Social media is one of the greatest avenues for meeting new people, communicating with those you can't see in real life, and expressing one's opinions. Many kids like to use these platforms as well because it helps them communicate with their friends, whether on break or during the school season or they just want to view posts of people they look up to like YouTube personalities and celebrities. However, there are many problems with children using social media, one of which is safety. The safety of children online should be our first and foremost priority. Although social media has gotten safer over the years, there are still threats online. Remember that viewing social media is not like viewing images on your hard drive, secured by your device. Social media is largely cloud-based, meaning that everything is stored online, where anybody can see it. Any hacker can easily hack into the server and steal somebody's valuable images. Also, their information is at risk of being stolen. Mass server breaches and attacks are common, and your child's (and if you're a child, then your) information is at risk of being stolen or sold. Also, remember that free platforms are often powered by revenue gathered from advertisements. These advertisements, especially those showing free or highly discounted products can be very tempting for kids. One of the most often advertisements like that is those that "sell" smartphones (like iPhone 11 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S10+) for just around $11. These require human verification, often in the form of surveys. These surveys can suck information about you, whether through the survey itself (age, gender, name explicitly stated in the survey) or collecting information while one is taking the survey from the device. This can reveal your name, age, gender, and others through your contact card and/or Medical ID (if you use an iPhone or iPad). It can also reveal your location through your device's GPS, your IP address, or nearby WiFi, Cellular, GPS, and Bluetooth connections that are broadcasting their location.

While people have worked to step up security on these platforms, we are still not safe. Social media platforms should make their rules strict, their servers more secure, and execute all possible actions to protect kids online.

Written by a kid, for kids.