Hey. Minors following me. Internet safety is key!! NEVER include these in your bio/byf:
Medical diagnoses - this is nobody’s business but yours. You don’t owe anyone an explanation for why you are the way that you are
Trauma - same reason as above
Triggers - people can use these against you! Don’t give people tools to hurt you. No one has to know what tags you block. Just block tags to stay safe!
Age - age is okay for adults to include but is iffy when you’re a teen. Predators want this information, don’t give people more than they need. Just state that you’re a minor, that’s all that anyone needs to know.
In general: stay safe. If you’re not comfortable with every stranger out there having access to this information, you shouldn’t post it on the internet.
Play devil’s advocate and ask yourself about what would happen if someone searched for your information with intent to hurt you. You do NOT owe anyone an explanation!
adding on to this post, i agree w all of OPs points, but i also highly advise against super young teens posting their face on the internet, its so easy to take peoples selfies + name and find stuff out like your school and then figure out the rough area in which you live. same with your phone number. be super careful about what you put out there. once you post it, it really is here forever.
Some of you might be too young to remember a time when it was extremely taboo to ask anyone personal details on the internet. Sites like Facebook intentionally eroded that culture and put a culture of accountability in its place. But here’s the thing: you are not accountable to *ANYONE* on the internet. No one! You do not have to prove that you are [whatever] enough to enjoy the things that you enjoy, or that you act the way you do because [X].
My thoughts on the whole “make the internet child friendly” thing is that no one under the age of 18 should feel comfortable on the internet
If you are not a legal adult there are so many ways for you to be harmed through the internet, and the more comfortable minors feel the more at risk they are of being taken advantage of
When I was growing up at the beginning of the internet age I was constantly shown informational videos on how people could get my name and address from just a screen name, To Catch A Predator was on and showing all the ways adults posed as minors to trick them into being abducted, and even shows like Catfish on MTV were always there to remind you that if you did not already know someone in person you couldn’t be sure who they were online
For years I only went into sites geared towards kids and even then with strict rules on how to keep any identifying information out of my screen name and to never answer personal questions online. While YouTube existed, a large chunk of the videos didn’t involve peoples faces like almost all do now
When I got a tumblr at 16 I knew porn could come up at any time and I was cautious of how I used it because of that. People regularly scoffed at the idea of clicking a link you were sent in a message and who could be so dumb as to click one
I don’t want kids to feel safe on the internet because they aren’t, and people looking to take advantage of kids want them to feel comfortable. They want minors using their legal name, posting videos of their school, showing their face as they wear school sweatshirts. I’ve seen so many recent stalking cases that happened because the person used the Snapchat map feature that allowed people to see where they went and for how long every day
I think that it’s good to accept that kids exist on the internet and getting rid of some of the more horrific Wild West aspects is good (Chatroulette type situations, easy to stumble on beheading videos) but the amount that social media sites are telling people they’re safe for minors and said minors can let their guard down makes me very nervous. It is not difficult to film your 13 year old nephew for a TikTok, post it like it’s your own, then ask the other 13 year olds who like it where they go to school
And this is not me blaming Gen Z or calling them stupid, as I said the only reason I knew how to be safe was because the culture around me so heavily pushed all the tactics on how to be safe and what the consequences of not being safe were. Gen Z grew up with shows about how great is to be a successful teen vlogger, with child influencers, with teenagers who put their face and identifying information in Vines being tracked down and given prizes by Ellen DeGeneres. The entire culture they’re being brought up in is designed to tell them that being open online as a child isn’t just cool it’s a way to be successful and validated
So yeah I don’t want any site telling parents or their kids that it is a safe place for minors, that their information is being protected, or that none of the content can harm them
im pro children having privacy but if you think parents should give kids unrestricted internet access…its not 1999. in 2022 thats legitimately neglectful. do you know how many kids are out here like. watching gore and porn. its not normal or healthy. its traumatic.
Using parental controls to block sites and seeing what websites your 13yo goes to- legit.
Using apps that monitor every text conversation your 17yo has with their friends- fucking invasive and creepy
I’d argue kids these days are actually consuming content like that far less than people my age did. A lot of kids don’t explore the internet outside of social media.
