Ever wondered how much your social media posts could be putting you at risk? On this episode of "A Blonde, A Brunette, and A Mic," Michele and Julee share their own eye-opening experiences with social media mishaps and offer invaluable advice on protecting your privacy online. From regrettable posts to respecting children's privacy, they highlight the potential pitfalls of sharing too much and the crucial practice of safeguarding personally identifiable information (PII).
We dive into the real-world risks of oversharing, detailing how seemingly harmless actions like announcing travel plans or sharing pet names could make you vulnerable to burglaries and scams. Michele and Julee emphasize the importance of managing location data and being cautious about publicizing expensive purchases. They also explore the deceptive uses of social media, such as cheating in relationships, underscoring the need for heightened awareness and caution in your online activities.
As we conclude, our hosts reflect on changing norms around digital sharing, especially concerning personal images and social media etiquette. They discuss the professional risks of airing grievances online and the scrutiny job seekers face from potential employers. With practical tips on avoiding suspicious links and scams, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide to navigating social media responsibly, ensuring both your privacy and security are well-protected. Tune in to equip yourself with actionable insights on maintaining a safer online presence.
Ever wondered how much your social media posts could be putting you at risk? On this episode of "A Blonde, A Brunette, and A Mic," Michele and Julee share their own eye-opening experiences with social media mishaps and offer invaluable advice on protecting your privacy online. From regrettable posts to respecting children's privacy, they highlight the potential pitfalls of sharing too much and the crucial practice of safeguarding personally identifiable information (PII).
We dive into the real-world risks of oversharing, detailing how seemingly harmless actions like announcing travel plans or sharing pet names could make you vulnerable to burglaries and scams. Michele and Julee emphasize the importance of managing location data and being cautious about publicizing expensive purchases. They also explore the deceptive uses of social media, such as cheating in relationships, underscoring the need for heightened awareness and caution in your online activities.
As we conclude, our hosts reflect on changing norms around digital sharing, especially concerning personal images and social media etiquette. They discuss the professional risks of airing grievances online and the scrutiny job seekers face from potential employers. With practical tips on avoiding suspicious links and scams, this episode serves as a comprehensive guide to navigating social media responsibly, ensuring both your privacy and security are well-protected. Tune in to equip yourself with actionable insights on maintaining a safer online presence.
Hey everybody. This is Michelle and this is Julie. Welcome to a blonde, a brunette and a mic podcast. What is our podcast all about, you ask?
Speaker 2:Well, we're 250 something.
Speaker 1:Women with life experience and oh, bloody to say which is exactly what we're gonna do right now, hey Jules yeah, michelle is there anything that you have ever posted on Facebook that you regretted after the fact? Or you put something up and then you're like maybe I shouldn't put that up and you take it down have you ever done? That? Yeah, I've probably done that. Is there anything that that you got backlash?
Speaker 2:from no. During the heat of the BLM movement and you know what was going on during that timeframe I did post a few things that were they weren't horrible or anything but controversial.
Speaker 2:Well, depends who you you know controversial controversial yeah, no, controversial, and it wasn't like I was posting anything that was hateful or weird or anything like that, but I did get a lot of backlash. I'm like maybe I just shouldn't have. The one thing that I have gotten backlash on that I'm really cautious, of which you probably are very much aware of too, is the kids have gotten older. They're like they don't want to be posted and I'll ask, like we were. Just we just took a picture the other day and Andrew goes oh, here we go, it's gonna be on Instagram and Facebook. And I was like, no, it's not, not, if I mean, I wasn't planning on posting it. So they got engaged. Of course, they knew that I was going to do a reel and stuff for that, but yeah, I'm kind of careful about that now because I just feel like they don't love it. They're not social media people really.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting because I'm starting I mean I'm pretty social on social media. I have been in the past and I have posted lots of, lots and lots of things, lots of family, lots of events I got all caught up a couple of years ago. It's probably been about two years ago. Events I got all caught up a couple of years ago, it's probably been about two years ago.
Speaker 1:I got really caught up in the Instagram reels when those first started to be a thing and the lip syncing and all the trending audios and things like that. It was kind of crazy.
