The Indian Approach to Management
Monday, 14 March 2016
Lecture on Nationalism at JNU #5 - Nivedita Menon
This attack on Nivedita Menon
Mary E John in The Hindu
A notable feature of the university protests that have rocked the nation in recent times is the prominent presence of women. Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula’s mother Radhika was hounded by the media, and her personal life vilified in the attempt to prove that Rohith was not a Dalit. The faculty members from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who came to the Patiala House courts for JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar’s bail hearing and were attacked by irate ‘patriotic lawyers’ were mostly women. In Allahabad, the first woman president of the Allahabad University Students’ Union, Richa Singh, has faced physical intimidation from her political opponents who are now seeking other ways to oust her from the university. The latest in this series is JNU professor Nivedita Menon against whom a concerted campaign seems to have been launched, including media attacks and malicious police complaints.
One of the events that JNU teachers conducted in solidarity with students in the course of the campaign against JNU as a supposed den of anti-nationals was a series of lectures on nationalism. Professor Menon delivered a lecture in Hindi called “Nation, a daily plebiscite” (see video above) in which she made the argument that the formation of one nation does not automatically end all nationalist aspirations. Drawing attention to histories of nation formation as crucial to understanding present-day conflicts, she also discussed Kashmir’s complicated history of accession to India.
These lectures are available on YouTube, and some days afterwards, a TV channel started a campaign, continuously playing video clips taken out of context (including a clip from a speech at a political event in 2014), calling Prof. Menon anti-national, and creating an atmosphere of threat, intimidation and incitement to mob violence. In addition, according to media reports, two police complaints have been filed against her in Delhi by organisations linked to the Bharatiya Janata Party, and a complaint lodged against her in a court in Kanpur. The complaints against her are, in effect, part of a right-wing offensive to lay claim to nationalism by attacking any mode of dissent as anti-national.
Does this mean that men are ‘patriots’ and women ‘dissenters’? Any such claim is immediately demolished, of course, by the powerful presence of militant right-wing women like Uma Bharti and generations of ‘sadhvis’ known for their incendiary demagoguery, from Rithambhara to Prachi. So there are plenty of women ‘patriots’. The real distinction is that it is those women who lay claim to the legacy of feminism who are being singled out as ‘dissenters’. Why is this happening? Why are feminist scholars like Prof. Menon being targeted? What exactly is Indian feminism and what are the forms of dissent that feminists in India have adopted? How have feminists become leaders in the present struggles over democracy in India and why is this being perceived as dangerous?
Feminism in India
First and foremost, feminism in India, going back to the nineteenth century, has never had the luxury to simply be about women. This is because the struggles over women’s wrongs and rights in the Indian context have always been tied to larger issues — to the histories of colonialism and nationalism before Independence; to the meanings of development after 1947; and to the conflicts over democracy today. Feminists have been demonstrating how the hierarchies of gender in India are intertwined with those of caste; how the promises of national development remained unfulfilled for the vast majority of women; and how families have often turned into sites of the worst violence against their very own women.
First and foremost, feminism in India, going back to the nineteenth century, has never had the luxury to simply be about women. This is because the struggles over women’s wrongs and rights in the Indian context have always been tied to larger issues — to the histories of colonialism and nationalism before Independence; to the meanings of development after 1947; and to the conflicts over democracy today. Feminists have been demonstrating how the hierarchies of gender in India are intertwined with those of caste; how the promises of national development remained unfulfilled for the vast majority of women; and how families have often turned into sites of the worst violence against their very own women.
Second, we as feminists have had to learn over and over again that our movements can only grow if we do not claim immunity from our own tools of critique and dissent. Some of the fiercest debates witnessed in the Indian women’s movement have therefore been internal ones, addressed to each other. Prominent examples of such debates include those over a uniform civil code; over the need and direction for reserved seats for women in Parliament and legislatures; and over how best to combat the scourge of female foeticide.
