Social media users in Ghana have been advised to adopt safety measures to protect the content they put up on social media.

A social media consultant, Naa Oyoo Kumodzi criticized the practice where photos of newborn babies and children are put up by parents, relatives or friends on social media, indicating that it puts the safety of the child in danger.

“We need to be aware of the security issues, child safety and putting baby photos up. We’ve crossed the line. There is no privacy anymore,” Kumodzi noted.

During a conversation with the host of The Lounge, Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, Mrs Kumodzi recalled that back in the day, “we were very private when it comes to showing babies to the world. A child would be named after seven or eight days, but now in the middle of child birth, you are seeing someone being delivered or someone is posting their newborn to the world.”

Mrs Kumodzi recommended intensive education on the “ugly side” of social media saying, “I keep telling church groups among others that this is something we must be talking about a lot at the pulpit because there are also young people in the church that are not very aware of the ugly side of social media.”

The Chief Executive Officer of Popout, Maximus Ametorgoh urged social media users to strictly audit the profile of people who send them a request to connect with online.

He said ideally, one must have an objective for joining any social media platform because “it is a double edged sword, it is like fire so you must have that objective very clearly.”

“On social media, you are documenting yourself…You are profiling yourself with whatever content you put up. It’s an open diary you are building on social media so someone can just pick it up and analyse,” he explained.

On her part, the Dean of the School of Information and Communication Studies, Professor Audrey Gadzekpo said people must be aware that what “drives our societies and our conversations is gossip so we must bear that in mind.”