There are more than 4 Million Facebook users in Portugal as the social media analyst socialbakers.com reports. That is 40% of Portugal’s population. Dropping off a percentage of people that doesn’t use the internet, means that every second Portuguese who uses the internet is on facebook.
Are you a facebook user? If so, what kind of information do you share with the world? Private data, pictures, or videos? What about your children? Could happen to them what happened to Thessa? The German girl from Hamburg forgot to set her birthday invitation on facebook as “private” and ended up hosting 1.500 teenagers in her parents’ house and garden.
All of us who use the social online platforms to keep in touch with school friends, colleagues and clients are running the risk to share – unwillingly – too much information with the world wide web. Fact is, that the social platforms like facebook and LinkedIn don’t make it easy to understand which settings we have to turn on or off in order to protect us from sharing too much.
Besides this the operators regularly change their terms and conditions more or less silently. Just to give you an example: Without attracting too much publicity, LinkedIn has updated their privacy conditions last summer. Without any action from your side, LinkedIn is now permitted to use your name and picture in any of their advertisements. Did you know that?
These conditions are paradise for Cyber stalkers. Stalking in the offline world exists ever since and refers to unwanted and obsessive attention by an individual or group to another person. Stalking can lead to psychological, social and financial damage of the victim and is often a consequence of revenge, admiration or envy.
With the popping up of social platforms in the last decades stalking becomes much easier. All the information that was difficult to obtain in the offline world is voluntarily shared and easily available in the Cyberspace. Posts on the profile walls tell the rest of the network when and where we are on vacations. Data about university and workplace reveal where we live and spend our time. Being member of certain groups gives indications about our preferences and interests.
People who are managing online platforms for professional reasons are under special risk. As Juan A. Flores Sánchez – International Internet & Social Media Manager, Thermomix – states: “A successful presence on a social media channel could create a certain feeling of admiration for the administrator and may deliver some dangers that were previously exclusive of the off-line celebrities. The adoption of safety procedures to prevent the “Cyberstalking” is relatively simple and should become part of the policies and trainings to be in social media.”
