- What surprised you, if anything?
- I was surprised that everyone on Instagram was able to message me; that was a little concerning. That was baffling, considering I can sometimes be quite political on my social media.
- I was not entirely surprised, but still intrigued by the following: I did notice that my account was not listed as a professional account. This interested me because I thought I had checked yes to that initially.
- I also saw that my account was not private. This surprised me for a different reason. I remember being in middle school, back when I experienced online harassment. Oftentimes, I would resort to turning my account to private to be able to shut out the bad noise. So I guess this is more of a yay-me bullet point.
- Did you change anything? What was your reasoning — convenience, safety, habit?
- I immediately changed the message requests to ‘only people you follow on Instagram’. I did this for a few reasons.
- The first: As previously stated, I’m super political and not afraid to voice my opinion. Although with this confidence comes some fear as well. Political violence is definitely on the rise and I don’t want some right-wing lunatic to stalk my account just because of something I said.
- The second is that I much prefer in-person interactions with people, so I often am standing next to someone when they add me for the first time. This IRL type of two-way verification is my way of staying safe and accepting dm’s from strangers.
- Using Week Six’s lesson as the backdrop, how might your current privacy setup affect your personal safety if you faced harassment?
- I sort of touched on this in the last paragraph, but my previous privacy settings were atrocious when it came to receiving unsolicited messages. I absolutely made sure to change them, as there could potentially be a dangerous result if left as it was.
- I recognize that my current setup isn’t flawless. Although it’s controlled and moderated enough that I don’t have to worry about experiencing harassment online anymore. I am far better equipped to take on trolls and other issues that can occur online.
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