It is impossible to imagine the modern world without online communication, and Hornet, the world’s gay social network, with over 40 million diverse users, provides a community home base that is available anytime and anywhere. But one should always remember – having a profile on any of the social and dating online platforms may make you a target for fraudsters and criminals. At Hornet, we work tirelessly to prevent such profiles from appearing in our digital home that we are building together with you. We have implemented many measures to effectively combat such profiles and are constantly improving them, but we are not the only ones “working on the problem” – criminal elements are very persistent and are constantly coming up with new ways to bypass protective measures online platforms bring in.
This article gives you a quick intro on what steps you can take in order to protect yourself from spammers, scammers, criminals, and fake profiles.
First of all, be extremely cautious if someone asks you to go to another messenger, such as WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber, Snapchat, WeChat, etc. Remember that fraudsters can be inventive in their attempts to convince you to switch the conversation to another place – they can be saying that Hornet doesn’t work properly for them (which is not true), that the other place is more convenient for communicating, they have reached a limit of messages they can send on Hornet (not true – we do not limit chats), they do not use Hornet often because they live a “closeted” life, and many other excuses. Our advice for you – do not transfer the conversation to another messenger unless you are 100% sure you are talking to a real, trusted person.
Hornet provides everything for you to communicate safely without leaving the app – chat and voice messages, as well as video calls. This way, if the worst happens and you decide to go to log a report we will be able to preserve information about the bad actor and share it with law enforcement.
Be careful sharing personal information with others, in private conversations, or in your profile. Never give out your physical addresses, phone numbers, bank account details, or photos of official documents and daily routine, until you get to know the person better. If someone asks you for any type of personal information, especially when you are in the beginning of getting to know each other – this should alert you. Think critically, maybe the best would be to report the user so our moderation team can review them.
If bad actors get this information, they can threaten the victim with disclosing personal information, sending nude photos to the victim’s family, etc. unless the victim gives them an X amount of money. If you find yourself in such a situation, be sure to contact law enforcement agencies, only they can take appropriate action in this case.
Always remember that any content you share with another person can help them find more information about you online. Especially if you live in a region where being LGBTQ is illegal or dangerous:
- The best is not to use (share) the same photos as you have on other social platforms, remember that the other person can always perform a photo search on the internet, find your other social media profiles, and find out more about your personality.
- Try to hide anything in the photo that could help identify you (face, tattoos, scars, home furnishings, surrounding scenery, etc.). We recommend cutting off such objects from the photo instead of blurring them because there is software that can reverse the blur effect.
- Remember that we live in a digital world and you can’t imagine how much information about you a photo can tell. Most mobile phones automatically collect data about date, time, and location when you take a photo. If you decide to share a photo with a stranger, make sure that you remove all metadata (you can do it directly from your phone or by using one of the apps that remove this data for you).
- For your safety, you may want to send an expiring photo allowing only a one-time view, which lasts for 10 seconds.
- Hornet has a screenshot prevention feature that won’t allow other users to take screenshots of your private photos for all users, and your profile and chats for premium users. Still – assume that anything may be recorded at any time, for example by using a secondary phone.
One more thing to be remembered – if you overshared with someone in chat and decided to delete the conversation this would only delete the conversation on your end (more about this feature), the other person will still have access to the conversation unless you block them.
Let’s repeat this once again – Keep your account secure and never share your password with anyone! Even if you trust someone, your personal password must only be known to you. In this case, no one can hack into your profile and steal your personal information. It’s also important that you choose a very strong password. These are made of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols – all in random order. Here are some examples (do not use them!):
- {7!Qb_8$LS8e7@AiX22%
- JpL9$6xjujB[qsVt
If you find them difficult to remember, you can use a password manager. They are readily available online and are often free to use. Choose the trusted one, for example, Google or Apple Password Managers.
As an extra measure, you can set a PIN code or use Face ID to access your Hornet profile – this way you make it more difficult for someone to access your Hornet account.
Always be cautious and trust your instincts, do not neglect to spend some time to talk to and research your paramour. If you see anything that doesn’t look or feel real, most likely it is not real, trust your instincts and report the user and our moderation team will closely review the profile. This article explains how you can report the user. The more people report the bad actors, the faster we can get rid of them.
The best indicator showing that you are talking to a real person – the blue verification mark, next to the profile name. If the user got it, it means we manually checked their photo taken in real-time and compared it to other photos in their profile. You can read more about it here.
We also recommend you read the following articles:
- Quick Safety Guide
- Meeting Safely
- Spam and Scam Awareness Guide
- Hornet Account Privacy and Security
- How can I disable others sharing my profile?
If you cannot find a solution in our FAQ, please write to us at feedback@hornet.com. It is important that you include your Account ID so that we can trace your account. Your Account ID is located on your profile, on the top center of the screen, and begins with the “@” symbol.