Speaker 1:I would like throw it out there, I would throw it out there and be like 20,000 views and you know it, just like nothing I've ever really experienced on social media. So I kind of got caught up a little bit in that. But my profile was public and all of that. So but it's interesting. I say that because of what you were talking about, and I've recently had cause to pause and become more mindful about things and I'll tell you a little bit more as we go through this episode and talk about, but I thought it would be interesting. In no way are here's my disclaimer, oh my gosh. In no way are we professionals or experts on the social media platforms.
Speaker 2:Girlfriend this is a podcast. It's okay, have our opinions yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1:There are things that I wish I knew more about in regard to security and privacy on social media they make it extremely difficult to figure that shit out.
Speaker 2:I know and there's, you can't talk to anybody of course there's nobody. No you can't delete an account.
Speaker 1:I mean how hard it is to delete an account yeah, you have to delete an account from a desktop computer. You can't do it from your phone. Yeah, I do know that, and they have you activate it first. So I suppose it's like like when you go shopping and you buy too much, so you don't have buyer's remorse, so you don't have social media remorse, I guess delete your account right off the bat and go. Maybe maybe I shouldn't have done that. Are you really sure?
Speaker 2:Are you sure? You're really sure, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm pretty sure, yeah, but in light of the things that I have been taking into consideration recently, I thought it might be, I don't know, interesting to talk about. There's actually some things to avoid posting that's recommended to avoid posting on social media and some of the whys, so I thought we could talk about some of that.
Speaker 2:Actually, I really like that because I think even myself, having come from the background, that I did where you know you're conscious of a lot of those issues. You know when.
Speaker 1:I work in orchestra.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of I don't know it was like oblivious. I'm not oblivious to it, I'm just more kind of like I'm just one of a billion people out there. They're not going to mess, you're not going to mess with my stuff.
Speaker 1:And I'm maybe a little bit more naive than I should be about a lot of those things, so I get it that's what I have been somewhat oblivious to is the fact that there are people, and I will say predators out there, trolls, as you know yeah that go through social media accounts and all kinds of things that are done out there, and those are just the things that I don't really think about well, we're adults.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean, this same shit's happening with kids who have iphones that years old, 11 years old, and they may not have any parameters set up on their phone. Right, they're all freaking pedophiles. Yeah, you know, there's also scams, of course, which will get into a lot of these. But if you are, you know, naive, I guess to some degree, or you're not cognizant of what's going on out in the world and you're clicking on links and things, you could really mess yourself up yeah.
Speaker 2:So a great idea Michelle had was to really talk about some of these things that are, I don't say red flags, but things you want to be mindful of yeah, just informational, just informational things.
Speaker 1:There was a top 10 recommended things to avoid posting, the first one being personally identifiable information or something they refer to as PII.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's just like small bits of information that are posted about yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny because, as I was looking at what it says about the PII the personally identifiable information and the first line as it explains it says about the PII the personally identifiable information and the first line as it explains it says fraudsters. And that immediately took me back to Nordstrom and LP and you know you hear that word fraudsters, but I mean that's what they do.
Speaker 2:Right, Well, they're searching for it, trolling like you said.
Speaker 1:Looking for pieces of information about you that they can like stitch together to create a possible identity scam for you.
Speaker 2:Well, when you think about it, you don't even need a social security number anymore. I mean, you could get someone's name, address and birth date you don't even need the birth date and you could dig in and truly find information about that person. A lot of the stuff is public knowledge. It's all publicly posted.
Speaker 1:Which is crazy, and I think that's why, a lot of times, people will have you know not really what their name is on there, and because you know, when you've got your name on there, there's your name. That's a piece of information to start with, when you have somebody's name and they can just I mean information that can take them to to your point, being able to have access to all those other things birth dates and stuff like that, and be able to apply for credit in your name.
Speaker 1:Open online accounts in your name, you know, and just go from there, hack on your passwords and everything else. It seems daunting to me that somebody can figure all that out, but, like I said, that's their profession and to light, you know, for someone who is a fraudster someone who's going.
Speaker 2:oh, they might be an easy target and we'll talk about some of this a little bit but you don't even realize how much some people are using the information.
