5 Most Secure Social Media Platforms in the World
Social media is an integral part of modern life. With all the advantages social media brings to us, it does take something significant away. Security concerns revolving around social media have been growing ever since they arrived on the internet. Just within this decade, there have been many major social media privacy controversies. So, it makes sense to protect one’s online identity and make the most of what social media has to offer. With that said, here are 5 of the best secure social media platforms right now:
5 Safe Social Media Platforms You Use Right Now
If you go out of your home, you could hardly find anyone who doesn’t have an account on Facebook and Twitter. Instagram is big money for marketers and models, and you can even make a career from them. Justin Bieber is not the only YouTube star to hit the industry big!
However, popular platforms such as Facebook might jeopardize your online privacy. Lately, Facebook has been reported to use your Camera to invade that cherished privilege. And also, let’s not forget about the scandal back in 2018.
LinkedIn is arguably the most popular professionals’ social media platform in the world today. It offers both free and paid account settings and is used by countless professionals all over the world. To be exact, you can expect more than 575+ million users globally.
Because the network caters to professionals and businesses, it has a pretty robust security mechanism. It also gives recruiters to reach out to potential hires through its active job options.
With all that said, LinkedIn does miss out on some very key features. Encrypted messaging is still not available on the website and the app. This can compromise potentially confidential communications between any two parties.
Further, it has a rather detailed data use privacy policy feature. Most will choose not to go through with it. So, you have people there who may not know how their data is being used.
Twitter is among the Big 3 of the social media world and among the safest. As of 2019, the platform has more than 321 million active users. It also has consistently been raising the bar on privacy as well as online rights for users since it began.
As with other social media, you cannot really get any of the tweets you made back. It is possible that your tweets may never get deleted. Some cases have shown that tweets from over a decade were stored in caches.
That said, for the basic user, Twitter does offer a high degree of security and plenty of security and privacy options. These do not always fare well against the numerous attacks made by hackers, but it still does a decent job. That said, user discretion is advised when you are on this social media platform.
If Facebook is the highlight of global social media, Reddit is the online underbelly. This sprawling network of threads contains countless bits of critical information, opinions, and insights found nowhere else. With over 330 Million Monthly Active Users, there’s no piece of information that might elude you.
The best feature of Reddit is that it is virtually anonymous. While it does not offer any kind of encryption, tracing a poster’s identity is not an easy task.
At the same time, Reddit can be a place where you may encounter toxic behavior. Most people who do not know their way around the internet will find Reddit hard to navigate.
Still, if you are looking for a secured, untracked, and open social media platform, Reddit is where you want to be.
While technically a messaging app, Whatsapp can also serve as a social media platform.
To that end, it offers strong P2P encryption, inbuilt security features, zero data gathering, and several other benefits.
It’s quite obvious why this app needs to be so high up in the security department. WhatsApp has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular mobile messenger app worldwide.
On the flip side, it does use one’s phone number, which can be a big reveal for any would-be hacker. Now, Whatsapp has recently made tie-ups with Facebook, and this may lead to some security concerns. Which brings us to the latest scandal that WhatsApp had to go through this past year.
More than 1400 WhatsApp users started getting malicious phone calls. Those users include a ‘significant’ portion high-profile government and military officials spread across 20 countries. It’s been reported that their phones have been hacked using some sort of data-grabbing malware sold by NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons company.
WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against the hacking tool created by the Israeli company. But for now, be careful before you answer any calls or share any unnecessary message with your friends.
Combining social media profiles with numbers is a fairly comprehensive insight into any person. So, there is some need to use Whatsapp cautiously, especially if you link it with your FB account.
Telegram
If you took Whatsapp and beefed it up with security features for privacy, you’d get Telegram. As of 2018, the cloud-based mobile messaging app Telegram had over 200 million monthly active users worldwide
This messaging app is regarded as one of the safest on iOS and Android app stores. Aside from offering great P2P encryption, it also gives plenty of texting options.
Among the most important is the self destruct option, which lets you set a timer on the message. Once the timer goes off, the message is deleted and becomes unrecoverable.
As with Whatsapp, Telegram needs your phone number to connect you with contacts. However, once you get it, there is no data collection beyond the bare minimum. Now, you use burner SIMs or even Burner.com to use one-off connections and use Telegram securely.
How to Use Social Media Securely?
There are so many different methods to protect your social media account. But to do so, you need to target the main factors that might risk your privacy. Below, you’ll find the most important parts in your account that need to be protected and safeguarded. Here they are.
Password
Your password is the first and most important line of defense on your online account. You need to set a strong password for all social media account.
Ideally, you should have a separate password for each account. This can get hard to remember, so using a password manager might work. Also, passphrases that incorporate things like numbers and symbols are usually much safer than just letter based ones.
Sometimes, you can’t figure out what password to choose or create. This is why you have applications and tools to do the task for you. I’m talking about Strong Password Generators.
You can use this tool to assign yourself one heck of a strong password for your accounts, making it next to impossible for any hacker to guess and acquire your hard-to-decode password.
Emails are easy to hack, and if you have a social media account linked, then be wary. Phishing emails posing as your FB or Instagram email might appear in your inbox.
The best way to deal with these is to simply find out what to look for in phishing emails. If you know how to spot them, you can avoid them with relative ease.
Another way to avoid such schemes is to visit the official page itself. If you got an email from your social media account, don’t click on the link presented inside. Just head over to the official social media page and check it there.
Location
Location-based services have become a cornerstone of social media today. However, they do pose a considerable threat to your security and privacy.
Generally, speaking, it is best to keep your social media location services turned off. This can be difficult at times, but it will keep you from being tracked all over the place. Plus, you can also protect your friends and family by doing so.
Social Media Apps You Should Avoid
While the tops above are more than enough to secure your social media accounts, I’d like to talk about the platforms that you need to look the other way when mentioned. Some of them are very popular like Snapchat.
This social media app is very fun to use, but it doesn’t come without certain security breaches. Back in 2014, the app was hacked to leak private photos of users. The outcome was devastating as 90,000 explicit photos were harvested. This is just an example. Now, let me show you which Social Media Apps you should avoid in order to protect your privacy and in some cases yourself:
What Does Social Media’s Future Hold for Individual Privacy?
Social media is an inherent part of our lives now. It is unlikely that online security will get more robust without you giving it your direct and constant attention. Make sure you know how to protect yourself online and take the right measures to secure your online privacy.
Now, tell me, have I missed anything? Are there any social media apps you’d like me to add? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Related Posts
About The Author
Tom Simmers
Apart from covering the latest news and trends related to online privacy and cybersecurity, Tom has also worked at IT departments of several companies in the United States.
