The use of social media to communicate among different people in the contemporary world has indeed come to stay. This is because social media is a pretty nifty tool for keeping in touch to a large number of heterogeneous audiences within the shortest possible time. Platforms such as Facebook, email, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsapp among others offer us variety of ways in which we can remain connected at all times. However, our seemingly endless capacity for sharing, swiping, liking and retweeting has some negative consequences, not the least of which is that it opens us up as targets for online frauds. Some of the social media disadvantages are the emergence of online fraud by some dubious characters. For instance, they hijacked users’ accounts, …show more content…
(n. d.) edited a compendium of works on “Fraud Typologies and Victims of Fraud”. Their work examines wide range of online frauds which affect individuals and corporate organizations. It highlights the diversity within fraud including who perpetrates it and the level of innovation and skill involved in committing fraud, thus coining the word ‘scampreneurs’ to describe these criminals. The report found that there are wide ranges of techniques used to commit frauds, which can be divided into four areas: first, victim selection techniques; second, perpetration strategies; third, detection avoiding strategies; and fourth, securing the gains. The report also classified online fraud into: Internet matrix scams where the scammers operate via online adverts offering free gifts; Internet dialer scams where fraudsters send out emails or create pop up boxes on websites, which when downloaded or clicked upon downloads software that changes their Internet settings and African advanced fee frauds, here fraudsters use mail, e-mail or faxes to target potential victims with usually a fictitious scenario of a corrupt government official who has ‘procured’ large sum money and who needs a bank account to place it.
Ngo-Ye (2013)’s Stress from Internet Fraud and Online Social Support is another study which investigated ordinary user’s response to internet transaction fraud and examining the types of online social support. The study adapted the stress process model from the psychological literature and applied it to the context of internet fraud. Using qualitative case study (in-depth interviews with the victims belief, emotion and behavior response to a fraud and discussions on eBay Community Answer Centre, the study found two types of support mechanisms – the factual information exchange and emotional
Identity theft is a term used for describing criminal that uses individual’s identity without consent. A common crime of identity theft would be identity fraud. Many of the crimes are regularly connected with money-related issues (Reyns, 2013). With technology being commonly used nowadays we are getting more dependent on it for business, financial, medical, and other forms. As a result this became a target for identity thieves as well. The Internet provides us information and accessibility, but information being stored on the Internet eas...
Over the past fifteen years, the use of social media by both the general public and by the business world has expanded dramatically. Social media is one of a number of social technologies - any technological device or technique that can be used to facilitate communication between individuals. Social technology includes everything from the telephone to Wikipedia. Social media, on the other hand, is the use of media platforms which were specifically create to connect users with other users and give them a peak into each other's lives by allowing them exchange information, messages, ideas, pictures, and other personal communication. However, it’s been known to abuse this rapidly growing technology.
In the last few years social media and technological tools have become a significant part of communication and their popularity has expended to the all areas of our life. The youngest generation of "always on," those who are always connected, post, like, comment, and provide information about every aspect of their life (Imaging the Internet, 2012). This phenomenon, has expanded also into professional lives, business, and health care environments (Randolph, 2012). Undoubtedly social networking like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or many different blogs are an indispensable part of our reality, however as the most popular modern communication tools are also not free from abuses and carry some ethical issues. A proper use of social
The Internet plays the biggest role in identity theft. On the Internet, a thief can hide from detection while stealing peoples’ identities from their homes, being able to steal peoples’ information one by one “then disappearing into another identity,” (Vacca 60). Internet fraud consists of two phases. The first being spoofing where a fake site is set up made to look like the real thing. Once that is completed the second phase, phishing, begins. This usually starts with an email that uses the
Social media can be used for the wrong reasons in many situations. There are many people who have been victims in cyber-bulling, cyber-stalking, and online frauds.
Deception is sometimes used by researchers when they conduct psychological experiments. Deception occurs when the participant is misled about the purpose, design, of the experiment, or when the researcher uses deliberate misleading to persuade the subject into believing a certain view (McLeod). Many people believe deception is ethically wrong, and psychologists should not use it to obtain important information. I believe psychologists should be able to use deception if the participant is not psychologically harmed. It is believed that deception is the only way we can obtain true information (Connolly). The knowledge we are able to obtain about psychological tendencies outweighs the temporary effects of deception.
