Topic: Legal, Policies, and Ethics

My father has been lecturing me about appropriate social media use since I’ve been old enough to know how to use a computer. “Everyone can see everything you do.” “Nothing you do on the Internet ever really goes away.” As I have gotten older I have come to realize that all these discussions that I deemed as silly fatherly advice are becoming more prevalent in the way that I post on social media.

Truly, everyone can see everything. Regardless of passwords or blocks, people can find their way in to find out anything and everything about you; even after you press delete. It seems like more and more social media platforms are loosening or removing entirely their user’s right of privacy. And the crazy part is they are being very honest about this, well they have to be or else it’d be illegal. But regardless of these changes being announced, users still continue to log in, Snapchat and message.
Have you ever opened an app to an announcement of a policy change pop up? Do you do what I do and quickly scroll the bottom and click “I accept” so that you can quickly get back to your Instagram feed? Social Media platforms are being very open in their policy updates and changes to avoid legal issues, but yet we as users don’t seem to notice until it becomes personal and in our face.

During some research I found where Facebook shows all their policies on privacy. I liked their setup; it provided an outlet for curious individuals like myself to seek questions to my concerns and somewhere to place complaints: Facebook's Policies

I found a very interesting article that discussed "5 Trends that will change the way you use Social Media in 2015"
The last trend applied a lot to my post and I wanted to share it here:

"The illusion of social media privacy gives way to the real thing

2014 saw a number of anonymous and ephemeral social networks – Snapchat, Secret, Whisper, Yik Yak and Telegram, to name a few – surge in popularity. Not everyone wants every conversation over social media broadcast to the world, after all. At the same time, savvy users are increasingly aware – and concerned – about ways personal data is being collected and later sold to advertisers, manipulated in tests or accessed by government agencies.

The problem is that few of these “private” networks fulfill their mandates. Snapchat has been hacked, repeatedly, with hundreds of thousands of sensitive – supposedly disappearing – user photos posted on the Internet. And in October, it was revealed that the anonymous network Whisper was actually saving users’ posts and locations and compiling this information in a searchable database. As Venture Beat points out, real anonymity and privacy on the Internet is extremely difficult to achieve. While it’s easy to make promises, it’s nearly impossible to deliver.

Ryan Holmes is CEO of Hootsuite."

The truth of the matter is, we need to be careful with what we put on the Internet because we never know when it will resurface. The way we use social media can have very long-term affects on future relationships, job opportunities and reputation. As unfavorable as these new policies may be, many of us will continue to oblige to them, so what can we do to protect ourselves on social media? I searched for proper social media etiquette and how to best present ourselves on the computer screen. This article had great tips on how to properly use social media: Online Etiquette

Golden Rule: don’t post anything your Grandma wouldn’t “like”