It is therefore particularly shameful, but also revealing, that sections of the electronic media and countless vicious trolls on social media have tried to instil fear by singling out Prof. Menon among other teachers as an alleged ‘anti-national’. Anyone who is even remotely familiar with her writings should know better. Prof. Menon has drawn from prior scholarship (both in India and abroad) to lay out why, in fact, simple universal theories of women’s subordination will not work in contexts like India. By tracing the effects of colonial rule and the many responses to it, she has demonstrated how both community rights and individual rights have played themselves out in our history, and continue to have a massive impact on women’s equality and freedom to this very day. Some of her finest work takes issue with other feminists in offering a dissenting interpretation of the problems women face. Will a blanket demand for one-third reservation of seats actually be the best strategy for the women’s movement, or should we ‘call the bluff’ of those who demanded a sub-quota? Equally provocatively, might the sheer demand to combat sexual violence against women rebound against the basic freedom from violence that the women’s movement seeks to protect? Such examples could be multiplied. Lest anyone be misled, these are all feminist arguments that work through a form of dissent that simultaneously upholds feminist ways of seeing and feminist forms of struggle.
Does this mean that everything that a scholar like Prof. Menon writes or believes should demand our assent? Not at all. I cannot think of anyone who is more open to disagreement and welcoming of constructive dissent, and who, in fact, encourages this attitude from students and colleagues alike.
An undemocratic mindset
That is precisely why we are outraged not by the fact that people disagree with Prof. Menon or want to question her views, but by the mode in which they are choosing to do so. The malicious campaign we have witnessed in recent days is not about expressing dissent; it is about bullying and intimidation. It reveals a deeply undemocratic mindset that offers no arguments of its own, but tries to capture public attention by repeated, sensationalised attacks that work by twisting statements and taking them out of their context. What is truly worrisome is that it does not just stop at this; this campaign goes far beyond the limits of public debate to make opponents fear for their lives by whipping up a frenzy and creating a situation where the laws of the land are seen as irrelevant. These are acts of cowardice, not bravery, least of all acts of heroism in the service of Mother India.
That is precisely why we are outraged not by the fact that people disagree with Prof. Menon or want to question her views, but by the mode in which they are choosing to do so. The malicious campaign we have witnessed in recent days is not about expressing dissent; it is about bullying and intimidation. It reveals a deeply undemocratic mindset that offers no arguments of its own, but tries to capture public attention by repeated, sensationalised attacks that work by twisting statements and taking them out of their context. What is truly worrisome is that it does not just stop at this; this campaign goes far beyond the limits of public debate to make opponents fear for their lives by whipping up a frenzy and creating a situation where the laws of the land are seen as irrelevant. These are acts of cowardice, not bravery, least of all acts of heroism in the service of Mother India.
Such campaigns are also revealing because they inadvertently recognise the transformational potential of feminism in India today. For feminism believes that genuine gender equality can only come about where fundamental freedoms are guaranteed for all, and where no other forms of oppression can flourish. This is the legacy that feminists in India have been striving for so long to bring to fruition, and which is therefore perceived as being so dangerous. This is also the tradition that Prof. Menon has embodied with integrity and force. And if there are those who would attack such a feminism, they should at least have the courage to attack us all.
Sunday, 13 March 2016
Eight Threats to Freedom of Expression - Ramachandra Guha
The Eight threats:
1. Archaic colonial laws
2. Imperfections in the judiciary
3. Rising importance of identity politics
4. Police forces' support lumpen forces
5. Active connivance of all political parties
6. Dependence of regional media on government advertising
7. Dependence of English media on corporate advertising
8. Careerist or ideologically driven writers
Are we ready to confront death without religion?
A rise in atheist funerals shows that fewer of us need to rely on faith when confronted with mortality
Adam Lee in The Guardian
For centuries, the Christian church wrote the script for how westerners deal with death. There was the deathbed confession, the last rites, the pallbearers, the obligatory altar call, the burial ceremony, the stone, the angels-and-harps imagery. Yet that archaic and stereotypical vision of death, like a mossy and weather-worn statue, is crumbling – and in its place, something new and better has a chance to grow.
Traditional funerals and burials are declining in popularity (to the point where churches are bemoaning the trend), in favor of alternatives like green burial and cremation. Personalized humanist funerals and secular celebrants are becoming more common, echoing a trend that’s also occurring with weddings.
As younger generations turn away from religion, the US is slowly but surely becoming more secular. As mortician and “good death” advocate Caitlin Doughty writes in her book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory, America is seeing a sea-change in traditions and rituals surrounding mortality.
