heartbroken boy AKA

Rapper AKA was gunned down after sharing his location on Instagram. Image: @akaworldwide Instagram.

RIP AKA: Why sharing your location online might be risky

Rapper AKA was gunned down after sharing his location on Instagram. Was this a coincidence, fate or a mishap from his end?

heartbroken boy AKA

Rapper AKA was gunned down after sharing his location on Instagram. Image: @akaworldwide Instagram.

South African-born hip hop artist, Supamega, real name Kiernan ‘AKA’ Forbes, was fatally shot and killed on Friday 10 February, outside a popular restaurant on Florida Road in Durban, after geo-tagging his real-time location on Instagram.

Subsequent to his untimely passing and amid the speculations doing the rounds, a seemingly concerned group of people had questions to ask regarding the shooting incident. Of the questions, these were the top questions people had in mind:

  1. How did his killers know that he was at the restaurant?
  2. Why did AKA walk out of the restaurant at a “perfect time” when his killers were ready to take him out? Was it a coincidence, fate, or a mishap on his end? Had he not shared his location, could his life be spared? We take a look at some of the risks associated with sharing your location online and how you can protect yourself.

ALSO READ: ‘It’s like he knew’: AKA ‘shoot me a text’ tweet analysed

Sharing your location online is risky

Sharing your ‘live location’ online in this day and age is just one risky business and could have detrimental effects. Why is this? Because the internet is full of ‘creepy’ people. Many abduction, hijacking, and murder cases are a result of people sharing or making their whereabouts publicly known on social media.

Posting everything you do and tagging your location, means feeding these creeps information and granting them access to your life. It is important to note that in your social circles on social networks, lies potential murderers, kidnappers, thieves, serial rapists, or hijackers masquerading as your “friends”, watching every other move you make.

ALSO READ: Charlize Theron dragged for AKA post: ‘What about farm murders?’

What to do to protect yourself

To stay safe from the evil eye, simply refrain from sharing your location on public platforms, as you’ll never know who’s gunning for your head. Safety experts reckon you do the following to stay out or minimize harm.

  • Do not share your location in real-time. You can do this by turning off the location settings from your phone.
  • Social media networks offer various privacy settings which you could set according to your preferences. You may want to share your personal information and locations with your close family and friends, anyone or no one at all.
  • Do not type out your location manually, suggests experts, even after turning off the location settings from your phone.
  • It’s easier to be carried away by the excitement and tag your location while you’re out or away on a holiday. Announcing your location publicly means announcing to criminals that you’re not at home, this makes it easier for these criminals to break into your home especially if they know where you live.
  • Wait until you get home or a place of safety before posting about the location you were in and if you’re traveling with a group of people, collectively agree that you’ll only post about your previous location when you have dispersed from the location in question, according to Los Angeles Times.
  • Do not share your children’s school name or their school uniform or the grades they’re in and their names with strangers online.

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