For me when I sign up for different social media platforms I first check to see if the platform is a reliable site; I know it is reliable if the site ends in edu, gov, org, and com. After that just to be extra precarious I will put the site into an app called “scamadviser”. “Scamadviser is a free website allowing people to quickly check a website they are about to buy something from.” Also, if any website, which most do ask to accept their cookies I always say no. If for some reason I am still iffy on whether or not a site is reliable I call my parents or my older brothers because they have lived much longer than I have and maybe made some mistakes with giving out too much information to a site that they would not want me making. I will ensure that the site does not ask for anything too personal such as my social security number or credit card information unless I absolutely know I can trust it. After all of the time I take to check if the social media platform I care to use is reliable I then proceed with checking my privacy settings when creating my account for the app. I put my general information in like my name and email, and then I will check off any boxes that show what privacy settings I am okay with letting the public see and which ones I would rather keep to myself privately. For example, two of the main apps that I use are Instagram and Snapchat. I am aware of what information I have agreed to share; with Instagram I keep my posts private, so that whoever follows me I would have to accept their follow request before they can see anything I post onto the app. For Snapchat I have “Ghost Mode” which does not allow the people I am following to view my current location. However, if I wanted to change these two settings from private to public I can easily do so. From the information I provide to either platform I am not interacting with any of the platforms algorithms. I simply just do not have my location set to public or my posts because I like to keep those 2 things private for only myself and the people I choose to let follow me. There are many advertisements that pop up both on my Instagram and Snapchat that many people can be intrigued to click the link to and purchase one of the products being advertised. I remember one of my friends ordered something off of an Instagram ad and he was scammed about $50 from what he purchased. I learned that not everything on social media is going to be true and that I always have to be careful even though the apps themselves are reliable. On top of this, lots of these advertisements are promoted by the popular social media platforms and it helps get their product name out there knowing that there are many people who follow each platform. “Instagram is one of the world’s top social platforms, but just how many people use Instagram today? Based on its global advertising audience reach numbers, Instagram has at least 1.440 billion users around the world in July 2022.” As far as Snapchat goes “Snapchat Has 332 Million Daily Active Users Worldwide. This is an increase from the third quarter in 2021, which had 306 million.”
https://www.cbinsights.com/company/scamadviser
Site Title 