Blog # 6 Cyber-Stalk

Stalking Myself

  I'm not going to lie; I used to cyber-stalk myself all the time. I loved seeing what would pop up if I typed in my name. My friends and I use to do this all the time and basically made fun of each other when embarrassing, old photos would appear in the search. I have not googled myself since being in college, so I am interested to see if any new information will appear. I know that once you post something, it is out there forever. So, if my account is public, I always make sure what I am posting is appropriate. 

  Most of my social media accounts are private; however, some accounts anyone could have access to. My Instagram is the only social media page that is absolutely private. I used to let anyone follow me, but now, I keep it strictly to people I know. My Facebook is pretty private, but I made it so long ago that new privacy features have been established, and I do not think my account has all of the privacy options. My Twitter for class and my personal Twitter are both public. I have not received any random followers for my student account, but I have had many creeps try and follow my personal Twitter. If someone strange follows my personal Twitter, I automatically block them. The last social media platform I have is TikTok. I have this public because of course, I am trying to become TikTok famous during the quarantine. I mean, who is not? I probably should not have this public, but I need to achieve my quarantine goal (not a chance this happens). Even though I have cyber-stalked myself many times before, I have never actually tried to find my old social media accounts. I am low key scared of what I will find. 

Basic Search

  When I just google my name, nothing really appears because supposedly there is a famous singer with my name, and my name is so basic! The only thing that really comes up is a few pictures of me playing softball for CNU which is all public access. My private accounts do not really come up at first because there are so many people with my name. The only images that appear are the ones posted by CNU softball. I cannot even find my public accounts by just googling. Maybe I am super lame or I am terrible at stalking myself. My TikTok also did not pop up because I do not have my last name on that account, so it is harder to find me. 

In-Depth Stalking

  After struggling with finding some quality content, I added my hometown to my google search. I was surprised by what I saw after I did that. My Facebook popped up without me searching for it, and anyone could look through all my pictures even though I thought I had it on private! Of course, you could see my profile pictures and where I go to school, but I did not think that all of my pictures would be able to be accessed too. Also, a few articles about me playing softball in High School and my signing to CNU were among the first few things to click on when I searched myself. Under images, the photos were only my softball pictures that were either posted on the CNU webpage or published in news articles from High School. Of course, there were some embarrassing action photos where I look awful. Many of the pictures that I saw were some of my former teammates. I found that a little odd.

  Surprisingly, I did not find any personal photos. I also could not find my Twitter page that is public, but I could find my private Facebook page. I feel like this says a lot about the Facebook privacy page. Honestly, you never really know what someone could find out about you on the internet. Once you post something, it is accessible to anyone who truly wants to find it.

  The next thing I decided to do was take my mom's phone and unfollow me on all social media accounts so I could really see what strangers could see if they were to look me up on certain social media platforms. I first did Instagram, and because I am private, someone can only see my profile picture, my bio, and if we have any mutual friends. My Instagram does not reveal that much information, and I am happy with the privacy settings. Next, I searched for my Twitter account. This was very easy to find because it is public. Because it is public, anyone can obviously see everything. I am going to keep it public because I rarely use it, and when I do, it is usually sports-related. My class Twitter is also public. The last social media account that I looked for was my Facebook account. Man, let me tell you, I am so glad I searched for it because I realized that it is not private at all! Anyone could see everything including all pictures, friends, and posts. I could have sworn that it was private, but that clearly explains why I could see my Facebook pictures when I would google search for my Facebook page. I like to keep my Facebook for family and close friends only, so I will be switching that to a private setting.

Privacy

  I feel like it is sometimes hard to find someone with a common name because social media is used by so many people. According to Baker (2018), "there are over two billion active users on Facebook, one billion on Instagram, and 365 million on Twitter" (para. 1). It would be hard to find a person's private account when so many people use the same social media platform and could have similar names. She also states that about 77% of people use social media (Baker, 2018). To find someone's private account, they might need more information than just a name.
  I would say that if someone wanted to find out a lot of information about me then they could which is scary to think about. I would say my digital footprint has mainly consisted of my athletics. The main thing that I found when I cyber-stalked myself was the teams I have played on and the sports that I have competed in. It was not too much about my personal life. I am content with all privacy settings except for Facebook. As soon as I realized that my Facebook was so public, I immediately changed the settings. Hopefully, I did it right. I cannot wait to cyber-stalk myself in a few years to see what new things I find.

References: 

Baker, K. (2018, October 2). The ultimate guide to social media marketing campaigns.      

         HubSpot. Retrieved from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-campaigns