Some social media websites, such as Facebook, allow you to, and sometimes even openly suggest that you enter as much information about yourself as possible, such as where you work, which city you live in, what different schools you have been in, your relationship status, who your friends are, your age, sex, and so on and so forth. Sites like Facebook have an extraordinary amount of details that can be entered into your profile.
In theory, and principally, sites like Facebook use this information to make friend suggestions. If it notices that somebody else is the same age as you, lived in the same places, went to the same schools as you and so on, the site may suggest that this person might be an acquaintance of yours, and offer a chance of classifying that person as a friend at the website.
These sites oftentimes make it very enticing and tempting to enter all this info. However, before you do any of that, stop for a second to think: Do you really want to enter all this information about yourself into the databases of some megacorporation out there? Do you really want some, or most, of this info about you being seen by anybody out there?
Consider the risks involved in giving all this information for the world to see. For example, if people can easily find out where you work at, you open yourself to the possibility of online harassment (by either side of the political spectrum) by people calling your employer. If you give information about where you live, where you have gone to school, who you are married to, and so on, all this information could be used against you, by political bullies, by internet trolls, by criminals, by scammers, and a myriad of other people.
So stop to think for a second before you enter any information into any of these websites: Are you sure you want to expose yourself to this?
Personally, I would suggest that if you really, really need to use any of these social media websites, you give as little information as possible. And if you have already given such information in the past, you immediately go to your profile and remove as much as of it as possible.
Many of these websites offer you the possibility of storing your phone number, mostly for recovering your account in case you lose access to it (eg. you just forget the password, or it gets hacked). Unless the account is extraordinarily crucial for your livelihood, I would even suggest against this. You don't know what your phone number might end up being used for. (These sites generally don't reveal phone numbers publicly, but still, it's some private megacorporation out there. Do you really trust them? Also consider that the servers of megacorporations get hacked all the time.)
(Note that here I'm only talking about social media websites. The situation is a bit different with online services which you use to make purchases, such as Steam or online shops. Generally these websites only ask you for information required to make credit card purchases, and there are strong laws controlling your privacy. Providing your basic info truthfully may be required by law in order to make credit card purchases. In these cases it's probably safe to give this information, and may be required by your local laws, although if you are extraordinarily paranoid, you might want to check if eg. giving your phone number is mandatory, if the service asks for it, and if you don't want to give it. Some credit card companies might require it. If the service provides an option to not store any of this information, only use it for that one purchase, you might want to opt for this.)
In theory, and principally, sites like Facebook use this information to make friend suggestions. If it notices that somebody else is the same age as you, lived in the same places, went to the same schools as you and so on, the site may suggest that this person might be an acquaintance of yours, and offer a chance of classifying that person as a friend at the website.
These sites oftentimes make it very enticing and tempting to enter all this info. However, before you do any of that, stop for a second to think: Do you really want to enter all this information about yourself into the databases of some megacorporation out there? Do you really want some, or most, of this info about you being seen by anybody out there?
Consider the risks involved in giving all this information for the world to see. For example, if people can easily find out where you work at, you open yourself to the possibility of online harassment (by either side of the political spectrum) by people calling your employer. If you give information about where you live, where you have gone to school, who you are married to, and so on, all this information could be used against you, by political bullies, by internet trolls, by criminals, by scammers, and a myriad of other people.
So stop to think for a second before you enter any information into any of these websites: Are you sure you want to expose yourself to this?
Personally, I would suggest that if you really, really need to use any of these social media websites, you give as little information as possible. And if you have already given such information in the past, you immediately go to your profile and remove as much as of it as possible.
Many of these websites offer you the possibility of storing your phone number, mostly for recovering your account in case you lose access to it (eg. you just forget the password, or it gets hacked). Unless the account is extraordinarily crucial for your livelihood, I would even suggest against this. You don't know what your phone number might end up being used for. (These sites generally don't reveal phone numbers publicly, but still, it's some private megacorporation out there. Do you really trust them? Also consider that the servers of megacorporations get hacked all the time.)
(Note that here I'm only talking about social media websites. The situation is a bit different with online services which you use to make purchases, such as Steam or online shops. Generally these websites only ask you for information required to make credit card purchases, and there are strong laws controlling your privacy. Providing your basic info truthfully may be required by law in order to make credit card purchases. In these cases it's probably safe to give this information, and may be required by your local laws, although if you are extraordinarily paranoid, you might want to check if eg. giving your phone number is mandatory, if the service asks for it, and if you don't want to give it. Some credit card companies might require it. If the service provides an option to not store any of this information, only use it for that one purchase, you might want to opt for this.)
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