Complete manual/458/en

Mainstream commercial social networking platforms can be extremely useful if your intention is to publicise something as widely as possible (such as an event you are organizing, or a project you are launching). You can think of these platforms as a megaphone­—these are great tools for getting attention and drawing a crowd. But often, they may not be ideal for communicating anything sensitive or private to a smaller or discrete group, depending on your particular needs and situation. There have been a number of improvements made to mainstream commercial social networking platforms with the addition of new security and privacy features, but some of the main reasons why they’re considered less secure and privacy-sensitive remain. To begin with, they have very strict terms of service (‘ToS’) that may ‘legally’ justify their ability to close your accounts if they find that your content goes against their self-determined rules. They also profile their users and share that information with advertisers and other for-profit corporations. If you add to these drawbacks their ever-changing terms of service, and the way their platform interacts with other apps and features. it all makes it very difficult or impossible for users to clearly understand what actually happens to their data.