revfilmo

[revfilmo]

Social media are fun, no questions asked there but what is it in their core? Can we trust the social media at all? Or is it all just a government program to control all of us?

The answer is… well… it’s kinda complicated.

On paper, we have some rules – don’t want any strangers peeking at your posts – make your profile private and select only the best ones to be your subscribers; don’t leak your location – no photos next to your door, guys, come on; and god, I hope you all know about no bank information out here – keep those numbers from the back of your car secure. But what else is there? And who is actually responsible about online safety?

Of course, the masses will just scream “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY”. Easy here, not everything should be on our shoulders.

In the UK, government officials just recently decided that maybe they should step up and try to regulate the socials and as the result, Online Safety Act was issued.

The strongest protections in the Act have been designed for children. Platforms will be required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they do arise.

The Act will also protect adult users, ensuring that major platforms will need to be more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow, and give people more control over the types of content they want to see.

So, judging on that quote, we still can see that even that regulation is kinda more about how platforms should keep the users safe and if they don’t, they will be overlooked by the government.

Again, in the UK OFCOM is the main institution to look over everything and regulate everything and they have issued the guidance for the platforms to follow – have their algorithms in check, hide harmful content, highlight more positive messages. It’s not only about protecting children, but about general awareness and mental health, safety of women and girls, preventing misinformation. So, if you have noticed that sometimes Instagram asks you if everything is okay after you looked into something sad, don’t worry, they are not spying on you. At least, no openly – they are trying to protect you and offer help.

But data? What about data? Here is the where everything is not that nice. Every our action here – is a numerous amount of data that now considered a new gold. And for gold there always will be some diggers.

Facebook. The biggest platform out in the Web, has experienced the biggest data breach in 2019 and even after two years, in 2021 it all resurfaced again. Millions, even billions of people have been hacked, their names, dates of birth, locations, preferences, information about gender, phone numbers, EVERYTHING has been stolen. That was and still remains the biggest data breach in the history. Where did all the data go? No one really knows and we can talk a lot about some conspiracies but the fact is – data is important. Keep is safe.

Don’t accept all the cookies from some random websites, check if the connection is secure and, honestly, just be aware of the “stranger danger” out in the Internet. Don’t chat to some stranger users on Roblox, don’t fall for Instagram scam “you can win a million if you tag a friend”, don’t be afraid to report any profile that looks a bit suspicious. Keep yourself safe here, and even platforms say you have nothing to worry about, don’t trust them so much. Don’t put all information about yourself on your page, maybe don’t even have your real name – think of some creative nickname and trust with your real name to only your friends and trusted people. And just enjoy your life here and even more, outside of the web ❤️

[revfilmo]

Hi everyone!

Welcome to this blog about some simple rules of social media. Sure you all know your stuff but why not to just be sure you are safe and sound? So let’s go!

You know, a few years ago social media were kinda just a tool or even more like a silly game to be in touch with friends and family. No one run after the successful success, no influencers, no businesses, just ✨vibes✨

But now? Everything is different – most of the users are still just average you and me, however there are lots of people who have build their professional lives thanks to socials as well as lots of businesses who went online to gain more exposure. The question is – what are the differences in use? Let’s look into that.

Starting with simple things. Firstly, yeah, not all social media platforms are the same. There are plenty of them now and they are not just for everyone and everything. Some platforms are simply for chat, some for business, other ones are all bloggy and arty. Like here, on Tumblr, you won’t find a job but you might, if lucky enough, do that on LinkedIn. At the same time, some users try to some sort of universal friend – they use all social media just to grow the audience and get more engagement. Mostly, it’s a strategy for business; they are active on Instagram, X, TikTok, everywhere they can just to be seen by people. They joke about their own flaws, promote their brand while using some a bit goofy edits and just pretend like they don’t take themselves too seriously. But do we believe them?

All that creates a problem of mixing social media. Again, a few years ago, no one used Instagram as a business platform but now nearly everyone there is a some sort of influencer. So now, different uses of different platforms are kinda in one pot. One of the cases is Duolingo – the company that has build (and now destroyed) their reputation on using social media differently from other companies. One of their biggest strengths was the communication with users that has some narrative of sarcasm, some banter and overall they really badly wanted to be your slightly toxic but still a friend.

And that is kinda one of the benefits they had from social media – promotion and gaining more and more followers (potential users). To understand their humour, followers most likely had to be users of their platform so it all creates the whole circle of their audience.

Normal people like you and I, we might be promoting something as well, yeah, mostly how cool we are out here, in the web, but let’s be honest, even more we use socials to chat out friends or find new friends. Discord communities where you can chat to anyone from the other part of the world, Tumblr community spaces, WhatsApp group chats – different way to achieve the same goal – connections. With friends, with celebrities, with big companies and maybe someone we want to connect so desperately.

What about communities? Do they use socials? Of course they do! And it’s not only about some geek groups – your local hospital might have an Instagram page, maybe some neighbours have a blog to chat problem in the neighbourhood?

For example, in my local community I have a society that organises cleaning events every two weeks. For them, the social media is a way to involve more people in their community, to send out invites and post updates, photos, videos – everything about it all for more people to see and maybe decide to go to the next community cleaning events!