Stay safe on Facebook with these top safety tips

Facebook, the Center for Social Research and The Network to End Domestic Violence (NNDEV) have teamed up to offer advice on how best to stay safe online. Take a few minutes to read the attached safety tips and guide; and help protect you and your information online.

Whether you're a social media expert or someone creating an online identity for the very first time, everyone can benefit from a crash course in things like sharing (or oversharing), account security and online etiquette. The below tips will hardly take five minutes, but will help keep you safe when you spend time online.                                   

Check your privacy settings

Who can see what you share? Have you checked? There might be photos you want to keep private among your friends or subjects you don’t mind sharing with others. The good news is, you can do both. " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Privacy Checkup will help you review and adjust who sees your posts as well as private info from your profile like your phone number and email address. " target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Audience Selector tool allows you to choose who sees your posts as you’re sharing them; friends, the public or by only a few select people.

 Check your security settings

Turn your profile into a locked fortress not even the guys from Ocean’s 11 can break into. " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Security Checkup will show you how to protect your password, help you log out of Facebook from unused browsers and apps as well as notify you if someone tries logging into your account from a new computer or phone.

 Be alerted when someone tries to log into your account

This is an extra security feature we mentioned above. When you turn on " target="_blank" rel="noopener">login alerts, we will send you a notification if someone tries logging into your account from a new place.

 Block someone who is harassing you

If someone is making you feel uncomfortable or saying things you don’t like on your profile you can block them. " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blocking a person automatically unfriends them which means they will no longer see things you post and won’t be able to start a conversation with you, tag you in photos or add as you as a friend again. When you block someone, Facebook doesn’t notify them that you have blocked them so you don’t have to feel uncomfortable about using this feature.

Report inappropriate or abusive things on Facebook

If you see something inappropriate like nudity, hate speech or violence, you can use the " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Report link near the offending post, photo or comment to report it to us, so we can take further action.

Intimate photos shared without permission

We take this extremely seriously. If someone shares an " target="_blank" rel="noopener">intimate image of you without your permission we will remove it immediately and where appropriate, we will refer this content to law enforcement. This doesn’t just stop at photos and video. We will also remove content that threatens to share intimate images or promotes sexual violence or exploitation.

Report inappropriate or abusive private messages on Facebook

Just because otherscan’t see it, doesn’t mean you have to put up with it. To report an abusive private message, open the message, click on Options in the top right corner and select Report Spam and Abuse. A member of our support team will review your report, usually within 48 hours and determine whether it violates our Community Standards. You can check the status of your report in the " target="_blank" rel="noopener">Support Inbox and we’ll update you there once we’ve reviewed it. The person you are making the report against will know a complaint has been made against them, but we won’t let them know who reported them. If someone continues to violate our Standards we may limit their use of certain features and in some cases, permanently disable their account.

Control what information you’re sharing with Apps via Facebook Login

Have you ever pressed “Login with Facebook" to log into an app using your Facebook account? Most likely, you have. When you log in, you don't have to share all the information from your Facebook profile in order to use the app. Here’s how to take control of your personal info: When you're logging into an app using Facebook Login, just click “Edit the Info You Provide.” This will bring you to a list of all the information the app is requesting from you. You can check or uncheck each piece of information, line by line, to control what you share with the app. If you ever want to review all of the apps that you've connected to your Facebook account, just visit your App Settings page on Facebook where you can easily edit what information an app can access, or completely disconnect apps from accessing your Facebook account if you don’t use them anymore.