 Personally I use social media a lot, particularly Instagram, and I have used these platforms more and more over lockdown. I have a public account where I share my poetry and photography and through this I have met a lot of people and have made a few online friends who I do speak to pretty often. I've always been wary of the dangers of the internet when making friends or posting myself, my parents reminding me on a constant basis. For this reason I am lucky I haven't had too many negative experiences. When having a public account there is the added risk where you might end up talking to someone who isn't who they say they are, or having negative comments under posts by people who you may or may not know. The ways I've used to stay protected is to simply not trust everyone or everything I see. People might call me paranoid or overreacting but truly you never know who's on the other end. There is nothing wrong with making friends online. I myself have a few as long as you do it safely. Check who else they follow and who they followed by, whether they have posts on their account and when they were posted. Sometimes spam posting is a bad sign. Reverse image searching, there are lots of little things you can do to see if someone is genuine or not, but the sad reality is that this isn't 100% foolproof and you truly never know. Another thing with public accounts is that everyone can see everything. For this reason I often choose not to post selfies or full face pictures, also not sharing exact locations such as places I go to often. Finally, I don't reply to all my DMs and messages, especially if accounts that don't seem legit to me, there is nothing wrong with that and also nothing wrong with blocking and reporting accounts that make you feel uncomfortable. The internet is a weird and wonderful place, it's always good to have a few extra measures to keep you and the people around you safe, especially since we're now using these platforms more often, so stay safe.