Cyber Smart Girls!

Unfortunately, some good things also have the bad within their spaces so using your personal account in these instances can make you vulnerable to targeted harassment. As the internet becomes increasingly used for malicious purposes, you need to be cautious and do thorough screening before allowing anybody in your network. Some people have lost money, data and even their lives because they connected and became too close to the wrong people.

And of course, the basics of protecting your account - NEVER share your login details and password with anyone, even your best friend or boyfriend.

Cyber Smart Tip 3: Create Strong Passcodes

The strongest passwords usually comprise a combination of letters, numbers and special characters. Weak passwords include details that can be guessed easily or be accessed in other places such as names of loved ones, places of residence, home villages or towns and years of birth. Avoid using full words or names, rather use some of the letters, or mix up letters from different words or names, combined with numbers and special characters. But we all know gore we’re supposed to change our passwords every now and then, gape we shouldn’t have the same password across all our platforms and devices. Sometimes, we even forget gore what password we use for TikTok kana for IG! A trick you can use is to make easy passwords for yourself that no one can guess. This is by using information no one knows.

Example password: TT_s@mEiffel4Bey (TT for TikTok, Underscore, Sam is short for my middle name Samantha with the special character @, Eiffel because I’m afraid of heights but won’t admit it, 4 because this is my fourth password, Bey because I’m the only person in my friend group who’s not a BeyHive so no one would guess that to be in my password).

RE SHAPO KA :

CYBER BULLYING | ONLINE HARASSMENT | FEELING UNSAFE ONLINE

Social media has become more and more unsafe for everyone including teen girls. If it’s not cyberbullying it’s getting harassed by older men or even getting doxed!

There’s toxic circles and fandoms, people sending unwanted DMs and friend requests, the spread of misinformation, trafficking, targeted harassment, and even targeted inappropriate content

This can be emotionally and mentally exhausting, but also very unsafe. There are different ways to protect yourself online. Our Top 5 Ways to help you feel safe and secure are below, so read more about this hot topic, and become cyber smart! :)

Cyber

Smart Tip 5:

If your account has been hacked, report it immediately to the relevant social media platforms and you will be taken through steps to prove that indeed the account belongs to you, and then requested to reset your passwords. You can even ask a friend to report it on your behalf. All social media platforms have step-by-step guidelines on what one needs to do when they encounter such a situation.

Cyber Smart Tip 4:

The best thing about having an account is that you get to control it. You control the content you consume; the people you follow and those that follow you, what you post, and all that. If your account is public and you receive unsolicited DMs especially from men, you can choose to ignore those messages to protect your peace and they will eventually go away. You can also report that account so that they don’t do this to other girls, and you can block it so that they won’t continue harassing you. This is also true for people you know who could be bullying you or others, you can report and mute/or block them. If you don’t want to keep seeing content about something you’re not interested in, you can mute the name/or words of that particular subject and it’ll never show up on your timeline/feed. When you create an account, you get to control the algorithm by telling it what you’re mostly interested in engaging with. This includes topics such as music, art, politics and so on.

Our devices are taking up a lot of our time and we end up neglecting other aspects of our lives. Social media can distract us from studying, from spending time with friends and family, enjoying our other hobbies, and can even lead us to procrastinate too much. Once you get home from school and get straight into TikTok it’s over, next thing you know it’s midnight and you haven’t done your homework! It’s important to limit your social media time. Set a time limit on your phone and try to stay disciplined and stick to it. This helps to focus on consuming content you actually like and not scroll endlessly clicking on anything that could potentially be harmful. This can also help you from putting so much importance on social media discourse that can shape your thoughts negatively.