Tiktokers lost their shit over cropped porn being a meme, when I was younger it was just straight up porn.
Kids definitely need better internet safety education but I really don’t think the internet is more hostile than it was, it has effectively become baby-proofed.
im pro children being safe but if you think parents should not give kids unrestricted internet access…its not 1999. in 2022 thats legitimately neglectful.
eta: lol op is a rad
It’s hard to tell if everyone other than me is being hysterical about kids on the internet or if I was just an unusually mature child.
Like really, the whole POINT of being a teenager is figuring out how to bypass parental controls so you can access naughty websites you’re not supposed to be on! That’s like… one of the steps of growing up. Right after an older sibling’s friend tells you that that one musician guy got one of his ribs surgically removed so he can suck his own dick. Builds character and all that.
Y’know, you didn’t have a fullly fleshed out upbringing if you didn’t lie about your age to get access to an adult-only space.
From the way people talk about it, I have to assume that ‘seeing an unpleasant image as a teenager will Scar You For Life’ is something that has… some basis in reality, I have to assume they aren’t all completely making it up, but like intuitively it feels very hard for me to believe.
Like, is ‘traumatic’ just a massive, massive overstatement-to-lie, or do other people just have very different brains to me.
Well, when I first got online, it was full of unrestricted videos of lynchings & terrorists executing people on camera… So, uh, yes, there are “unpleasant images“ that could traumatize a kid & trying to act like a jaded badass about it is plain silly. But also the internet nowadays is much safer for kids than it used to be.
god the idea of “doubling down” has ruined the fucking internet.
“when anybody commits a minor offense they must immediately and with no hesitancy apologize and start self-flagellating. any attempt to clarify your point or umbrage taken with any insults not only makes the original offense worse, they now have a new problem” does anybody see why this might be bad?
if the human threat response was to lie down on the ground, throw an apple in your mouth, and start marinating yourself for your attacker’s convince we wouldn’t have gotten very far as a species
“Sure, they were harassed by hundreds of people over accusations that were ridiculously minor or patently false, but they refused to apologize for the stuff they didn’t do, and this proves that they deserve all the harassment after all, the problem is not the original thing, it’s their response”
Just an FYI but I know most people that follow me are younger and don’t identify as a straight cis male
Don’t fall for people asking for proof or saying ridiculous things to get pictures sent to them.
What I mean is ‘women who are over 150 lbs can’t wear bikinis. Prove me wrong.’ And then they get a bunch of photos sent to them as proof.
Also you could say that you can do something not ridiculous and they want proof. ‘I can bench 120 lbs.’ ‘prove it.’ It can be a kink thing you don’t know about and they’re fishing for pictures. Just things to know before you send people pics.
It would’ve been one thing if they were upfront about this, but hiding it means they can’t be trusted. Time to look for a new search engine. Any one know any other tracker-resistant search engines?
I looked into this because I use DuckDuckGo and I think it’s really important to keep organizations accountable especially when they claim to be different TM than shitty ones. So it looks like this is true (as of now) for the mobile browser application specifically, not the search engine in general.
which means that using the search engine on another browser like Firefox should be fine, and also now is a great time to let the company know exactly why you are uninstalling their *application* on your device to hopefully either force a backpedal or heavily discourage further shit like this down the line.
it’s a slimy move to be sure. I just think it’s important to be specific and precise. Here’s another article on the subject:
This news originated with Zach Edwards. It is not widely reported IMO and I wish it was to help with the confusion. The best I can tell, DDG was not allowed to discuss the agreement with Microsoft but after Mr. Edwards tweeted about the issue the DDG CEO clarified.
The issue at hand is, while most of our protections like 3rd-party cookie blocking apply to Microsoft scripts on 3rd-party sites (again, this is off of DuckDuckGo,com, i.e., not related to search), we are currently contractually restricted by Microsoft from completely stopping them from loading (the one above-and-beyond protection explained in the last paragraph) on 3rd party sites. We still restrict them though (e.g., no 3rd party cookies allowed). The original example was Workplace.com loading a LinkedIn.com script. Nevertheless, we have been and are working with Microsoft as we speak to reduce or remove this limited restriction.
