Having ‘that’ conversation: teaching kids to stay safe online

As a parent, you’ll often find yourself in situations where you need to sit down with your adolescent children and have an important conversation about growing up, becoming an adult or choosing your future university or career. But with today’s digitally-connected world, parents should also be more aware of teaching their kids to use social media platforms safely. On top of monitoring what kind of content your children are exposed to, it’s also a good idea to pay attention to monitor what kind of content they publish and who gets to see their content.


Nani, a mother of two girls aged 17 and 15, is fully aware of the fact that her children spend most of their time using social media online. “My daughters love to use social media to connect with their high school friends and share stories,” she added, highlighting the fact that Facebook often becomes the one social network children register into before anything else. This is old news for Facebook, which continues to be Indonesia’s most accessed social media platform amongst young teenagers who are just entering the big wide world of Internet. “But sometimes I can’t really keep up with what my children do online. At least for them, I want to make sure they’re safe online and that I’m protecting their privacy as well”.

Thankfully for parents like Nani, Facebook has rolled out a Privacy Checkup function; a simple tool aimed to guide Facebook users through their current privacy settings, making it easier than ever to edit and monitor who gets to see your published content. Accompanied by the dinosaur mascot, the Privacy Checkup gives users a quick run through all of their privacy settings for their posts, any connected apps that’s used, as well as reviewing the privacy of your important personal details.

The Privacy Checkup tool can be used in four simple steps:

Step 1: Opening Privacy Checkup - Click on the link located within the security tab that’s right beside the notifications activity on the main Facebook toolbar.

Step 2: Control Who Sees Your Posts - Select who you’d like to share your status update with.

Step 3: Check Your Apps - Find out which apps you’ve logged into with Facebook and edit the apps you’d still like to keep or delete.

Step 4: Review Your Profile - Review and edit the privacy of key pieces of information on your profile including birthdays, work and education.

Privacy Checkup was the perfect start to help Nani give a talk to her two children about using Facebook safely and being in control of what they share and who they share it with. “When I talked them through Privacy Checkup, I was finally able to have a conversation to my kids about using Facebook safely and being more aware of whom they share their content with online.” 

After having the talk, she was confident that her children understood Facebook’s privacy settings, as well as having the ability to describe who they would allow to share their content with. Privacy Checkup is rolling out across Facebook users worldwide and can be accessed through Facebook’s desktop interface.

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