Securing oneself on Instagram

Instagram is one of the most post popular social media platforms in the world right now, with over 155 million users in India! With such a huge user base, it becomes important to consider the importance of an Individual’s privacy and Security on the platform. Here are a few things one can do to enjoy the platform safely.

1. Securing the safety of an individual’s personal information

One of the major concerns of people using social media is the issue of unauthorized access to their social media accounts. In today’s day and age where the entire lives of people are visible on the internet, it leaves them vulnerable to malicious social engineering to figure the credentials of their accounts. Therefore, it becomes important to be vigilant and use the in-platform features stated below to secure ourselves.

Enabling 2-factor Authentication

A very important step, as it re-authenticates the actual identity of the user who owns the particular account by letting them know about the login attempt.

Here’s how one can enable it :

1. Go to “settings”-> “Security” -> “Two factor Authentication”
2. Press “get started”->add a phone number
3. Enter the 6 digit code sent on the device

One can screenshot the recovery codes, and send then e-mail it themselves if they ever lose their phone.

Checking account activity

If one does not have two-factor authentication on and they feel like someone has tried to access their account due to any unusual activity or check this unusual activity they can follow these steps.

1. One the web version of the app got to “settings”-> “privacy and security” -> “view account data”
2. Here one can crosscheck any account activity that is out of the ordinary or check the login or logout activity.

In case one ever realizes that their account has been hacked they can follow this link, which will lead them to the Instagram help centre.

2. Protecting the privacy on the platform

 Protecting one’s privacy and personal information on the platform is one of the most important things to realise while using the platform. Here are a few things one can do to protect their privacy on the platform.

Making the account ‘private’

One can restrict the access to their posts and stories, to only a few individuals of their choice by following these steps.

1. Go to “settings” -> “Privacy and security” -> “account privacy”
2. Then enable the “private account”

Restricting access

This relatively new feature on Instagram lets one limit the interactions with an individual, which they select by restricting their comments and their messages and hiding their activity status from them. To enable it:

1. Go to “settings”-> “privacy and safety” -> “restricted accounts”
2. Type in the name of any person of whom one wishes to restrict the access.

Comments

If one is facing issues of dealing with negative and hateful comments on Instagram or youtube, try visiting the ‘Comments’ section of ‘Privacy settings’ in the app. One can manually filter out the comments which they don’t want to see. They can also switch on the automatic filter that filters out the common offensive comments.