Discussions

Going to help protect people a little on social media.  
 
If your privacy settings are set to public, please do not share any social media pictures that ask you to share pictures of your kids (IE: "Share if you have a daughter/son you are proud of", or "Click like if you love your child" etc).  
The ones about children can quite often be fake, and the pics you share can be downloaded, shared and sold for sexual exploitation/pornography sites. PROTECT YOUR CHILDRENS IDENTITY.  
Change your privacy settings to private, so ONLY friends and family can know where you or your children live. If you have a way to do it, edit your settings so only you can share your pics, or so people need your permission to share.  
 
Be careful about sharing pics about missing children. Sometimes, these are made up so an abusive parent can find the location of their former spouse/child. Make sure these have been shared only by law or trusted media outlets.  
 
Be careful about things like the "no makeup challenge" or ones that ask you to take part in a beauty picture/pose challenge of some kind. These can also be made so your pictures can be sold online to hackers who need faces for their fake online identities, or for people who sexually exploit pictures of young women. Worse yet, they can be sold to people who search for specific criteria for sex slaves. You think that doesn't happen in North America? Look up the stats. It is SCARY how many kids, teens and adults are kidnapped each year. Remember what I said about switching your privacy settings from public to private? DO IT.  
 
Please DO NOT SHARE the "one like =1 prayer" or " her husband doesn't think she is pretty, yes or no", "type Amen" or pics with header statements like those.  
These sites can also be fake and likely NOT affiliated with these human causes. They are designed to farm and mine amounts of "likes" to become popular. Once they reach a certain amount of popularity, the authors of these fake sites can change the link to pages that sell products, or link malware or other harmfil virus' to your social media account.  
 
Heck. Be careful about challenges that ask you to share pics of your pets. Dog fighting rings are on the rise. Don't give any of these illegal rings a chance to thrive by giving them a chance to find out where you live so they can steal your pets. You may not believe it, but these rings exist right where you live too.  
 
And please, for the love of god and all things sacred, please PLEASE do your research on the "like and share" pics where you can win free stuff. No. You will not win a house. You will not win a car, a boat, or a camper trailer. You will not win an IPhone, or win a game system that has accidentally been opened or something else from a popular company outside of your living area. It can also be a site that collects popularity votes and eventually plants a virus or sells your data,or worse.  
Not all of the pics are fake, but a large amount of them CAN be.  
Local businesses are usually fine ( support local business FIRST), but play safe. Do your research first.  
 
Don't respond to posts about "name your first car" or "what city were you born in" , etc. These are of the very same questions that you have set up as password resets in your social media accounts, emails, or even bank accounts. Answering and sharing those posts leaves a virtual key for hackers to use so they can work on trying to steal your identity or worse.  
 
The same goes for "published" news and reports. There is so much fake, agenda based news and stats out there on everything from politics to party snacks.  
Do your research on news that you read. If it seems even slightly unlikely, it may very well be.  
 
If it looks to good to be true, it usually is.  
Play safe. Trust your BETTER judgement and instincts.  
Protect yourselves, protect your children.