Speaker 1:And, of course, as we talk about these things, it's not like doom and gloom oh my gosh, don't do social media. But there's the solutions to some of that and just you know, being cautious, for example, in regard to what we're just talking about, having the private setting on your account, so it is not public for anybody just to cruise through all your pictures and your information.
Speaker 2:Right, my Instagram is private. My Facebook hasn't been because, a lot of it has to do with my work, right, but I stopped and I was thinking about it. I'm like, hmm, I probably need to adjust or change that. Yeah, I don't really use Facebook that much. I mean it's really more for really more for generations such as ours. I mean you don't see younger generations really using that as much. But it's now that Instagram and Facebook are kind of combined. Yeah, you can, if you post on one then it just you can automatically post on the other.
Speaker 2:So there's stuff that'll go there, but to your point. I don't know that people really have a grasp on the privacy settings.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing to passwords, like I was just talking about, or security questions, right? For example, well, when you think about it, if you post pictures of your pet and refer to them by name, but that's a very common security question yeah on accounts name of your first pet or you know it usually says first pet, so that could be anything, but it's just and the spelling and the capitals and if you put like all those things, yeah but it's, yeah, definitely something to think about the other one I had on here.
Speaker 2:It's showing on this list. We have here's travel plans. Yeah, and I actually ran across that not personally, but someone I know ran across that a couple years ago where they were posting pictures when they were in Florida and their house got robbed yeah and I don't know if it was a coincidence but it's kind of interesting that they're you know real Florida and you know they come home and their house has been robbed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was definitely one of these top 10. And that's something that I didn't think about a couple years ago. A friend pointed that out to me. They were like you should never post on social media if you're traveling in that moment. So the recommendation and a way to avoid that obviously is to and and you know it helps when you're on that too to not get so caught up in the social media aspect of everything. Enjoy yourself, take the pictures, do the things, but then you can if you want to post it.
Speaker 1:You just post it when you get back. When you get back and you can be, you can do something. They call now a photo dump.
Speaker 2:I've seen that many times. Well, and it may not be for the people that are your friends or who you know follows you, but it's really. You get to. All those photos are in one place that's a lot of what I like to use it for because, all the really good stuff are. The things that I want to remember are it's kind of like your digital scrapbook in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:You know you can make those highlights on Instagram. They have those highlights at the top of your page where you can put all this, you know, photos from certain occasions or events or different things in one place.
Speaker 2:So then exactly, it's like a scrapbook online. So what about location data? Because a lot of the time when you do post, it gives you the option to post from wherever you're at. You know, like I remember, just like I don't know, a month ago or two months ago I was at the Madonna concert and I remember I was posting something when I was there with Mary and it gave me the option to pull up the venue.
Speaker 2:Okay where the venue was at Now. I didn't. I think I did all of them after the concert. I didn't do anything during the concert, but I did put in the venue you know for where the concert was at and there there were so many people that were posting, that were in my friend group or my you know, follower, follower group that were also at the same concert that were posting it in real time too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it was pretty evident that we were at the concert.
Speaker 1:And and that's kind of a point where they were talking about where cyber situations and physical situations overlap. So because you are physically, like you were saying, at this concert, you are posting the location in real time. But, side note, you can do that as well if you post after the fact.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:You don't know who and if your account's private. Those are things that you don't really have to per se worry about, although what you just spoke of in regard to the travel plans and somebody's house getting robbed who knows if they were public or private account but but really, really, really, just circling back to that, having a private account is really, really is best, because you have to approve who's going to follow you. They have to request.
Speaker 2:And I was telling you that I we were just talking about this earlier today and I have like a ton of people that I don't know that reach out. It's Facebook Well, it's Instagram too but it's both but people that I do not know, and I think they're all like scam accounts. You know we don't have common friends.
Speaker 1:I just delete them. What I do, what I get is a lot of uh, advertise, like, come be a model for, like our sunglasses or our glasses, or clothing lines and different things like that. It's kind of interesting, but back to the location data. So keep it under wraps when possible, and that is something that, within the social platforms, you can. You can control that. You don't have to. Some of them will automatically do it, but you don't have to have it that way, so it is something that you can control.
