Facebook is a social network used by many young people, owning the largest daily active Facebook users worldwide of 2.89 billion people (according to Statista).
This brings a considerable downside: the risk of children being exposed to harmful images/videos, misinformation (especially about COVID-19) as well as online scams to get personal information and try to get into your child’s account and device through malicious software.
Don’t forget that before your child uses Facebook, you need to have short (20 minutes) and regular talks about the risks on Facebook and how to proactively protect yourself better on the platform with the largest number of users.
So, how to help kids avoid scams on Facebook? This article will answer your questions!
How to help kids avoid scams on Facebook?
Common scams targeted at teens
Facebook scams happen when bad people create fake accounts or hack into an existing Facebook account or a page your kid has liked. Scammers use these fake accounts to trick your kids into giving them money or personal information.
Here are some common scams on Facebook:
Love scam
Love scammers often send romantic, loving messages to people they don’t even know, often pretending to be divorced, widowed, or in a bad marriage or relationship.
These scammers search for “other ideal half” on Facebook in hopes of getting money from your kids for flights or visas. The purpose of these guys is to gain your child’s trust, so conversations can go on for weeks before they ask your child for money.
This type of love scam is rarely seen with children and teenagers (because they have not worked) but nothing is impossible, they can be quite professional in luring your children to reveal their parents’ banking information, so you need to update your child to understand.
For teens, CyberPurify believes it is more about sexual attackers – who make friends with your baby, complimenting them on their bodies and enticing your child to take sensitive images/videos – called sexting. You must be careful because the online enticement reports have increased almost 98% during COVID-19 comparing to the previous year.
Lottery scam
Lottery scams are often made from accounts or pages that impersonate someone your child knows or an organization (such as a government agency or Facebook). A familiar motif is that they will send a text message to your child, stating that your child is one of the lottery winners and that your child can get his or her money for a small advance fee (this is usually a personal income tax).
Scammers may ask your child for personal information, such as the address where your child lives or banking information.
Access Token Theft
This is an extremely popular scam and has caused many children to lose their Facebook accounts. A link will be shared with your child requesting access to their Facebook account. The link may look like it’s coming from a legitimate app, but it’s actually a way scammers can get into your kid’s account and spread spam to their friends.
Besides, there are loan scams and job scams, because these two types of scams do not have much to do with children, so CyberPurify will not go into detail.
Be aware of scammers’ signs
Scammers typically have a few characteristics:
- People your kids don’t know in real life ask them to send them money.
- People who ask your child to deposit money (they say a small amount like tax) to receive a loan, prize, or other winnings.
- Pages representing unverified companies, organizations, or influential figures.
- People who ask your kids to stop chatting on Facebook and move to less well-known or less secure platforms.
- People who claim to be friends or relatives in the event of an emergency.
- Messages or posts with lots of typos, font errors, and poor grammar (they use translation tools for mass outreach).
- Those accounts direct your child to a page to claim the prize.
If your child sees something on Facebook that your child considers fraudulent, the golden rule is that your child should not respond and instead, report the fraudulent behavior to Facebook by pressing the three-dot button next to the content.
Tips to keep your kids safe on Facebook
They must actively protect their password
Tips to increase password security:
- Choose a password your child doesn’t use anywhere else online
- Passwords are easy for your child to remember but difficult for others to guess. Don’t use common passwords like 123456 or contain your child’s date of birth or name
- Never share a password with anyone
More online safety tips for parents that will be helpful for you!
Never share your login information
Scammers can create fake websites that look like Facebook and ask your child to log in with his email and password. So you should always check the website’s URL before you enter your login information. When in doubt, they should go to www.facebook.com to access Facebook.
Sign out of Facebook when your kids use it in others’ computer/phone/tablet
If your child forgets, they can log out remotely. The steps are as follows:
- In the upper right corner, select the down arrow
- Select Settings & Privacy
3. Select Settings
4. Select Security and login
5. Go to the Where you’re logged in section. You may have to click See More to see all the sessions your child has logged in to.
6. Find the login session from which your child wants to log out, select
7. Select Log out. Facebook will immediately sign your child out of Facebook on that device.
Don’t accept friend requests from those they don’t know
Scammers can create fake accounts to befriend people. Your child’s consent to befriend scammers may allow them to spam your child’s timeline, tag them in posts, and send them malicious messages (pornography, links containing malware, etc.)
Watch out for malware
Malware can cause damage to the device your child uses. Some signs that your child’s account, computer, or device is infected with the malware:
Facebook account
- Your child’s account is posting spam or sending unsolicited/unwanted messages to friends
- There are strange or suspicious login locations appearing in your child’s account history.
- Your child sees messages or posts in their activity log that they don’t remember sending.
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On your child’s computer or mobile device:
- Your child’s apps run slower or tasks take longer than usual to complete.
- Your child discovers new apps they don’t remember installing.
- Your child notices strange pop-ups or other ads without opening a web browser.
On a web browser:
- Your child notices strange pop-ups or other ads that they don’t remember seeing before.
- Your child’s search engine or homepage changed and they don’t remember changing it.
Your child also needs to regularly update their web browser removing suspicious apps or browser add-ons. Here are some ways to protect child accounts from malware.
Never click on suspicious links, even if they seem to come from a friend or a company they know
This includes links on Facebook (for example, on posts) or in emails. Facebook will never ask your child for a password in an email.
Use additional security options
You may also receive warnings about strange logins and set up two-factor authentication.
- Login Alert: Facebook will notify your child if they see a suspicious login, Facebook will inform the device name as well as the login location. Your child can choose to receive alerts from the Facebook app, the Messenger app, or via Email as shown in the example below.
- Set up two-factor authentication: Facebook will ask for a password and login code whenever Facebook notices an unusual login. Facebook will send a text message with a login code to your child’s additional phone number, or your child can use a secure app such as Google Authenticator or Duo Mobile.
How to block inappropriate content on Facebook?
Aside from scams, don’t forget that there’s another big risk that is looking for your kids: age-inappropriate content.
Although Facebook makes great efforts to detect and filter content such as pornography, extreme violence, etc. no filter is 100% accurate, there have been many cases of harmful/horrifying images/videos being shared widely on Facebook before being taken down after 30 minutes! So, how to keep my kids safe on Facebook BETTER? Or how to protect your child from social media?
To ensure your child’s online environment is safe and healthier, you should consider using an additional online content filtering tool – considered by many parents as one of the best free parental control software to hide 15 types of harmful content on the Internet, including:
- Pornography
- Horrifying content like gore, accidents, ghosts, violence, murder, terrorism, etc
- Content about stimulants, addictive substances such as alcohol, beer, marijuana, drugs, etc
- Content with aggressive elements, hurting others like Hate speech
This free porn blocker extension can help to minimize your child’s access to harmful content, ensuring a healthy online environment for your child but at the same time, not invading their privacy rights.
Wise modern parents are always proactive in bringing the best for their children. To better protect your child from all porn sites, for all internet-connected devices your child use, you should pre-order a Wifi Device, becoming the first parents to own the solution which 24/7 protects your kids from harmful websites. Best prices are always available for early birds!
We hope that those tools and tips on how to help kids avoid scams on Facebook will help your kids use social media SAFER!
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