Doughty and others see this shift not as something to be lamented, but to be embraced. Instead of following a script that’s been written for us, we can create our own customs and choose for ourselves how we want to be remembered. We can design funerals that emphasize the good we did, the moments that made our lives meaningful and the lessons we’d like to pass on.
Rather than the same handful of biblical passages, we can have readings from any book, poem or song in the whole broad tapestry of human culture. Rather than mourning, gloom and sermons on sin, we can have ceremonies that are joyful celebrations of the deceased person’s life.
But the rise of humanism isn’t just influencing what funerals look like; it’s changing how we die. For ages, when the church’s word was law, suicide was deemed a mortal sin. Even today, studies find that more fervent religious devotion correlates to more desire for aggressive and medically futile end-of-life intervention, not less.
The most famous case in recent years was Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with terminal brain cancer who ended her life in 2014 under Oregon’s death-with-dignity law. Maynard’s story put a sympathetic public face on the right-to-die movement, which proved decisive when California Governor Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, signed a similar bill the next year despite heavy pressure from religious groups. He, too, cited the value of autonomy and freedom from suffering:
“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown wrote in a signing message. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain” he added.
In California and elsewhere, the staunchest adversaries of the right to die are churches and religious believers who assert that the time, place and manner of each person’s death is chosen by God, and that we have no right to change that regardless of the human cost.
And yet, almost without notice, that’s become a minority position. Gallup polls now find that as many as 70% of Americans now support a right to aid in dying. This position entails that, when people are suffering without hope of recovery, they should be allowed to end their lives painlessly, with medical help, at a time of their choosing.
This, too, is a deeply humanist conception of death. It springs from the idea that needless suffering is the greatest evil there is and that autonomy is the supreme value. If we’re the ultimate owners of our own lives, then we have the right to lay them down when we judge they’ve become unbearable.
Even as religious trappings linger in our rituals and attitudes around death, society is coming to adopt the humanist viewpoint on mortality, neither fearing nor denying it, but gracefully accepting it as an inevitable part of the human experience. The sooner we bury our religious past, the better.
Adam Lee in The Guardian
For centuries, the Christian church wrote the script for how westerners deal with death. There was the deathbed confession, the last rites, the pallbearers, the obligatory altar call, the burial ceremony, the stone, the angels-and-harps imagery. Yet that archaic and stereotypical vision of death, like a mossy and weather-worn statue, is crumbling – and in its place, something new and better has a chance to grow.
Traditional funerals and burials are declining in popularity (to the point where churches are bemoaning the trend), in favor of alternatives like green burial and cremation. Personalized humanist funerals and secular celebrants are becoming more common, echoing a trend that’s also occurring with weddings.
As younger generations turn away from religion, the US is slowly but surely becoming more secular. As mortician and “good death” advocate Caitlin Doughty writes in her book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory, America is seeing a sea-change in traditions and rituals surrounding mortality.
Doughty and others see this shift not as something to be lamented, but to be embraced. Instead of following a script that’s been written for us, we can create our own customs and choose for ourselves how we want to be remembered. We can design funerals that emphasize the good we did, the moments that made our lives meaningful and the lessons we’d like to pass on.
Rather than the same handful of biblical passages, we can have readings from any book, poem or song in the whole broad tapestry of human culture. Rather than mourning, gloom and sermons on sin, we can have ceremonies that are joyful celebrations of the deceased person’s life.
But the rise of humanism isn’t just influencing what funerals look like; it’s changing how we die. For ages, when the church’s word was law, suicide was deemed a mortal sin. Even today, studies find that more fervent religious devotion correlates to more desire for aggressive and medically futile end-of-life intervention, not less.
The most famous case in recent years was Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with terminal brain cancer who ended her life in 2014 under Oregon’s death-with-dignity law. Maynard’s story put a sympathetic public face on the right-to-die movement, which proved decisive when California Governor Jerry Brown, a former Jesuit seminarian, signed a similar bill the next year despite heavy pressure from religious groups. He, too, cited the value of autonomy and freedom from suffering:
“In the end, I was left to reflect on what I would want in the face of my own death,” Brown wrote in a signing message. “I do not know what I would do if I were dying in prolonged and excruciating pain” he added.