The issue impacts iOS/Android browser users, as noted above, by not blocking the flow of tracking information to Microsoft sites like LinkedIn and Bing. The agreement is related to DDG’s syndication of Bing search results. If you don’t visit Microsoft sites on DuckDuckGo’s browser on mobile, this doesn’t affect you.
But @anarchy-in-new-vegas asks an important question, we want to have multiple search engines at our disposal. In addition to DuckDuckGo, check out StartPage(with the caveat since they were acquired their future is uncertain), Qwant(sanitized Bing results), and SearX, just to provide a few examples. These tools provide varying results and YMMV on any given topic, but if you’re digging deep on a subject you’ll want to use multiple search tools anyway. Google and Bing are difficult to compete with due to their sheer breadth, but as Google search results become increasingly junkified, look to hand-curated directories for specific and niche topics.
For up-to-date privacy recommendations, check out privacytools.io
The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like “Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!” and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now
If you need it spelled out for you, with the power of the internet people can find out a lot about you. Like a scary amount.
When I was about 17 I decided to test just how much you could find out about someone on the internet so I picked a random Twitter famous person and decided to see what I could find out about them. And with very little digging, just knowing their first and last name, their age, what city they live in, and what college they went to, I was able to find their full name, the full names of their parents, and their dad’s address, which I looked up on Google earth and saw that it looked exactly like pictures and videos that they had taken in front of their dad’s house.
All this I found as a person who had never tried doing this before in less than twenty minutes. And it freaked me out. A lot. I still live with guilt about doing that and haven’t tried doing it since but not everyone has the same morals that I do. Some people are willing to dig for more than twenty minutes. Some people are willing to make phone calls and go to where you work. And a lot of these people don’t have good intentions.
At least try to obscure some of your identity. At the very least don’t indicate what school you go to or what part of the city you live in and don’t post pics in front of peoples houses.
The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like “Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!” and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now
If you need it spelled out for you, with the power of the internet people can find out a lot about you. Like a scary amount.
When I was about 17 I decided to test just how much you could find out about someone on the internet so I picked a random Twitter famous person and decided to see what I could find out about them. And with very little digging, just knowing their first and last name, their age, what city they live in, and what college they went to, I was able to find their full name, the full names of their parents, and their dad’s address, which I looked up on Google earth and saw that it looked exactly like pictures and videos that they had taken in front of their dad’s house.
All this I found as a person who had never tried doing this before in less than twenty minutes. And it freaked me out. A lot. I still live with guilt about doing that and haven’t tried doing it since but not everyone has the same morals that I do. Some people are willing to dig for more than twenty minutes. Some people are willing to make phone calls and go to where you work. And a lot of these people don’t have good intentions.
At least try to obscure some of your identity. At the very least don’t indicate what school you go to or what part of the city you live in and don’t post pics in front of peoples houses.
twice now, i have been called by scammers pretending to be bankers telling me i’d been scammed by someone else, and that they, the scammer/banker, would cancel the fraudulent transactions made in my name as soon as i gave them a bit of information to confirm my identity.
the second guy called me from my local bank branch’s number and told me “someone in another city is attempting to make purchases with your debit card information” and after i expressed obvious distress he told me “don’t worry, this is what i’m here for. we’re going to get your cards/accounts cancelled/closed and then we’ll all i need you to do is verify the 6-digit code that i’ve sent to your phone”
that 6-digit code was the code to reset my online banking password which i didn’t realize at the time. he then got into my online banking account and e-transferred himself $2,800. my bank reclaimed the money but i had to close my bank accounts, then open new bank accounts, cancel my debit and credit cards, get new debit and credit cards, alert two credit unions that i was a victim of fraud, change all my fucking passwords, etc etc
sorry if this shit is obvious to other people but it was not to me so:
if someone calls you, claiming to be from your bank telling you that there are suspicious charges on your account, hang up on themandcall the number on the back of your debit card. worst case scenario, you hung up on someone and called a different person back but at least now you know you’re talking to someone from the bank. best case scenario, you just hung up on a scammer and are already on the line with someone to report it.
keep your head on a fucking swivel out there
Making posts like this is so brave and wonderful. I’m sorry you were targeted by such an awful scam; it is their fault and not yours. Thank you for sharing your experience and helping people stay safe online.
