5 Safety Tips to promote a more empowering experience for youths online

You will have a more empowering experience online, when you’re sharing with the people you care about and engaging with the communities that interest you the most.

That is why on this year’s Safer Internet Day, we’d like to celebrate young people’s role in creating a safer internet by sharing some tools you need to manage your network and connect with the content that you’ll most enjoy.

1. Define your circle

So, to get the best experience out of your interactions with people online, it is safer to connect, like and follow people and pages that you share the same interests with and also those whom you have many common friends with. Always remember to manage your network by friending people you know and following people you find interesting but don’t know personally, such as a celebrity. You can also unfriend and unfollow pages of people and celebrities whenever you like. You can also choose to block profiles of people you no longer want to be in touch with. When you block someone, they won’t be able to find you in a search, start conversations with you or see things you post. In addition, people you block can no longer tag you, invite you to events or groups, or add you as a friend.

2. Reporting violating content

Much as we try to be careful around the people, communities, videos and comments that we see online, we’re oftentimes confronted with content that violates what we stand for. There is a link on nearly every Facebook post for reporting abuse, bullying, harassment and other issues. Our global teams work 24/7 to review things that you report and remove anything that violates our Community Standards and the vast majority of reports are reviewed within 24 hours.The best way to report abusive content or spam on Facebook is by using the Report link that appears near the content itself. To report a post, photo or comment, click on the top right and choose the option that best describes the issue, then follow the on-screen instructions. Learn more about reporting other types of content.

3. Keeping your account safe

Keeping your account safe should always be a priority. The first and most important step in ensuring this is your password. Passwords need to be easy for you to remember but at the same time hard for an intruder to figure out. While creating your password, keep the following in mind;

• Use passwords that are hard to guess. Make sure they are at least 6 characters long and use a combination of numbers, letters and special characters.
• Use a different password for each of your accounts. That way, if someone learns your password, they don’t have access to all your accounts.
• Don’t share your passwords with other people.

4. Engagement control

Did you know that it is now easier to limit the number of interactions from people you are not interested in? When you want to take a break from someone, changing your privacy settings will help you see less of their posts, photos or comments they are tagged in. They will also see less of yours.

5. Notifications fatigue?

We like being on top of news and information around us, but things can get a little bit too much sometimes. If your phone is always lighting up and blinking with notifications that are distracting, you can now manage this for a better social media experience. Adjust the notification settings follow on your phone in three simple the steps;

• Click at the top-right corner and select Settings.
• Click Notifications on the left.
• Click to adjust how you get notifications and what you get notified about.

Visit our Youth Portal to learn more about our efforts in ensuring safety within our family of apps.