092 - Review Your Social Media Privacy Settings
“Limit who can see your posts, friends list, photos, and personal details. Public information can sometimes be used for harassment, targeting, or impersonation.”
Setting up a social media profile usually feels like opening a window to connect with friends, share family milestones, or find community groups that truly understand your background. It is a space where we go to feel less alone in the world.
But when your profile is set up with standard, out-of-the-box settings, that window isn’t just open to your friends—it’s wide open to the entire internet. For marginalized communities, individuals navigating the threat of immigration enforcement, or people dealing with targeted racism, this public visibility carries real-world risks. Bad actors, aggressive trolls, or enforcement officials can easily scan a public profile to piece together your friend networks, your family ties, your hobbies, and the places you frequent. It takes very little effort for someone to weaponize a public photo or a personal detail into targeted harassment or tracking.
You have every right to decide who gets a seat at your digital table. Locking down your profiles isn't about hiding; it’s an act of collective care that protects both you and the people you love.
Taking control of your digital boundaries takes less than five minutes and requires zero technical background:
Flip the "Private" switch: Go into the settings menu of apps like Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Look under "Privacy" and toggle your entire account to "Private." This ensures only people you manually approve can see what you share.
Hide your networks: Change your settings so that your friends list or follower list is hidden from public view. This stops outsiders from identifying or contacting your loved ones.
Lock down old photos: Use platform tools to limit the visibility of past posts to "Friends Only" so historical updates aren't left exposed to strangers.
Your social media should be a safe space to grow, not a tool for others to monitor your life. Taking these simple steps keeps your community close and your private life completely your own.
What Now
If you are a marginalized individual or navigating the threat of targeted surveillance and immigration enforcement, taking control of your digital footprint is a vital layer of collective care. Use this checklist to lock down your social media boundaries and protect your community:
Enable Strict Profile Privacy: Open the settings menu on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok and toggle your account to "Private." This simple step prevents automated data scraping and ensures only manually approved followers can see your posts, locations, and daily updates.
Conceal Your Social Networks: Adjust your privacy configurations to hide your "Friends" or "Followers" list from public view. Masking these connections prevents bad actors or enforcement officials from mapping out your family ties, mutual aid networks, or loved ones.
Audit and Restrict Past Visibility: Use platform-wide tools (such as Facebook's "Limit Past Posts" feature) to retroactively change the visibility of historical updates from public to "Friends Only." This limits the amount of old data, location check-ins, or photos available for outsiders to archive.
Consult Advanced Tech-Defense Frameworks: For comprehensive, platform-specific guides on hiding your digital footprint and auditing your device security, review the open-source surveillance self-defense modules curated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Digital Defense Fund.
Establish Secure Communication Channels: Move your vital community organizing, mutual aid coordination, and sensitive conversations away from public social media comments and unencrypted direct messages. Transition your core circle to end-to-end encrypted platforms like Signal to keep your communications entirely private.
Local Resources
Lutheran Community Services Northwest https://lcsnw.org/office/vancouver/
(360) 694-5624
Clark County Volunteer Lawyers Program https://ccvlp.org/
(360) 695-5313
Northwest Justice Project https://nwjustice.org/
(360) 693-6130