In California and elsewhere, the staunchest adversaries of the right to die are churches and religious believers who assert that the time, place and manner of each person’s death is chosen by God, and that we have no right to change that regardless of the human cost.
And yet, almost without notice, that’s become a minority position. Gallup polls now find that as many as 70% of Americans now support a right to aid in dying. This position entails that, when people are suffering without hope of recovery, they should be allowed to end their lives painlessly, with medical help, at a time of their choosing.
This, too, is a deeply humanist conception of death. It springs from the idea that needless suffering is the greatest evil there is and that autonomy is the supreme value. If we’re the ultimate owners of our own lives, then we have the right to lay them down when we judge they’ve become unbearable.
Even as religious trappings linger in our rituals and attitudes around death, society is coming to adopt the humanist viewpoint on mortality, neither fearing nor denying it, but gracefully accepting it as an inevitable part of the human experience. The sooner we bury our religious past, the better.
Want to wrest back some privacy from Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook? Here’s how to cover your tracks
The Zuck has his eye on 3.5bn social media accounts – that’s a lot of data handed on to advertisers.
David Nield in The Guardian
Mark Zuckerberg has a gargantuan social network. If you add up the number of accounts from the services he owns – Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram – you get a figure of 3.5bn, which is roughly half the world’s population. Granted many people will have multiple accounts and belong to multiple services, but still, that’s a lot of pokes, likes and cat gifs. Especially impressive given the scepticism and the love-hate relationship many have with his empire, particularly the Facebook mothership – or Dark Star, depending on your point of view. Being part of modern society without being involved somehow with the Zuck is increasingly tricky: instant messaging is hard without going via Facebook’s servers; you’ll need Instagram if you want to show off your perfectly arranged avocados and children’s fancy-dress outfits to the world; and if you want to date, no Facebook means no Tinder. Even if you’re one of those refuseniks who proudly claim “I’m not on Facebook”, you probably are – what about that chemically inconvenienced stag weekend in Tallinn that your pals created a Facebook album for? Yes, you’ll have to join to find out.
It’s a Faustian pact: in return for these sometimes useful services we give up our privacy and allow Facebook to mine our lives for data to sell to advertisers – but it’s a deal we can finesse a little to reclaim a bit of our dignity. Here are some suggestions how…
1 Hide your Facebook profile from search engines
If someone should Google (or Bing) your name, the chances are your Facebook profile might be one of the first entries to appear in the list of results. If you would rather this didn’t happen, head into the account settings pages of the Facebook app and choose Privacy. The final option, “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?”, can be disabled with a couple of taps. Note that it may take some time before you disappear from search engine results, and you can still be found in a search inside Facebook.
3 Stop Facebook using your likes in ads
You’ve probably seen ads in your newsfeed related to something that one of your friends has liked. If you don’t want your own likes to be exploited in this way, open up the account settings page, tap the ads button, and choose “Who can see your social actions paired with ads?”. By changing the bottom value to No one, you can make sure your Facebook contacts don’t see ads linked to your likes – although they can still be used to influence the ads you see in your own feed.
4 Stop people tagging you
If one of your friends wants to upload an embarrassing photo of you, there’s not much you can do except beg them not to; but you can prevent the picture (or any type of post, from updates to locations) being tagged with your name. From the Facebook apps menu, choose settings menu, settings and timeline and tagging: this screen lets you enable a post-review feature, so that you can block or approve all tags before they’re applied. There are a number of other tag-related settings to play around with on the same screen, too.
5 Disconnect third-party apps
You’ve probably logged into various apps and services using Facebook but you don’t want to give these third-party developers permanent access to your account. Head to account settings and apps, inside the mobile apps you can change the permissions of these external apps and even kick them out altogether – ideally you want to boot out any that you’re not using on a regular basis (you can always add them again later). The fewer connections you have, the safer and more private your account.
YouTube content might not be fit for viewing at your desk and the ads are probably irritating
6 Stop Facebook automatically playing videos
Your timeline can resemble a cascade of YouTube spam and irrelevant video ads – the latter are important to Facebook as they are a major revenue earner. The YouTube content might not be fit for viewing at your desk and the ads are probably irritating, so you may want to turn the auto-play feature off. Here’s how: from your browser select settings, video, and at auto-play videos, hit the off button. Within theiOS app you take the same route and select “never” for auto‑play video.
