Chatting with strangers, the precautionary approach
Whilst navigating through these tough times, dealing with infectious disease spreading around the world and in some cases being ordered to stay indoors, it's no surprise people are turning to the internet for entertainment. We're seeing a lot more users in the chat rooms than usual and thought it would be a great time for a refresher on how to conduct yourself in an online chat room. This is a great guide for people who are new to chat rooms and also serves purpose to the regular chatter who may overlook certain precautions.
Who would of thought, it's 2020 and chat rooms have suddenly got a lot more popular. There's nothing like being stuck at home to take you back to the old school method of online social interaction. Believe it or not but some of us were doing this over 20 years ago, long before FaceBook, Twitter and SnapChat existed. With such restraints on offline social interaction right now due to concerns to public health, it's safe to say chat rooms will still be used more frequently and by more people.
For those who are new to online chatting, it's highly anonymous, so like anything online and anonymous it has it's shady side. For the most part you're safe (based on your behavior), the worst you'll encounter is the average chat room troll, which as you'll soon learn are some of the worst types of online trolls.
There are ways to approach this not so new trend in a way to where it can be no harm to you whatsoever, but to be reckless and you might find yourself having problems, both online and offline. If you don’t practice general safety guidelines you could be setting yourself up for a lot of unnecessary stress. Use the following (and common sense) to navigate safely through the online world of chat.
- Don't give out personal information!
We very much discourage giving out any information that may identify you as an individual. From your real name, to your address or phone number and place of work. It's a very bad idea to share this information on the chat rooms. Use a chat username that doesn't give any information away. If you find yourself taken with a specific chatter, at the very most just use a throw away messenger service like Skype, Kik or SnapChat. Even if you build a relationship with someone you trust, still don't give out your phone number.
- Google yourself.
See what's already out there about yourself, you'd be surprised what someone can find from just Googling your user name, email address or full name. That's why we discourage giving out personal information. It's always good to see what information is publicly available on yourself, and give yourself the opportunity to lock it up before someone gets ahold of it.
- Social Media Privacy Settings
If you use any social media websites, make sure the privacy settings are set so that guests cannot view your content. Maybe there's nothing there that you think will effect you, but it gets frustrating when trolls post pictures of you or your family into the chat rooms with penises in your mouths, it happens…
- Offline Meeting
You'd be surprised of the relationships forged that are forged in chat rooms. I've known people to meet there significant others in anonymous chat rooms, or friends for life. If your online endeavor leads to an offline meet, make sure it's in a public place, make your own way there and still don't share your address, place of work or any other personal identifiable information about you. Tell one of your friends your plan, times and dates, check in with them periodically during the time of the meet, tell them to be worried if they don't hear from you. Take all the necessary precautions.
Some of this might seem overkill, the majority of people will have no issues in the chat rooms, a small subset of stupid people who shared personal information publicly might get some weird texts or phone calls, but ultimately you don't know who's out there, who is behind the screen so the best advice of all is to use common sense.