Last
week, the newspapers reported that a 23 year old engineering graduate
woman was gang-raped by a person who invited her for a “date”. The woman
had met the accused, Jitendra Biswal, on Facebook. Biswal is a director
in a private educational institute. Soon enough Biswal and the woman
exchanged their mobile numbers and last week Biswal had invited her to
meet-up for a date. But this “date” turned into a horrendous experience
for the woman. The incident happened in Bhuwaneshwar.
Cases
of women meeting strangers on social networking websites (like
Facebook, Twitter, Google+) and getting into trouble are on the rise.
Every now and then we get to read a similar story as above. Online
social networking, on one hand, has made it a lot easier to make new
friends but at the same time these websites have become tools for
anti-social elements to find their prey. Women and children are their
main targets.
Here, I have put together a few tips which will help anyone, and especially women, to stay safer on social networking websites.
BEFORE ACCEPTING FRIEND REQUEST
First and the most important tip is to better to connect only with the
people you already know in your “real” life. Facebook is essentially a
tool to stay in touch with your friends and relatives. Better keep it
that way.
But if you are using
Facebook to make new friends, please make sure you carefully scan and
understand the profiles of your would-be friends before accepting friend
requests or sending friend requests.
It is very important to check when a particular profile was created. To
know this, you should go to the person’s Timeline and keep scrolling
down as more and more posts by that person will be shown to you. You do
not need to go to the bottom of the Timeline –but this scanning of older
posts will give you a number of insights about the person. It will also
reveal age of the profile.
Do
not accept friend requests from people who are strangers and whose
profiles are not old enough. People often quickly create fake profiles
whose only intent is to catch quickly a few unsuspecting victims.
Do not accept friend requests from those who do not have a
genuine-looking profile picture. If instead of real profile picture,
the person has posted photos of film stars, flower, musicians, singers
or anyone else or has not posted any photo at all –you should not accept
such a friend request.
Try to
assess the person’s nature and behavior by reading the kind of material
s/he has posted. If there are obscene photos or status updates anywhere
on the person’s wall –it would be better to be extra careful about
connecting with such a person.
If
it is available for you to view without accepting friend request, you
must go to the Photos section of person’s profile. See what kind of
photos are there.
If the person has not posted any genuine looking family photos or photos with friends, be cautious.
Go to the About section and see how much information has been made
public. Find out where the person has studied and worked. See if this
information sounds genuine.
If
marital status is “married”, you should pay attention whether the person
has named the spouse. If yes, go and check spouse’s profile as well.
Also in About section, see if any people have been listed as family
members. Check the profiles of people who are listed as family members.
Now pay attention to the status updates made by the person. Language
used tells a lot about the person. Look for the signs of maturity in
thoughts and words in the messages posted by the person.
If a person uses abusive language, or very casual language against
women –you better think twice before accepting friend request from this
person.
You should also see if
there are any common friends. If there are, you might want to ask a
common friend about his/her opinion.
AFTER BECOMING FRIENDS
Once you have accepted friend request of a stranger, you should go slow
in developing a friendship or relationship. Take your time and keeping
judging the person.
You should
not share your address or phone number with a person whom you can not
completely trust. A person might sound an absolute gem to you but if
there are no pressing reasons, you better take your time before sharing
address or phone number.
If you
want to, first share mobile phone number only (do not share your
landline / fixed line telephone number because this can give away your
home/office address). Talk to the person over the phone and take your
time in making an opinion.
Do not
send any such messages to your friends which could later be used to
blackmail you. Remember, all your messages will remain in the history of
your friend’s Facebook inbox. Be careful about what you write.
Never send any revealing photos of yours via Facebook chat or inbox.
Once sent, you lose control on those photos as your friend can save a
copy of them.
Do not agree to
meet a new friend until complete trust has been established. Even after
that, you should first try to meet in a get-together, party or a similar
function.
If you have to meet alone, better meet in a public place.
It’s not a bad idea to take another friend of yours along when going to see an online friend for the first time.
While meeting the person, you should be watchful. In the above
mentioned case, the guy met the girl in a mall where they had lunch
together. Then the guy took the girl around the city in his chauffeur
driven car. On the way he picked up another male friend of his. In the
car they consumed liquor and tried to molest the girl. In the end the
car was driven out of the city and at a deserted place the guy, his
friend and car’s driver took turn to rape the girl.
If you are meeting an online friend who you only so far know through
Internet, be careful about what you eat and drink during the meeting.
Remain cautious about sedatives mixed in food or drinks.
ON YOUR FACEBOOK TIMELINE
Beautiful as you are, you may get tempted to share your photos in all
sorts of dresses and poses. Please be cautious and make sure that your
photos are not publicly available. You can set the visibility limits of
anything you post on Facebook. Set your photos to be only visible by
your friends.
Do not post photos of yours that show a lot of skin. How much is too much, however, depends on the society you live in.
Do not post photos of yours in inebriated state. Photos of
holding/drinking wine, smoking, using drugs etc. should also not be
posted.
Keep your contact details private in your profile info.
Do not post your location, especially if you are away from home/office.
This may not only attract thieves but could also attract molesters.
Do not post info about your planned trip to some place (especially if it is a secluded place)
Avoid posting photos of a vacation that you might be enjoying somewhere
away from your home. This could also reveal your location. Photos
should better be posted upon your return from vacations.
Tips
included in the above guide will be helpful in keeping your Facebook
life much easier. Earlier I had written a similar post on Children’s
safety on social networking websites. This might also be of interest to
you.
Please
collaborate and add any other useful tip by commenting on this article.
I will update the article if I receive a good tip in this regard.