Social Networking sites play an essential role in today’s culture as they provide people with the ability to interact, blog, share pictures and videos, flirt, and date without having to move an inch. People pour their minds and hearts into the world of cyber communication; it is an easier way for them to clear their heads without having a face-to-face confrontation. Undoubtedly, this is advantageous to certain people. It helps establish connections with people, friends and family from any corner of the world, but one cannot ignore the extensive privacy breach that occurs in the universe of online social media.
This world as we know is heading towards a more virtual era, where everything we need to know is under the palm of our hands. We have many devices such as smart phones, tablets, computers, which gives us access to an infinite amount of information. This virtual life style we are becoming accustomed to introduced us to social media. An increase amount of interaction is being built between known and unknown users from all around the world. Social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, twitter, and even tumbler have become an everyday routine of our daily lives. In this modern society, all these social media websites have brought about a significant amount of impact in many of us. It has really influenced its users on how to conduct their lives.
Onifade, O.F.W. and Adebayo, K. J.( 2011).Phishing and Identity Thefts on the Internet.Journal of Information Technology Impact Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 133-144, 2011
Although social media has provided todays society with instant forms of communication and ways to connect, it also created a new standard for living and has caused problems for many groups of citizens in all walks of life and has caused society to re-think its usage. There are two views about social media, either. It is a positive addition to society and its benefits outweigh the risks, or that social media causes more harm than good and it’s usage should be limited. Some of the ideas that are central to the idea that social media is a benefit to today’s society are that social media encourages increased communication with friends and family, provides fast access to breaking news and other information, and helps businesses attract new business and correspond more quickly with their existing customers.
These types of crimes have become a matter of importance for the consumers as well the business firms because it involves large eviction of the amount in terms of money. In these types of crimes, computer and Internet are the primary factor (Spinello, 2000). A high percentage of population is using computers in the Australia, United States as well as other developed nations. These people are much more connected with the world by the use of internet. They are using the computer for fun, business, e-commerce, e-marketing, etc.; thus, it has become an essential part of life and daily routine (Wall, 2008).
According to the IC3, in 2008, they received 275,284 complaints. Compared to the 2007 complaints, there were 33.1% more complaints. The majority of the complaints filed were related to both fraudulent and non-fraudulent issues on the Internet. The crimes reported consisted of non-delivery of merchandise and/or payment which was 32.9%, auction fraud represented 25.5% of the complaints, credit and debit card fraud represented 9.0% of complaints, Confidence fraud, computer fraud, and check f...
Cybercrime and social media are two major global problems that impact society. Today, are more accessible to computers and the Internet than in years prior. Nonetheless, perpetrators attack social media with illegal activity to facilitate their crime. There are different strategies or practices by various countries to combat cybercrime. However, identity theft, cyberbullying and phishing are three major type of cybercrimes which are impacting social networking websites.
Cybercrime is a global issue plaguing the world. The dictionary defines cybercrime as “crime conducted via the Internet or some other computer network”(Merriam-Webster). The definition remains very broad because the word “cyber” is defined as “relating to the culture of computers, information technology, and virtual reality.” Due to the growing number of people gaining access to the internet, rapid development of technology, and the globalization of the world, more of the world population is becoming susceptible to involvement in cybercrime – whether it be as a victim or a criminal. Cybercrime involves different levels of the world on both the victim and criminal side, from an individual citizen, to small groups, businesses, and the government, to the countries of the world.
... only for interaction but also as medium of information. Social media focus on the ability of people to collaborate and share information online. Social media are to help people keep in touch whether they are living far off with to each other. In social media it may lead to negative side when these tools being misused by the user where they are interference into user privacy. This shows that there will be many more threats and risks the user will face if they do not take active steps to protect their privacy, rather than relying on the social networking sites policies. (Krishnamurthy & Wills, 2008).