The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like “Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!” and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now
Some general internet/stranger safety rules, please add on:
Dont give people information that could lead to them finding you IRL. If you must for some reason, always use the vaguest, most broad terms possible. You need help with x state’s laws, youve been affected by floods in y state/region/general area.
Other examples, dont describe your school uniform, or if theres a uniform. Dont name or describe any places that you frequent. Dont tell people your schedule, when youre out or in your house. Dont post pictures until youve left the location (a few years ago people used one photo and google earth to figure out exactly what room someone was staying in when they mentioned the hotel, figured out the height and placement from a nearby tree. This particular example wasnt malicious.) Dont mention your teachers names or your friends names or anyones names. Dont describe the really distinctive person or place or feature of your neighbourhood. Dont tell people exactly how to trigger you. Dont have private conversations with adults, make sure other people can see whats going on. If someone makes you uncomfortable, block them and dont look back, maybe tell a trusted adult.
It is difficult to not mention any identifying details at all, but you have to be careful because people can find out a huge amount from one detail, and when they start adding up someone may be able to find you. I cannot emphasise enough how dangerous that is. If in doubt, dont share it.
If you want to meet up with someone you met online, tell an adult you know and trust, give them place and time and your phone number and when to expect an update. Ideally bring someone with you, and meet somewhere easily accessible and busy and public in broad daylight, somewhere with security cameras if you can. Dont follow them somewhere more private. Make sure you have your own way home and your own money.
I have always been super big on Internet safety so here are some examples of compromises to personal information online online:
Use an alias or a pseudonym. this could be, for example, your normal or shortened username or a nickname that you would like to call yourself, or just something that people can use to refer to you that isnt your irl name
Use the term minor instead of stating your age. If you feel the need to tell people some specifics on your age stop at saying your a minor, nobody needs to know any further than that in a normal social media space
Don’t be specific on your gender, only use your pronouns in your bio if you need people to. Your gender does not always reflect the pronouns you use and you do not always have to put your pronouns in your bio, I don’t and it hasn’t had much of an effect on me. But obviously if people using specific pronouns for you does trigger you putting your pronouns in your bio is a helpful thing for you to do without properly giving away your gender identity.
It’s best not to put your triggers in your bio or on your carrd because you are quite literally giving people that dislike you an easy way to affect your mental health in a negative way. You can block tags and specific words on your own and not everyone online needs to know what those blocked tags are. If someone says something triggering to you online, feel free to tell them that that specific thing triggers you and ask them not to send you asks or messages like that, but you don’t need to in-general put things like “I am triggered by the use of he/him and the words orange as a victim of xyz” because that will genuinely allow people an easy way to upset you and some people really suck so dont give them that oppertunity
Try to be vague when mentioning what level of schooling or education or work you are in. I use the term school often but nobody knows whether that means uni or college or work experience or an apprenticeship or home schooling or anything. Try to avoid things like high school University or college unless you are OK with people knowing that is the level of schooling you are at. You never know who might be able to find you from that.
Be super vague about who you are in dms from people that you don’t know. People may not always be who they seem so until you are almost a 100% sure that this person is well intentioned, of an OK age to be talking to you, and of trustworthyness, DO NOT share large pieces of private information like your email or your surname or your trauma with people who dm you on the Internet with a picture of a cat. Grooming is an absolutely huge issue that is getting worse and worse because generation Z are becoming incredibly bad at Internet safety. Remember to try and be as safe as you can and not instantly trust everybody you meet on the Internet because a lot of people are nowhere near what they seem.
Lastly, please make sure to keep your Internet persona and your real life persona completely separate. You have no clue if the tumblr post you made when you were 14 will have an effect on the job you apply for when they look you up 10 years later. It’s very important to try and keep your online persona and your real life person separate so that you can leave that persona at any point if you need to. If you want to step away from your social media account, you shouldn’t have to deal with the footprint of yourself oversharing on social media 10 years ago following you forever.
