When it comes to Social Media, what does the practice of privacy mean to you and your child?
How do you feel when you see personal information about someone on Facebook or another social media website? Is anything truly private once it’s on the internet?
Have you or your child ever run into someone in real life who knew something about you because of what they read on social media—or what someone had told them that they had read about you? How did this make you feel? Sometimes when you post something, you expect that only certain people will see it, but you don’t know who may have seen or heard about what you put on the internet.
We try to keep the SOVA and WiseSOVA websites secure and anonymous to protect your privacy so that you can share your experiences without worrying about who will see what you wrote. Also, when we were setting up SOVA, we talked to groups of young people, and they told us that they prefer to write anonymously about their mental health. So we respect that.
There might be other situations in which you want to share your story publicly. But if you do make that decision, it should be your choice.
For those situations when you want to protect your privacy—what have you done on social media to secure your personal information?
Have you or your child ever witnessed privacy being broken on social media? Tell us your experiences with online privacy and what that means to you.