
But the biggest threat to social media users, especially in Africa, is violent criminals.
Posting things that have to do with your financial successes or those of your family and friends on social media makes you, or your loved ones, targets of armed robbers and/or kidnappers who may be looking for people with enough money to pay ransoms.
The worst you can also do is share your locations on social media. That makes it extremely easy for you to be tracked down and attacked.
Advanced criminals with an understanding of how technology works can also use your social media blueprint to profile you and sell you scams that will sound legitimate just so they can dupe you of your hard-earned money.
How to stay safe?
You have to limit the amount of personal information you share on your timeline. Timelines are incredibly easy to monitor so it’s best you limit personal stuff to private messages or chats. You can also create a private group to share personal and intimate stuff with your friends and family as long as everyone in the group can be trusted.
