3 Scary Things About Social Media

nickyNovember 1, 2014

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It’s Halloween time! The day filled with trick-or-treating, attending or hosting costume parties, carving pumpkins, decorating your house, pranking friends, exchanging scary stories, and watching horror films!

During the whole week, almost all conversations are dominated with this topic – scary stuff. More than anything paranormal, you know what actually scares me? People.

A little time spent reading the posts on the /r/LetsNotMeet subreddit on Reddit makes me realize how some people can be really crazy. For example, someone might be looking into your room through the window right now. Don’t look now! 😛

The internet is a scary place sometimes. The person you’re talking to so often on Twitter – are they truly who they say they are?

Here are 3 things that can be really scary about social media:

1. Fake accounts: There are a huge number of active Facebook accounts of people with profile pictures of some random person they saw in a Facebook search or on Google. They manage the whole account pretending to be that person, sometimes even posting really weird stuff. Many of my friends have been affected by this and those accounts have been reported & deleted. If you find an account using your photo, ask your friends to report it too.

2. Bluffing/Impersonation: One of the oldest tricks in the book – pretending to be someone you’re not. Since the internet gives us the opportunity to hide behind our brightly lit computer screens, a lot of people, unfortunately, take disadvantage of that. One of my friends trusted a fake instagram account pretending to be a celebrity. She excitedly started talking with him & soon, he started asking for some pictures. People even go on dates with people they’ve met online and sometimes end up being ‘catfished’. Naive young people, unaware of the outcome, end up interacting with such internet users and divulge their full name and details.

3. Stalkers: Taking from the previous point – when you reveal your full name and details publicly or privately to someone you have only talked to online – it gives him/her an opportunity to turn things from online to offline. Stalkers don’t waste time and they will end up right at your front door. Or in worse cases – they’ll already be inside the house. My point being – never reveal important information and details about yourself to someone you met online & you do not trust completely.

The internet really is a scary place, but if you know where not to go, what not to do – you’ll be okay. Let me know in the comments if you want to share any more scary things about the internet & social media.

Happy Halloween & be safe! 🙂

Image courtesy of [hin255] at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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