Day 19
Clean Up Social Network Privacy Pt 1: Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Google
DAY 19: Clean Up Social Network Privacy Pt 1: Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube, Google
Welcome to Day 19 of my 30 day security challenge, the month long challenge I created to help you gain control of your privacy and security online. You can follow along with the security challenge via my blog at snubsie.com, where you can skip ahead or download a checklist of the challenge. Each video will also be curated into a playlist so it'll be easy to follow along from Day 1 all the way through 30 here on Youtube.
Today is all about cleaning up some important accounts online. This will be a two parter, focusing on specific accounts and websites for two days. Today we'll be going through Twitter, Snapchat, Youtube and Google.
On each of these sites, I'll walk you through the settings you should change to have a secure account and what to change. The layout of these sites or privacy settings may change overtime - keep that in mind if you're watching this video in the future!
First is Twitter. Go over to Twitter.com on a desktop or laptop browser and login. Click on your profile picture in the top right corner and click on settings and privacy. Starting from the Account menu if you haven't done it already, scroll down to Security and set up a Code Generator App so you get two factor authentication codes on your phone. Next, turn on "Password Reset Verification", then scroll down and hit save, and type in your password at the prompt.
Next, click on Privacy and Safety. If you want your profile to be private, click on the box next to Protect Your Tweets. This will keep anyone who isn't following you from seeing your tweets. You'll need to approve followers before they can read 'em. Next, turn off Tweet with a Location and click on Delete Location Information. This will ensure your tweets aren't being sent with an address or city listed. Under Photo tagging, you can edit who can tag you in photos, then change Discoverability options as you see fit. These are self explanatory. Next is Personalization and Data - click on the Edit button and disable everything. Twitter for teams is a thing for coworkers. If you don't think you'll need to tweet from other accounts, just turn it off. Turn off Direct Messages from anyone, and check Don't allow anyone to add you to groups. Under Safety, check anything that you personally see fit. Next, under the Password option, you can create a new password if you haven't already, along with generating temporary ones for other devices or apps. Under Mobile, you can add your phone number so you receive text notifications for different settings. Under Notifications, you can turn on a quality filter and mute specific words from showing up in your timeline. Browse down to Apps to revoke access of third party apps, and under Your Twitter Data, scroll down to account access history and check recent logins. See anything weird? Go back to that Apps tab and revoke access. Remove any Places You've Been. Lastly is information about your Interests, which you can curate by clicking on the links to each list, and Accessibility is the last menu, which allows you to turn off Video Autoplay.
Next is Snapchat. From your phone, open Snapchat and click on the little ghost, then click the little gear icon. Scroll down to the Who Can... menu, and change the Contact Me option to My Friends. Change View My Story to My Friends or Custom, change See My Location to Only Me (Ghost Mode), then disable Quick Add (so you don't show up in random peoples menus as a person they should follow). Next, go back to your main page and click the ghost again, then click Added Me. Simply click on any users name you don't recognize and tap either Ignore, so their attempt to add you is deleted. Or tap Block if you want to block 'em from attempting to add you ever again. Next, if someone screenshots your Snapchat, you will see a notification pop up. Be aware that Snapchats disappear in app but can last forever if someone screenshots it. Whats worse - someone could easily take a photo of a snap with another device so that notification doesn't get sent. Keep this in mind when sending snaps. Snapchat allows you to save Snaps to a Memories collection. You can move these Memories into a "My Eyes Only" collection. Swipe up from the main page, then click the checkmark in the top right corner. Click the photos you want to privatize, then click the Lock icon. If it's your first time adding photos to My Eyes Only, set up a passcode, then follow the on screen prompts. Now those photos will be in your private album and your Memories album will be free to share with friends. Go back to settings by clicking the Ghost then the Gear, and scroll all the way down to clear your Cache, Conversations, and Sticker searches. Under My Account, change your password if need be, and turn on Login Verifications. This is basically 2FA. You can also change Memories settings so new photos only save to your camera roll. Now, click on Manage Preferences under Additional Services. Under Ad Preferences, uncheck the box. Then Under Maps, uncheck the box.
Next up is Youtube and Google! Head on over to youtube.com and sign in. Click on your little profile picture at the top and click on the gear icon. Click on Connected Accounts and remove any that don't look familiar to you. Next, click on Privacy and check all the boxes to make your liked, saved, or subscriptions private. At the bottom is a link that says "Google Ads Settings". Click on this to change what ads you're shown whenever you watch Youtube videos or turn off Ads Personalization all together. You can also update your activity feed settings here as well.
Lastly for today is Google. This is a big one. Google has a lot of separate security and privacy pages and settings to go through, so let's get to it. First off, go to https://aboutme.google.com/ and hit the little pencil icon next to anything you need to update or delete. Then, click the little green Globe icon or the gray lock icon to change any settings over to private.
Now head over to https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup . This is a walk through of your google account privacy settings. Click start now, then from the top of the page, work your way down through all of the settings to update and secure them. Most of these are self explainatory. Youtube settings should all be set already. Click next to then change your Google Photos settings, and make sure to Turn ON the remove geolocations setting. Click next. The "Help People Connect With You" option allows people to find your public information via your phone number. Click next and then update your google + profile settings. Click next to go to the fifth section - "Personalize my google experience". Turn off Web and App Activity, then go to the My Activity Link. Look creepy? It is. This is a history of your chrome, google, and android usage that shows what apps you've used, what you've searched for, and more. Click on "Delete Activity By" then choose how much data you want to delete from your Google Account. Don't worry - the most deleting your old activity will do is make it so anytime you search for something again, Google won't know what to autofill to make your browsing easier.
Alright, go back to that Privacy Checkup screen. Click Location History, turn off, then click Manage History. From the map, you can see a detailed view of every place you've visited. This is private data for your account, but could be dangerous if someone got access to it. Click the Gear then click "Delete All Location History". If you like having this history turned on, you can keep it on then delete specific places by clicking into the place on either the list or the map, then clicking the three dots next to the name of the location, then choose Remove Stop From Day. Unfortunately you have to do this for each place individually. Go back to Privacy Checkup and click Device Information. It can be nice to keep this on from a convenience perspective, but if you want to delete data saved about your device's alarms, contacts, calendar, etc. this is the place to do so. Next is Voice and Audio Recordings. These are quite literally old audio recordings of you talking to your Android device. Just delete them. Next from the Privacy checkup screen is turning off Youtube search and watch history. Once done customizing these settings, move on to the next portion on the Privacy Checkup list. Click on Manage your Ads Settings to see and remove any types of ads that you don't want to see.
Next is moving on to the Security Checkup. From https://myaccount.google.com/ click on Security Checkup. From here you can remove any third party apps or devices that you don't need or don't recognize. If any unusual activity has occurred, it'll also show up here. Lastly, you can turn on two factor authentication from this menu. Now you've got all of that customized, you can read more details about Google's Privacy settings at https://privacy.google.com/#.
Also, go to https://payments.google.com and delete any credit cards you don't want associated with the account. You may want to also go to photos.google.com and drive.google.com to delete any old data that you no longer need.
Day 19 is now complete! Tomorrow is all about cleaning up your social network privacy options part 2. But first, make sure to subscribe on youtube and hit up snubsie.com for the downloadable checklist and to skip ahead on the 30 day security challenge. Again, I'm Shannon Morse and I'll see you tomorrow for day 20!