How can we best protect our privacy online?

Our sense of privacy seems to be diminishing over the decades. It is time to get real and understand that the internet is not a private forum. Whatever you put on the internet, is monitored, tracked, and used for things as advertising, theft, and bullying.

It all seems to be too much and is something that makes me a bit paranoid. I am an avid user of the internet. I should probably be online a lot less. I know in my past experiences online, that I did not make the smartest decisions. I wasn’t as aware of the dangers online like I am now.

I feel at this point, having your privacy violated is inevitable. What we can do though is try and protect ourselves from others who will use our information to harm us. I know many people have a Facebook. It is known Facebook keeps a very close eye on its users and has track of all your information. People can still keep their Facebook, but they need to be smart. I wasn’t the smartest when I had Facebook in the past. I released some sensitive information about myself and someone could of used that to hurt me. Before anyone posts anything on a social media website like Facebook, think really hard before you post anything. Ask yourself questions like, will this be beneficial? Can someone use this one day to hurt me? Am I releasing personal private information? We need to have be more cautious when posting. Being cautious may even save you your life.

Documentary of Amanda Todd. Video rights belong to CBC News.

I think having good media literacy skills is a must have if you are browsing online. I learned even more about privacy from reading chapter 16. There are things I have learned that I will try and include when doing anything online. I used to have a habit of sending out my information to a whole bunch of sites because I thought they could be legit. I now know about the term phishing in which people create fake websites and offers while wanting your information so that they can steal it.

I learned more about adware and spyware and wasn’t fully aware of the dangers of these pests. They can literally lock out files on your computer and require you to pay to unlock them. That is bizarre! I will now do my best to try and get rid of those things immediately and try and avoid sites where these are most likely to happen.

We should all practice more caution and learn more about the dangers online to help us protect ourselves better online.

Kyreem Powers