7 Mute conversations in Messenger
For particularly busy conversation threads inside the Facebook Messenger app, you may not want to see or hear alerts every time there is a new message – that’s where the mute feature comes in. On Android, tap the info button (top right) inside a conversation and choose notifications to mute alerts for a certain period – anything from 15 minutes to indefinitely. On iOS, tap the title of the conversation rather than the info button. Messages will still come through, but you won’t get any notifications to that effect on your device until they’re enabled again.
8 Block other WhatsApp Users
Unfortunately, there’s always the chance not everyone you chat to has nice things to say, but WhatsApp includes a contact-blocking feature that’s fast and efficient. Blocked contacts can’t send you messages or calls, can’t see when you’ve been online, and can’t see your status or WhatsApp avatar picture. Go to the app menu, choose settings, account, privacy and then select Blocked contacts (Android) or Blocked (iOS): the subsequent screen lets you block and unblock contacts as required. You can also quickly block contacts from inside individual conversation windows by opening up the chat menu.
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10 Prevent contacts seeing when you read their WhatsApp messages
Head to the main settings page inside WhatsApp to the read receipts option – if you untick this setting, people won’t know whether you’ve read their most recent messages. However, the function will be disabled in the other direction, too, so you’ll no longer get any indication whether your messages have been received (those two blue ticks that usually appear after posts). The last seen update (which shows your contacts when you last had the app open) works in the same way and can also be disabled.
11 Enable two-step verification
This is probably the wisest security precaution you can take to prevent your account being hacked. With this feature enabled, each time you or someone else attempts to log into your account from a new computer or device, Facebook will text you a code – which you will need in order to finish the process. Find this feature on the drop-down menu top right: settings, security, login approvals and check the box: “Require a security code to check my account from unknown browsers”.
12 Download all your data
While this isn’t a security measure in itself, downloading all the data that Facebook holds about you is an eye-opening exercise. Go to settings and click on the link “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the page. Once you’ve unstuffed the zip file, you’ll be able to see everything. This includes every message you’ve ever sent or received but not deleted (ie still plenty you’d rather forget); every time you’ve clicked on an ad; every survey you’ve completed; every photo you’ve uploaded; IP addresses you’ve used logging into Facebook (and the locations Facebook infers); the ads they think you’re interested in; and everyone one you’ve ever poked (stop sniggering). You might describe it as surveillance.
13 Choose who can see your posts
Whenever you update your Facebook status through the mobile apps (or indeed anywhere else) you’ll see an audience selector box that most likely has “friends” selected. Tap this to choose who exactly can see your next post: you might want to restrict it to family members, work colleagues, or an even smaller group of people (you can specify contacts one by one if necessary). This is where friend lists come in handy – Facebook makes some for you automatically (close friends and acquaintances for example), but you can create your own through the desktop Facebook site.
14 Delete your account?
If downloading your data freaks you out, the only way to remove it from Facebook’s servers is to delete your account. It takes Facebook up to 90 days to scrub you from their data banks, but be aware that items such as messages you’ve sent and friends’ photos you appear in will remain. The bonus of this tactic is that you’ll never be able to use Tinder again.
15 Deactivate your account
If deleting your account seems too drastic, too cold turkey, you could choose a trial separation from Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe you need a little space to think things through, see if you can survive without the emojis. Deactivation hides your timeline and means aunties, exes, criminals etc won’t be able to find you from a Facebook search. It also requires an iron will – your account will be reactivated any time you log back in – so stay away from the wine. You may also accidentally reactivate your account when you use your Facebook details to log into another site such as Airbnb. Therefore it would be wise to disconnect third-party apps (see above) before deactivating. Another precaution would be to change your password prior to deactivation, which would disrupt any saved logins you have scattered around your devices.
