Staying Safe online and on Wattpad

I love WP

This isn't an anti-WP document or specifically aimed at the company or its staff and sympathisers. Most are good people, and I am privileged to count some of them as members of this flock, either honestly, using their real profile, or anonymously. Their opinions are valuable and I hope they can contribute to this book where they can.

This is a general guide on how to protect ourselves online. I may occasionally mention internet corporate practices, purely as examples.

I won't confirm or deny whether WP employs any of the methods most big corporations use in order to exist in a dog-eat-dog world, or to up their monetisation -- that is up to the reader to work out.

Any examples that may cite WP, or any other internet corporation, is merely a matter of public record and I will supply evidence and links to these documents wherever necessary. Any legal comebacks should be directed to the original authors, officials or journalists responsible for the materials and their legal departments and not moi. Don't shoot the messenger. :)

WP is not the worst, mainly because some within its hierarchy actually care, whether they are on a salary or not, and/or know much about books and how to write. A number of unpaid ambassadors and paid staff members work tirelessly to help WP users get round thorny problems like cyberbullying and schoolyard discrimination and I admire them. They know WP is the unwitting protector of millions of teenage (and younger) girls and boys. They know it has a certain responsibility. :)

You can completely ignore all the advice on here if you like; it doesn't matter to me. I am nobody; a writer who informs where he can, with a tiny following on some Canadian-based website on a blue planet situated in a insignificant system on one of the spiral arms of an unremarkable galaxy called the Milky Way. I'm just a flea on the back of the behemoth. I'm simply putting it out there, to my 170+ playmates. Use it or not, it's there if you want it.

If you have more info about this stuff, or think I may have been mistaken about something, please, please comment, or if you need to talk on a slightly more private level, PM me. If you prefer to interact at a higher security layer, I will arrange a way to communicate away from this fine website. But above all, SHARE. Any security tips and tricks that will make the flock safer is the gift you can give us all. Give and you'll receive. Karma works.

Big Love. xx