Facebook Safety Tips

Here are some important tips to keep in mind and further advice to your friends and family members to make their Facebook experience both enjoyable and safe:

1. Do not place personal information on your Facebook profile. Items such as residential address, phone number, cell phone number, date of birth will all become very public information instantly.

2. Be careful when placing photographs of you or your children on Facebook. Please ensure that all privacy settings have been set to maximum.

3. Do not ever think that your Facebook page is private amongst only your friends and family. Job interviewers, lawyers, investigators, the police and the entire world will be searching for information on your Facebook site at some point.

4. Do not accept all Friend Requests. Every Friend Request is not legitimate. If you do not know the person, then do not add them to your accepted friends.

5. Be sure to keep your Facebook clean and professional. Casual photos or information about your school or college days can be quite damaging to your professional and personal life.

6. Be sure to watch what you place on your Wall. The Wall is like the bulletin board at work or in school. Hence, do not post any embarrassing Wall postings.

7. Do not leave your device on with your Facebook account open. Leaving access to your Facebook account is equivalent to leaving your wallet or cell phone in public on the picnic table.

8. Be sure to have virus software for your device and keep it updated. There are several viruses out there that attack your e-mail address library. The viruses then send out posts to everyone in your library asking them to become your friend in Facebook, while giving them the same virus.

9. Spend time checking your spelling and grammar. As you must have mistakenly typed a word that is offensive or leads to a direct contradiction in your intended message. Checking spelling on the front end when posting can save you hours in trying to correct a mistake that offends your employer, significant others or your family.

10. Be careful not to provide too much information. Do not update every detail of yours, your friends or family members' life. Respect their privacy.

11. If someone is being intrusive or abusive, remember you can always report and block them.

12. Remove anything you think is inappropriate. This could mean wall posts, images or statuses. What you may have found funny last night might not be as funny the next morning.

13. Don't display your year of birth. It slightly helps improve security settings and prevent identity theft.

14. Make sure you don't post any hurtful or mean comments / statuses. This can lead to all sorts of trouble.

15. If your child(ren) is(are) on Facebook and is(are) under 13, monitor him/her(them) weekly to see what's happening and make sure your child(ren) has(have) all the safety equipment on.

16. If anyone seems to be harassing you on Facebook Chat, then don't hesitate to go offline. This can be done by clicking on the bottom right corner of the page and selecting the "Go Offline" button.

17. If someone is continuously harassing you, sending you any messages that are mean, nasty, inappropriate and make you uneasy, you can remove them off your friend list - even better block them.

18. If you see any inappropriate images or comments, you can remove them off your friend list - even better block them

19. In case of any Financial Information leakage or attempt, report the same to Facebook immediately to secure your account and finance.

Be cautious, be safe.