Speaker 2:I know too with well Instagram, probably Facebook too. But you can actually control specifically who's seeing your posts, not just if you have a private account.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A lot, a lot of people use that for cheating. For what Cheating? Like like they're posting a picture with their quote significant other, but it's only showing for the significant other.
Speaker 1:Stop. Hello, I didn't know that. Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah, I didn't know I. I've heard that you can do specific audience, but I never thought.
Speaker 2:So there you go I was dating someone for a couple of years, it was a little devious. So of course, yeah, he probably invented that one. But anyway, so you you do. You do have the ability to control who sees even just your posts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and here's the thing. There are so many things that are within your control, but there are things that, like you and I were saying using the word oblivious don't really think about. Like the cheating thing I never even would have thought of that so interesting. But another thing that you should avoid posting per recommendations of the top 10 are expensive purchases.
Speaker 2:Top 10 are expensive purchases, so you know like oh, look at my new Gucci handbag or look at my diamond ring.
Speaker 1:Look at my diamond ring and I don't have a safe at my house, just like travel plans, you know, posting those expensive luxury designer items, you know.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes it's like, if you're I don't know it depends on how people do things, but it's more kind of like do you really need to post that? I mean, if you're wearing designer clothes, isn't it just like the subtle elegance of wearing the designer clothes? Do you need to tell everybody you're wearing designer clothes?
Speaker 1:I mean I see people do that, but the point they were making in here is it can provoke envy among friends and then, if there's, you know, darker intentions by somebody that is looking, I did post my new car once.
Speaker 2:You, what A new car. Yeah, I've done that before my new whip. Yeah, it looked exactly like my old one. That's the funny part. You know, it was literally the same looking car, yeah.
Speaker 1:But you know, burglary back to that. It can be a thing if somebody is monitoring sure you know, looking at your lifestyle and where you're, at what you're doing, you're not home she's at a concert I'm gonna go, because she's posting in real time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna go check out her her uh purchases. She's at the tacoma dome. She's nowhere near her house. This is perfect, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:but, her really crazy.
Speaker 2:Chihuahua is home and she might bite me. Wicked, wicked chihuahua that wears a pearl necklace. Okay, that's beside the point. Another one that was on here was photos of kids. So I actually already brought that up because I mean it was more my. They've just basically said I mean they put up with it if I do it, but I just won't do it unless it's something that is really important.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's our adult children who can give consent. A lot of what they're referring to here is photos of young children may not appreciate pictures of them as naked babies or feeling toddlers all over the internet by the time they're old enough to have an opinion and give that.
Speaker 2:I've seen where moms are posting like happy 21st birthday to their kid. And they've got pictures from when they were born all the way up till 21. And they've got the naked butt pictures in there. Yeah, I've seen those before, I've done it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done it. Yeah, I haven't put not recently. Yeah, but I've done that. I think it's so damn cute. Well, I mean, they are not going to think it's cute, it's just it's it's interesting. It's just interesting. And we do. Those are things that are personal and that we do love and we think that they're cute. But again, there's those more devious, dark types of people that might be scrubbing the web for images of children, and it goes without saying that if you're thinking of posting images of anyone else's children, not like we're not talking about naked ones, just in general birthday party.
Speaker 2:You should always just get consent first. Yeah, slumber parties, birthday parties, things like that yeah, I agree yeah and honestly, I don't know that people really think about that, because they're really looking at this more like a very innocent.
Speaker 1:I think for us, because we're the crossover from the last greatest generation, which would be the x, and we've come through how things used to be. We've lived through the through all the transitions to how they are now and it used to be. You know, we would take pictures of gatherings of all types of people in places and events and things, but we would then go get them developed and they would be hard copies that we would have in our possession.
Speaker 1:They weren't all over the world for everyone to see, which is how it is now. So there's that fine line that has we've crossed over into this whole other space of the way we do things in regard to photos and we're used to how it used to be, and now we're kind of bringing that over into the way it is now, and I think that's why, for a while, and initially for me anyways at the beginning of social media 2009, 2010, when it was all starting to come out, I have a picture of one of my boys you know, laying on his belly on the bed and he's.