Be safe online everyone
All of this, so much!
I know younger people are used to all of their stuff being online all the time and not having any digital privacy, but protect what you can. A little bit of plausible deniability never hurt anyone.
The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like “Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!” and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now
The sheer number of kids who are straight up putting their real names and ages and location in their bios like “Natasha | 14 | Minor | New York, NY!” and occasionally putting their actual school or city in their tags just terrifies me like no stop stop stop remove that right now I cannot emphasize how unsafe that is for you I am begging you for your sake remove thst shit right now
If you need it spelled out for you, with the power of the internet people can find out a lot about you. Like a scary amount.
When I was about 17 I decided to test just how much you could find out about someone on the internet so I picked a random Twitter famous person and decided to see what I could find out about them. And with very little digging, just knowing their first and last name, their age, what city they live in, and what college they went to, I was able to find their full name, the full names of their parents, and their dad’s address, which I looked up on Google earth and saw that it looked exactly like pictures and videos that they had taken in front of their dad’s house.
All this I found as a person who had never tried doing this before in less than twenty minutes. And it freaked me out. A lot. I still live with guilt about doing that and haven’t tried doing it since but not everyone has the same morals that I do. Some people are willing to dig for more than twenty minutes. Some people are willing to make phone calls and go to where you work. And a lot of these people don’t have good intentions.
At least try to obscure some of your identity. At the very least don’t indicate what school you go to or what part of the city you live in and don’t post pics in front of peoples houses.
My thoughts on the whole “make the internet child friendly” thing is that no one under the age of 18 should feel comfortable on the internet
If you are not a legal adult there are so many ways for you to be harmed through the internet, and the more comfortable minors feel the more at risk they are of being taken advantage of
When I was growing up at the beginning of the internet age I was constantly shown informational videos on how people could get my name and address from just a screen name, To Catch A Predator was on and showing all the ways adults posed as minors to trick them into being abducted, and even shows like Catfish on MTV were always there to remind you that if you did not already know someone in person you couldn’t be sure who they were online
For years I only went into sites geared towards kids and even then with strict rules on how to keep any identifying information out of my screen name and to never answer personal questions online. While YouTube existed, a large chunk of the videos didn’t involve peoples faces like almost all do now
When I got a tumblr at 16 I knew porn could come up at any time and I was cautious of how I used it because of that. People regularly scoffed at the idea of clicking a link you were sent in a message and who could be so dumb as to click one
I don’t want kids to feel safe on the internet because they aren’t, and people looking to take advantage of kids want them to feel comfortable. They want minors using their legal name, posting videos of their school, showing their face as they wear school sweatshirts. I’ve seen so many recent stalking cases that happened because the person used the Snapchat map feature that allowed people to see where they went and for how long every day
I think that it’s good to accept that kids exist on the internet and getting rid of some of the more horrific Wild West aspects is good (Chatroulette type situations, easy to stumble on beheading videos) but the amount that social media sites are telling people they’re safe for minors and said minors can let their guard down makes me very nervous. It is not difficult to film your 13 year old nephew for a TikTok, post it like it’s your own, then ask the other 13 year olds who like it where they go to school
And this is not me blaming Gen Z or calling them stupid, as I said the only reason I knew how to be safe was because the culture around me so heavily pushed all the tactics on how to be safe and what the consequences of not being safe were. Gen Z grew up with shows about how great is to be a successful teen vlogger, with child influencers, with teenagers who put their face and identifying information in Vines being tracked down and given prizes by Ellen DeGeneres. The entire culture they’re being brought up in is designed to tell them that being open online as a child isn’t just cool it’s a way to be successful and validated
So yeah I don’t want any site telling parents or their kids that it is a safe place for minors, that their information is being protected, or that none of the content can harm them
me reading someone’s about and not seeing their race / ethnicity, then seeing a “longer about” link and click on that and STILL not seeing anything about their race or ethnicity
As someone who grew up with the internet, in the huge era of online safety campaigns, and the constant drilling in of not sharing your personal information online because it’s not safe. I will say this:
No one, not one single person, on the internet owes you their personal information.
