10 Things You Should Not Share on Social Media

Always remember that the internet is public. Social media is great for keeping up with family and friends, and you can easily share on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Even though we live our entire lives in public view, there are still some things that you should keep private. That’s because most of us have strangers on our friend list than our real friends. Keeping this fact in mind that there should be restrictions on many things we share on social media.

With that in mind, here is a guide of things you should never post on social media:

Table of Contents

1. Your Full Birth Dates

Everyone loves getting birthday messages on Facebook, feeling love and warmth from friends and family members near and far. But when you list your birthday in your Facebook profile, you’re offering scammers or identity thieves a key piece of information needed to steal your identity. If you absolutely must have those birthday greetings on your wall, at least leave your birth year off your profile.

2. Real-Time Location

This one goes hand in hand with the previous rule about vacation. When you let the whole world know that you’re not at home, it’s going to be like you’re asking for someone to break-in or you might give bad guys a chance to break-in. Also, this is a good opportunity for stalkers to follow wherever you are. If you’re on vacation just let your followers and friends wonder where you are.

Just turn off your GPS when you don’t need it.

3. Videos/Photos of Your Friends That You Took Without Permission

We all know how fun to film or take snapshots of everything we see. That’s fine, but if you go around posting stuff without the permission of the people depicted, you can get yourself in trouble. If you really want to share a hilarious pic of your friend, just make sure you get permission first. Your friends may not like that stuff online.

4. Complaints About your Work or Boss

It can be really tempting to vent about your horrible boss on social media. There’s just one problem with that. Even if your boss doesn’t have access to your posts, a jealous coworker could screenshot your complaints and share them with your boss. That can get awkward fast. It can even cost you your job.

5. Picture of Your Kids and Other Kids

Proud parents can be excited when posting pictures of their children and their children’s friends. We share daily activities and special events, tagging everyone involved and filling everyone in on our activities.

Even with privacy settings, you’re comfortable with, this is unwise. Issues such as privacy, bullying, and digital kidnapping, along with the reality that there are dangerous people out there make oversharing our children’s lives a terrible idea. If you must post pictures of your children, remove personal information such as their full names and don’t tag them in photos.

6. Fights with your Significant Other

Same as no.4, sometimes we can’t control our emotions and let it all out. If you’re angry at your partner, just talk with each other, don’t broadcast to the internet what happened. As much as possible, keep it lowkey. Eventually, you two will be okay.

7. Phone Number

While you may want friends to contact you, your real phone number can fall into the wrong hands through a social networking site or wrong person. It’s possible your location could be narrowed down by someone using a reverse phone number lookup tool, which is freely available on the internet.

8. Party Pictures

Have all the fun you want, but keep it contained. You don’t want prospective employers knowing everything you do on a Friday night. The best way to keep them from finding out is not to share that information in the first place.

Before posting anything online, think to yourself: Would you want your boss or family members to see this?

9. Government Issued ID’s or Document Online

Users who post pictures of the identification cards and documents are already making cyber-criminal jobs easier. When cybercriminals find you, they can get hold of a lot of sensitive information from you, which they can use to apply for loans and initiate transactions.

10. Car Plate Numbers

You probably think it’s harmless since your license plate is already exposed while driving around the metro. Still, you should hide your plate numbers when posting photos because your license plate can be used to determine the actual name and physical address of the person who owns the vehicle.

So that’s it! Always remember not everything is meant to be shared with everyone and again, think before you click.