Speaker 1:You know you don't see his whole butt, but you see his little cute. You know, and that was years ago, but and that might be something I would show somebody back in the day on a hard copy photo. But here, you know, I'm putting it out on social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are people that we know that I mean just people in general but that are constantly on social media that we know that I mean just people in general, but that are constantly on social media and literally you could see what they're doing throughout their whole day on their story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't like that, I feel like.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it gets to be a little bit ridiculous to have the camera in your face constantly taking selfies. I just don't understand that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's not just because I do. I mean I'll post stuff, I'll post stories, things here and there, but it's like it's not an everyday thing by any means. It's usually something that you know has some sort of significance or I was excited about or whatever, but not the standard hey, let's get together and take a selfie picture constantly drives me crazy. I think sometimes that's a little too much, and if you're taking selfies with other people, they may not want their picture posted.
Speaker 2:So, it's not even just about kids. It could also be, you know, adults who are not comfortable having their image out there. So don't just assume because they're taking the picture with you that they're going to be okay with it.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of etiquette around. This isn't there. And safety, safety and etiquette.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think those topics, the safety specifically, has evolved over time. Yeah, because nobody really thought about these things being dangerous or potentially dangerous until you started seeing, you know, people who are not such great, people being super creative with how they're manipulating and using these tools.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, kids and having too much out there, I think, is really something to be cautious with, truly, especially now things have progressed. What about work related Agreements? Yeah, especially if it's not, if it's something that you're not really having a good time with.
Speaker 2:I just heard about something today that at my gym not my particular gym, but a different affiliated one someone got fired and went off on social media went off on social media. I didn't personally see the. I didn't go look for it, I wasn't trying to, probably got taken down anyway, but it was just the topic of discussion everywhere because so I mean super unprofessional, yeah, and I would venture a guess. It's like maybe they perceived the way that they were terminated was unprofessional and so they needed to get their message out there.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but I don't know that that's the best place to air your grievances.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, 100% agree. I think more importantly, when you are still employed at you know your job, to put something that is questionable or that you don't agree with, or something that's gone on at work with a coworker or any of that kind of stuff you should not appropriate put that on your Facebook. Not only is it not appropriate, but you know, if you're friends with anybody within your work group, that could get to people and you could potentially lose your job.
Speaker 2:This is called creating the capital D for drama. Yeah, that is like when you see this kind of stuff, or people posting things that they're trying to get a rise out of somebody else, it's controversial, whatever the case may be. It's like it's so counterproductive.
Speaker 1:And social media is definitely a thing now. It's so counterproductive and social media is definitely a thing now. This is I was actually thinking about this when we were talking about the social credit score thing Social media really now, because when you are, even if you're a potential for a job I know I did this at Nordstrom- yeah. Let me see if I can find this person on Facebook or Instagram.
Speaker 2:Yep and you you look at it to see what well, when people have their accounts public, you can see their party, they can see their smoking weed, whatever they're doing.
Speaker 1:So, uh, you know that too is something to keep in mind.
Speaker 2:I don't think employers aren't looking.
Speaker 1:Oh, cause they are, they totally are.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They totally are. It's definitely a tool used in the workplace for those purposes. I would agree. I would agree.
Speaker 2:Financial things I think are important to not make public to other people too, like oh. I just won the lottery, or oh, I just came into a large inheritance. You know what am I going to do? I mean, there are people that are stupid, that are out there just plain, just that's just so.
Speaker 2:Like what were you thinking that are out there doing things like that, and of course they're going to get inundated, Of course they are going to be under scrutiny from people that they don't know, and so you're going to see and hear a lot of that on the internet or, you know, on these particular social sites or what have you. But there's also a huge safety factor involved with that. Oh yeah, you know so it's none of none, of anyone's business.
Speaker 1:You know it's crazy that as you're sitting here talking about that and saying it's nobody's business to know your financial, whatever the poor people that win the lottery I know, it's like, it's like a curse. Everybody, I know. Yeah, I think to your point. It should be such that nobody, they don't do a pub. I wonder if they have a choice. Do you know if they have a choice?