David Nield in The Guardian
Mark Zuckerberg has a gargantuan social network. If you add up the number of accounts from the services he owns – Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram – you get a figure of 3.5bn, which is roughly half the world’s population. Granted many people will have multiple accounts and belong to multiple services, but still, that’s a lot of pokes, likes and cat gifs. Especially impressive given the scepticism and the love-hate relationship many have with his empire, particularly the Facebook mothership – or Dark Star, depending on your point of view. Being part of modern society without being involved somehow with the Zuck is increasingly tricky: instant messaging is hard without going via Facebook’s servers; you’ll need Instagram if you want to show off your perfectly arranged avocados and children’s fancy-dress outfits to the world; and if you want to date, no Facebook means no Tinder. Even if you’re one of those refuseniks who proudly claim “I’m not on Facebook”, you probably are – what about that chemically inconvenienced stag weekend in Tallinn that your pals created a Facebook album for? Yes, you’ll have to join to find out.
It’s a Faustian pact: in return for these sometimes useful services we give up our privacy and allow Facebook to mine our lives for data to sell to advertisers – but it’s a deal we can finesse a little to reclaim a bit of our dignity. Here are some suggestions how…
1 Hide your Facebook profile from search engines
If someone should Google (or Bing) your name, the chances are your Facebook profile might be one of the first entries to appear in the list of results. If you would rather this didn’t happen, head into the account settings pages of the Facebook app and choose Privacy. The final option, “Do you want search engines outside of Facebook to link to your profile?”, can be disabled with a couple of taps. Note that it may take some time before you disappear from search engine results, and you can still be found in a search inside Facebook.
2 Prevent Facebook from tracking you outside Facebook
Facebook’s technology stretches well beyond Facebook itself, as you will know if you have ever logged into a different site or app using your Facebook credentials. As a result, you might see hotel ads on Facebook if you spend a lot of time on hotel websites. If you’d rather this didn’t happen, go to ads in account settings, select “Can you see online interest-based adverts from Facebook?”, then turn it off. You will still be shown the same number of ads on the social network, but they won’t be based on the browsing you do on non-Facebook sites.
Facebook’s technology stretches well beyond Facebook itself, as you will know if you have ever logged into a different site or app using your Facebook credentials. As a result, you might see hotel ads on Facebook if you spend a lot of time on hotel websites. If you’d rather this didn’t happen, go to ads in account settings, select “Can you see online interest-based adverts from Facebook?”, then turn it off. You will still be shown the same number of ads on the social network, but they won’t be based on the browsing you do on non-Facebook sites.
3 Stop Facebook using your likes in ads
You’ve probably seen ads in your newsfeed related to something that one of your friends has liked. If you don’t want your own likes to be exploited in this way, open up the account settings page, tap the ads button, and choose “Who can see your social actions paired with ads?”. By changing the bottom value to No one, you can make sure your Facebook contacts don’t see ads linked to your likes – although they can still be used to influence the ads you see in your own feed.
4 Stop people tagging you
If one of your friends wants to upload an embarrassing photo of you, there’s not much you can do except beg them not to; but you can prevent the picture (or any type of post, from updates to locations) being tagged with your name. From the Facebook apps menu, choose settings menu, settings and timeline and tagging: this screen lets you enable a post-review feature, so that you can block or approve all tags before they’re applied. There are a number of other tag-related settings to play around with on the same screen, too.
5 Disconnect third-party apps
You’ve probably logged into various apps and services using Facebook but you don’t want to give these third-party developers permanent access to your account. Head to account settings and apps, inside the mobile apps you can change the permissions of these external apps and even kick them out altogether – ideally you want to boot out any that you’re not using on a regular basis (you can always add them again later). The fewer connections you have, the safer and more private your account.
YouTube content might not be fit for viewing at your desk and the ads are probably irritating
6 Stop Facebook automatically playing videos
Your timeline can resemble a cascade of YouTube spam and irrelevant video ads – the latter are important to Facebook as they are a major revenue earner. The YouTube content might not be fit for viewing at your desk and the ads are probably irritating, so you may want to turn the auto-play feature off. Here’s how: from your browser select settings, video, and at auto-play videos, hit the off button. Within theiOS app you take the same route and select “never” for auto‑play video.
7 Mute conversations in Messenger
For particularly busy conversation threads inside the Facebook Messenger app, you may not want to see or hear alerts every time there is a new message – that’s where the mute feature comes in. On Android, tap the info button (top right) inside a conversation and choose notifications to mute alerts for a certain period – anything from 15 minutes to indefinitely. On iOS, tap the title of the conversation rather than the info button. Messages will still come through, but you won’t get any notifications to that effect on your device until they’re enabled again.
