In the News
In Instagram may soon let college students list their schools, Shannon Liao discusses a possibile Instagram feature that will allow users to list their college and degree information while also connecting you to others from your school. Liao states that this is only a possible feature, but that it seems to be similar to Facebook’s initial goal of connecting college students, and would have options to report false claims of attendance and other safety precautions.
Our Take
Instagram is one of the platforms that users have increasingly been leaving Facebook for. By allowing an Instagram user to connect with other college students, the platform begins to fill some of the gaps that made Facebook somewhat unique among social media sites, providing networking opportunities for students and alumni. While connecting with fellow students certainly adds value for the average user, adding these kinds of personal details can sometimes be more than you bargained for, from inferences about where you currently live and work to connection requests from fake students/alums. If this feature does become a reality, the opportunity to report a false claim is highly beneficial, but also may not be used to catch all fake accounts.
Recommendations
So how can you protect your privacy on social media?
- Understand the risks of putting your personal information into the world, especially when it gives indications of your current location
- Learn the privacy tools on your chosen social media platform to restrict the visibility of certain information
- Always verify connection requests by checking the number of mutual connections and the content on the requester’s page: if it looks hastily put together or duplicates someone you are already connected to, decline the invite