Speaker 2:to be public or not public.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think everything's a choice but as part of winning the lottery, do you have to hold that check and get your picture taken? I don't know. Anyways, totally off that like a sidebar there. But yeah, back to the social media, financial information and details. That is something. Even when you get a tax return, even something like that, that might not seem that big of a deal. But you know, hey, tax got, got the tax return, I'm going to go to Mexico now. Yeah, you know my house will be empty, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll post some pictures so you know that nobody's there Exactly, yeah, and you'll see me in real time when I put my location. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another thing, kind of an extension of that personal, identifiable information or that PII, is that of family and friends, so information that you might share on social media. You know well, one thing they say is it's permanent.
Speaker 2:We can pretty much establish if anything is posted, you'll never get it off of there completely, because people can save it. They can share it, screenshot it, screenshot it, yeah, there's a million different ways to save it. I mean share it, screenshot it, screenshot, yeah, there's a million different ways to save it. I mean, it might, you might be able to get it pulled down, but at that point it doesn't matter Right, cause people have already been sending it to other places.
Speaker 1:This is one of the reasons that me personally, I've started to be a little bit more mindful in regard to my family more specifically, because I do have grandchildren and I enjoy putting pictures up and things and I have recently made my account private. I am going through who follows me because when I was public and on that you know that real stint of doing those reels I gained quite a few followers and so I now am going through. If I don't know somebody, I'm taking them off. If I, even by name, or if I go to their account and see that we're not following anybody common, if it's not like a health thing or something that I'm wanting to follow or something like that, I'm just eliminating it. So I started that process for this reason.
Speaker 1:There's things that if I'm putting on my story now, you can do that for only a certain audience. You don't have to share your story for everybody on your account. You can just have close friends that you choose to see those things. So there are those options that you can do those things with. So, yeah, so for family and friends you don't you might not always know, people might not always speak up. So just being mindful of those things and that's something I'm. I'm starting to reel it in jewels, I guess is what I'm trying to say. I'm starting to reel it in and and grow up a bit when it comes to the social media stuff.
Speaker 2:I don't even think it's about growing up, Michelle. I think it's really more just about becoming more aware.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know of the ramifications of some of this information.
Speaker 2:There's nothing horrible or detrimental to people, but it could be used incorrectly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or to their disadvantage you know yeah. So I am too. I'm becoming more aware of it, and it's you know, with the podcast we've got our socials.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know, we've got the people that follow us and all that kind of stuff and it's not like out there in the wide world.
Speaker 1:I mean it is. I guess you could say it is out there People could get to it.
Speaker 2:But it's not like we have people, that we we've got people we don't know. Yeah, know that are following us and everything but it's not like we're inundated with people that we don't know, and if we were and it went on the blonde and brunette site, I wouldn't care, because it's blonde and brunette site doesn't have us on there. I mean, we're on there. Honestly, if you can hear our podcast, you probably know a lot a lot about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's true, I know I actually I help with social media at my workplace with another account of a friend who that's kind of how I really started to get to know some of the ins and outs of social media. So I'm quite involved because we at the podcast, like I said, with work, a few different other things and then my personal account quite involved with social media. I guess I am becoming more aware just because of a lot of the stuff that I see and experience in regard to social media.
Speaker 2:So I'm just going to put a disclaimer out there. I think we've been doing a lot of episodes. Recently I told Michelle on things that have to do with like that are creating paranoia in us.
Speaker 1:I know right. Well, it's like technology.
Speaker 2:Technology at our age. It's like there's a lot. There are people who are around our age younger than us, older than us that are not super savvy on a lot of these subjects, that we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to bring a lot of this information because we're learning it along the way. Some of it, and some of it we already knew Some of. So we're trying to bring a lot of this information because we're learning it along the way. Some of it and some of it we already knew. Some of it we're learning along the way, but we're hoping that some of that will help other people too, because they may not have any of these privacy things set up and they didn't have a clue that was just made me think of.
Speaker 1:I don't know why, but we went to Las Vegas, we printed boarding passes, yeah, which I quite. So old school, but I Enjoyed having that boarding pass so I didn't have to like keep my phone awake for it not to go black while I get up to see. Because, that always happens and I'm like let me just, but when you have that printed boarding, pass.
Speaker 2:It was just so easy, breezy, I know, to get through and it's funny because they actually asked I know we'd logged, we'd logged into all that stuff there, but I had it on my phone too.
Speaker 1:I put it in my wallet. Me too, I had it in my wallet, but it's kind of a pain.