8 Block other WhatsApp Users
Unfortunately, there’s always the chance not everyone you chat to has nice things to say, but WhatsApp includes a contact-blocking feature that’s fast and efficient. Blocked contacts can’t send you messages or calls, can’t see when you’ve been online, and can’t see your status or WhatsApp avatar picture. Go to the app menu, choose settings, account, privacy and then select Blocked contacts (Android) or Blocked (iOS): the subsequent screen lets you block and unblock contacts as required. You can also quickly block contacts from inside individual conversation windows by opening up the chat menu.
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9 Keep your location to yourself in Instagram
Be wary of adding location information to your Instagram photos, especially if your feed is public and for areas near your home or place of work. If you go to your profile page and tap the location pin, you can see which of your images are linked to a location – to remove the geotag, tap the menu button (on Android), choose edit and tap the photos or groups of photos you want to remove. Remember Instagram also allows you to share pictures (geotagged or otherwise) in private one-to-one conversations rather than your main feed.
Be wary of adding location information to your Instagram photos, especially if your feed is public and for areas near your home or place of work. If you go to your profile page and tap the location pin, you can see which of your images are linked to a location – to remove the geotag, tap the menu button (on Android), choose edit and tap the photos or groups of photos you want to remove. Remember Instagram also allows you to share pictures (geotagged or otherwise) in private one-to-one conversations rather than your main feed.
10 Prevent contacts seeing when you read their WhatsApp messages
Head to the main settings page inside WhatsApp to the read receipts option – if you untick this setting, people won’t know whether you’ve read their most recent messages. However, the function will be disabled in the other direction, too, so you’ll no longer get any indication whether your messages have been received (those two blue ticks that usually appear after posts). The last seen update (which shows your contacts when you last had the app open) works in the same way and can also be disabled.
11 Enable two-step verification
This is probably the wisest security precaution you can take to prevent your account being hacked. With this feature enabled, each time you or someone else attempts to log into your account from a new computer or device, Facebook will text you a code – which you will need in order to finish the process. Find this feature on the drop-down menu top right: settings, security, login approvals and check the box: “Require a security code to check my account from unknown browsers”.
12 Download all your data
While this isn’t a security measure in itself, downloading all the data that Facebook holds about you is an eye-opening exercise. Go to settings and click on the link “Download a copy of your Facebook data” at the bottom of the page. Once you’ve unstuffed the zip file, you’ll be able to see everything. This includes every message you’ve ever sent or received but not deleted (ie still plenty you’d rather forget); every time you’ve clicked on an ad; every survey you’ve completed; every photo you’ve uploaded; IP addresses you’ve used logging into Facebook (and the locations Facebook infers); the ads they think you’re interested in; and everyone one you’ve ever poked (stop sniggering). You might describe it as surveillance.
13 Choose who can see your posts
Whenever you update your Facebook status through the mobile apps (or indeed anywhere else) you’ll see an audience selector box that most likely has “friends” selected. Tap this to choose who exactly can see your next post: you might want to restrict it to family members, work colleagues, or an even smaller group of people (you can specify contacts one by one if necessary). This is where friend lists come in handy – Facebook makes some for you automatically (close friends and acquaintances for example), but you can create your own through the desktop Facebook site.
14 Delete your account?
If downloading your data freaks you out, the only way to remove it from Facebook’s servers is to delete your account. It takes Facebook up to 90 days to scrub you from their data banks, but be aware that items such as messages you’ve sent and friends’ photos you appear in will remain. The bonus of this tactic is that you’ll never be able to use Tinder again.
15 Deactivate your account
If deleting your account seems too drastic, too cold turkey, you could choose a trial separation from Mark Zuckerberg. Maybe you need a little space to think things through, see if you can survive without the emojis. Deactivation hides your timeline and means aunties, exes, criminals etc won’t be able to find you from a Facebook search. It also requires an iron will – your account will be reactivated any time you log back in – so stay away from the wine. You may also accidentally reactivate your account when you use your Facebook details to log into another site such as Airbnb. Therefore it would be wise to disconnect third-party apps (see above) before deactivating. Another precaution would be to change your password prior to deactivation, which would disrupt any saved logins you have scattered around your devices.
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