Is Quora safe and reliable for finding information?
Is Quora safe for finding answers or joining discussions? Quora has been the go-to platform for sharing insights with others. Its question-and-answer structure made it convenient to discover what you needed.
However, lately, users complain about the amount of sponsored, offensive, mean, or simply unuseful answers. On the surface, Quora is safe in the sense that this website and app are not malicious.
Nevertheless, is Quora reliable as a source of correct information? Whether Quora’s security can be satisfactory depends on users’ input and moderation of posts.
What is Quora, and how does it work?
Quora is a popular platform for finding information on anything, from relationship advice and programming tips to movie recommendations. Adam D’Angelo and Charlie Cheever created it in 2009 and opened its doors in 2010.
Since then, Quora has been one of the dominating community-driven forums. However, its position did weaken due to its counterparts like Reddit.
Is Quora reliable?
As a service, Quora is safe and reliable. However, Quora users and the content they post are not always trustworthy.
Like many social media-like services, it could contribute to doomscrolling and misinformation.
Thus, validating all information you find online through sites like Quora is crucial. So, is Quora safe? It is safe as long as you carefully verify the information you find.
Incorrect or dangerous information
The is Quora safe question directly relates to its main Q&A principle. It is effortless for someone to pretend to be an expert in a particular field. For instance, a troll could pretend to be a doctor and give highly inappropriate medical advice.
Lack of moderation
People have complained that Quora takes a long time to remove inappropriate questions or answers. Furthermore, lack of reviewal also contributes to many identical questions, troll posts, and answers unrelated to questions.
Lastly, many user reviews mention toxic environments, like people deliberately giving fake answers to unsuspecting users. Biased, offensive, and racist comments also seem to take time to get deleted.
Scams and fake offers
Quora questions or answers could contain information attempting to lure users into traps. It could be that the question asked for passive income opportunities, and one of the answers promoted a fraudulent service.
You can find various types of misleading or deceptive content on Quora. Beware of romance scams, cyberstalking, job scams, investment scams, and tech support scams.
No parental controls
Quora users should be 13 years old or older. However, it is possible to read Quora without registering an account. Thus, it is possible that children could access content intended for adults.
So, is Quora safe for kids? In many ways, it requires parental supervision. Parents can also block a website they do not want children to enter. Overall, it is best not to allow children to venture alone on sites like Reddit or Quora.
The 2018 Quora data breach
In 2018, Quora suffered a data breach exposing approximately 100 million users’ data. It involved the following information from user accounts:
- Passwords.
- Email addresses.
- Answer requests.
- Data from linked networks.
- Direct messages.
So, it is essential to remember that any online service has the potential to suffer data breaches. This threat means that you should be careful with the information you share.
What information does Quora collect about users?
Quora mentions what data it can collect about its users:
- Account and personal information like name, email address, country of residence, place of employment, and education history.
- The content users post includes answers, questions, edit history, and photos.
- If you use a single sign-on option via Facebook or Google, Quora collects your name and email address.
- Data collected via cookies and other techniques include IP address, mobile carrier, searches, page views, etc.
Quora’s privacy policy reveals other aspects of your privacy, data usage, and data retention.
Is Quora safe? Tips to stay safe
Any platform receiving more than a million monthly or daily visitors has risks. However, remember these recommendations to continue reading and exploring Quora safely:
- It is crucial to verify the information you find on Quora. Fact-check instructions or recommendations to avoid any fake or troll answers.
- Be skeptical of answers or questions that push investments or other limited-time offers. People could present get-rich ventures or allegedly lucrative crypto projects.
- Do not reveal too much information on your Quora profile or via answers or questions. You can customize your profile a lot. However, provide only the required information.
- Keep your IP address hidden with the help of a VPN. A Virtual Private Network app masks your location by rerouting traffic through servers in other regions. So, it becomes far more difficult to pin you down online.