Speaker 2:Anyway, old school paper boarding pass yeah, so social media.
Speaker 1:there's a lot of giveaways and things that happen. And why do you think that is? Or even like the advertisements that are there?
Speaker 1:Hey, we'll give you an extra 15% off if you put your email address. I think sometimes they can be virus, a way to spread malware, when you click on those links and different things. Some of the stuff they were saying nine times out of 10,. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is, I know. Sometimes I see contests that are local, like I just did one recently for a local artist who was doing a giveaway for a painting of your pet, you know which.
Speaker 1:I totally entered, of course, with Lado and another one that my son had done some, I guess, modeling for these shirts. I entered that you know things that you know about. Sure, that's a little bit different, but there are a lot of prize draws and free giveaways out there on social media.
Speaker 2:And you get them on. It's not just social media, you get them in text messages too.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, I did this not too long ago, it was probably about six months or so ago and all of garden thing, yeah.
Speaker 2:For your birthday.
Speaker 1:Well, no, it was like I don't even remember what it was, but free dinner. I don't even remember what, but I was like sure, why not? So I do it, and then I share it with a billion people. And then it turned out yeah, I was hacked. I immediately had to change my password and do all these things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyways those things too, so you fell victim.
Speaker 1:I did, cause you get deeper and deeper. You follow the link and then you got to do this and you do that. And it's like oh my gosh, this is turning into something. This is way more than I bargained for. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's happened to me. I do. I've gotten emails, I've gotten things in my DMs before Very similar to that. Yeah, linkedin, there's a lot of stuff that comes through LinkedIn too. Surprisingly, although I don't know if all of that, I've never clicked on any of it, but a lot of the time I'll just screenshot things and I'll send Zoe and I was like scam, yeah. And she replies back yes, and because I mean my. My first inclination, like I got a text today was from some bill payment thing and but I didn't, I didn't click on it, and so I looked up the company online and I called directly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I'm like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to click on this link.
Speaker 1:I don't know where this link goes, you know.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So yeah, prizes, social media media giveaways, things where you're dealing a lot with different vendors. I am kind of a sucker for that stuff, as you know. Especially during the pandemic, it was happening a lot, but it's like you see all these really cute things and I was gonna say, I think the more we shop from things that are on social, because there's's as you know a lot of advertisements and everything.
Speaker 1:So the more I think we participate in those platforms, the more we get for giveaways and contests as well. So what about private?
Speaker 2:conversations.
Speaker 1:Private conversations. I was thinking of Tina Turner, private dancer. So private conversations. The meaning of that is personal matters, right, social media is not the place for it. I've had that happen to me from a family member putting you know some family drama out there on social media and you know I just said this is definitely not the place for this. You know it's delete.
Speaker 2:Delete just take it down, you know but it's definitely.
Speaker 1:I see that sometimes and it makes me uncomfortable when, I see it on other people's feeds.
Speaker 1:You know they're doing it in third person, but it's obviously something that they're going through that has happened to them, whether it has to be, whether it's work related, personally related. Those, I think, are just situations to where you keep that to your personal friend group conversations or in the workplace with coworkers conversations, not putting it out there on a page for everybody to see yeah, 100% agree, that's just. It makes things just. It's kind of awkward. I just feel awkward for them.
Speaker 2:It really just it comes down to. It just reeks of drama and it's like if people are trying to get away from drama in their lives, this is not the way to accomplish that. Yeah, for sure. I think that's really important to note.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess some of the takeaways from this, some of the things that we talked about throughout, would be, you know, if these are some things that have caused you to pause and think that maybe more awareness in your social situation could be where you could be more mindful, it's going to be limited access, those things private accounts, not public. It is an endeavor, but sometimes I have to YouTube or Google how to do things on social media as far as privacy and security, because when I said they don't make it easy, I am not even exaggerating.
Speaker 1:It is such a thing. Youtube is your friend and it is not easy to do, Just Google it.