What I share on my blog, is shared out of a choice, because that’s a decision I chose to make. Because I talk frequently on neurodivergence and sexuality, and I know I have followers who connect with that.
But I don’t owe people that information.
Strangers on the internet are never entitled to know:
Your name. Your gender. Your age. Your date of birth. Your location: City, State, Country, wherever. Your religion. Your ethnicity (your culture, your nationality) Your race (skin colour) Your mental health. Your physical health. Your sexuality.
Your anything at all.
That information is personal. If you choose to share it, that’s your choice, but it is nobody elses right to have it, or demand it, or to manipulate it out of you.
If someone chooses not to share that. That is not some neferious plot.
This is something important to understand, especially for young people on the internet. Kids in highschool. Your information is your own personal right. Keeping that safe, keeps you safe online.
We’re in this very questionable internet scape where your information can be taken, and searched, and found. Where there are people who can dox you because they had access to basic information that lead them to deeper info. Where one bit of information can be used to make a smear campaign against you. Or used to target harrassment.
(This is also a really shady time where our information is being quietly sold through advertisers, and taken by data breeches, and DDOS attacks. Where there’s literal fuckin nazi’s on this site that tumblr doesn’t seem to care about because apparently breasts are worse?????)
This is why protecting your privacy and safety was such a huge campaign.
Everyone on the internet is a stranger. And yeah, imma cry ‘stranger danger’ here cause that’s what I grew up with, that’s what I was taught as computers became the big thing, and I was growing up on forums and chat messengers at a super young age where I was incredibly vulnerable. And i’m very lucky to have not encountered what some people I know did.
A/S/L was the most frequent question people would ask, and no it’s not american sign language. Age/Sex/Location. People wanted your info.
You do not need to share that information with anyone.
There’s a huge difference between sharing your interests and hobbies and fandoms and the general knowledge ‘trivia’ of yourself in an ‘about’ page, VS sharing the entirety of your personal information.
So if someone just has their name, age, and pronouns, but doesn’t list anything else beyond their music interests and fave bands. That’s not malicious, that’s not nefarious. That’s exercising a right to choose what you share.
They don’t owe anyone an indepth analysis of their gender. They don’t owe anyone the knowledge of where they live. They don’t need to reveal if they have a disability or not. They’re just 21 yr old Vera, who likes music and wants you to use they when refering to them.
Protect your information on the internet.
Be safe on the internet.
And don’t let anyone pressure you, or guilt you, into sharing information you don’t want to share.
Feel like this is also relevant to seniors with little tech know-how.
Way to be
sexist ageist Islamophobic Nationalist Racist Ableist and homophobic
How about this - fucktelling people what to do? Some people can ONLY express things about themselves on the internet and they don’t need you to tell them “it’s not safe for you anywhere.” Fuck the hell off back to Trump Tower.
im pro children having privacy but if you think parents should give kids unrestricted internet access…its not 1999. in 2022 thats legitimately neglectful. do you know how many kids are out here like. watching gore and porn. its not normal or healthy. its traumatic.
Using parental controls to block sites and seeing what websites your 13yo goes to- legit.
Using apps that monitor every text conversation your 17yo has with their friends- fucking invasive and creepy
i saw a post today where someone stated that they often can’t tell real information from misinformation online. i am not here to make fun of that person. that being said, the ability to figure out if information is real or not is a critical skill for everyone who uses the internet. you need to be able to do that on your own. it’s great if you can get help or if people will tell you what’s real and what’s not, but you also need to be able to do it by yourself. simple, easy tips under the cut.
Really genuinely feel like we need to bring back internet safety classes.
like this isn’t about “no one on the internet is your friend” it’s about “everyone on the internet can be entirely anonymous and disappear at a moment’s notice and you need to be aware of that and be sure of people’s intentions” it’s about “that person might be really nice and giving or they might be scamming you and you need to be able to tell the difference” it’s about “you need to be sure that the link you’re clicking on is going to take you to the right place”
it’s basic stuff i’m not trying to scare people but you need! to practice healthy skepticism online!!