Speaker 2:Google it If you need to do something just Google it yeah. I 100% agree. I think, like I was saying before, I've tried to delete an account, I've tried to change things on there and it's like there's so many different rabbit holes you can go down with clicking that you kind of forget where you're going in the first place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2:So here's a few tips, just kind of a recap, then, of what we what we were talking about before, just ways that you can think about putting things in place to to stay safe and perhaps you've already done this, but if you haven't, these are good things to consider. So the first one was, like what we were talking about before Be mindful of what you're posting and where you're posting it. Really think that through and ensure that you know you've got the appropriate audience for you. But again, you're putting yourself in a little bit of a vulnerable state if you're giving so much information about where you are and what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Out there to the general public. Yep.
Speaker 2:And then another one was reviewing your friends list. Like Michelle just said, it's like you know, go through it every so often and see if there's people on there that you really are not connecting with or, heck, you don't even maybe know who they are. They might be a friend of a friend or something like that. You just just delete them, yeah, if they're not adding any value, you know, to what you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1:Yeah there.
Speaker 2:I like seeing other people's posts and kind of what they're doing and they're traveling and stuff. So I really enjoy a lot of that. But if you think about it, there's only a handful of people. Even though you may have hundreds of friends, there's really only a handful of people that you see on a regular basis and those are the ones that you've probably clicked on before, or what have you?
Speaker 1:What's another one, the restrictions. Like I said, you know limited access, and that way you control who's able to view even your friend lists and your posts. That's one thing I know you can do. I didn't really realize it till recently. You can make it so that not just anybody can see your friends, who your friends are that you're connected to on Facebook. Even that can be a restriction, so you can lock it down pretty. You can pretty tightly down, pretty tight yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, and photo and photo, photo assets, so restricting photo access. There's some apps that like, if you're trying to post things I was on tour, you know the, the car it's kind of like Airbnb for cars, churro, okay and I had to snap a picture in order to verify that I was the person picking up the car and the app was asking me for access to my photo roll. Why? Because I had to post that picture. So it was the way the app was. It's like they basically would get access to my photo roll so I could click on the picture. That was the one that I had taken, yeah. But there's a lot of them out there like that that say do you want access to your account roll? Or like Instagram, or oh gosh, I can't think off the top of my head of what some of them are, but if you're downloading apps that are requiring some of those things because you want to be able to use them for you know, post pictures or add pictures or what have you there's usually a permission that has to be provided.
Speaker 1:I was going to say say that because sometimes you can give limited. I've seen that where it's like full access or limited access locations sometimes or all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just thinking can I track my phone?
Speaker 1:all the time.
Speaker 2:I'll let all my apps track my phone. Yeah, no, not doing that. I don't think so.
Speaker 1:No. And then two-factor authentication and using strong unique passwords, just like anything. We hear that all the time. I was, just before I came up to record this episode, super frustrated because I was trying to log on to an account and I thought I knew it because it was recently created and the whole password thing. I know it can be frustrating and kind of a thing, but especially the two password.
Speaker 2:I mean, I get it, I get why it's there but it's a pain in the ass.
Speaker 1:Reduces the chance of being hijacked.
Speaker 2:I know but I can't remember my own passwords. How's someone else going to remember?
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe share some of this information with your family and friends. And really, you know, you guys, it's like social media is out there to to make our lives, to enhance them, not to take them over. Yeah, you know so attract, not detract from them. Exactly so you know. Use it for your enjoyment, but make sure that you're in control of it and someone else isn't in control of it for you.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I learned some things. It's all stuff that I've been mindful of and definitely, as I was looking at this, I'm kind of glad that I have become more aware and started to do some of the things that I've been doing. There's more, actually, that I am motivated to pursue as well. So I'm going to kind of get on that and I'm going to be somewhat reeling in my, my personal life, social media stuff a bit, so I'm just going to have you give everyone the tea on our podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, see, I'm just going to have to talk about all the things, Right? I?
Speaker 2:was like Michelle dropping some tea is not going to be on her site, it's going to be on here.
Speaker 1:It's going to be on here. Yeah, I could do that.
Speaker 2:And this has an open audience.
Speaker 1:Anyway.
Speaker 2:Well, hey everybody, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1:And hope you got something out of this.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm sure somebody got something, something, and we will see you guys next week and funny enough.
Speaker 1:we're going to be out there on all these socials. That's where you can find us, so there you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have a good one everyone. All right, everybody, peace out, bye, bye, yeah.