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Privacy issues in social media
Social media privacy problems
Privacy issues in social media
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‘The rapid development of technology, including the provision of easy access to social media sites, is having a negative impact on young people’s privacy.’
The last 10 to 15 years has introduced new and exciting technology and with this technology social media has been introduced and has become increasingly and rapidly popular with everyone around the world, especially young people. This is due to the easy access to information, connecting socially with friends, watching programs and movies, playing games and interacting in chat rooms. But social media has also continued, since its introduction, to gradually reduce the privacy of its users and have the issue of common mistreatment of uploaded personal information. The exploitation of privacy and related issues such as, targeted advertisements, digital footprints and protection laws and all need to be closely inspected. The development of new technologies and social media is having a negative impact on the privacy of young people and also their families. If no action is taken to spread awareness and the consequences of using these new technologies and social media young people will increasingly become victims and the internet will become a minefield for everyone.
Your digital footprint is a permanent trail you leave of the website you’ve visited and what you have written on those websites. Anything you do online, including any profiles you have created, the sites you’ve visited and the online conversations you’ve had, add to this trail (Netsafe, 2010) – trails are even left when you think you’re doing things anonymously, or you have attempted to hide them (e.g. deleted them from your computer). Most people are not bothered that a trail is left behind on their browsing history, b...
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...l networking sites that portrays an individuals or communities experience in a particular group or community online invites other interested people to engage and relate to the members, spreading the sense of belonging to others who may need it.
Consequently, upcoming problems surrounding online privacy will continue to rise and become harder to stop, the faster new technologies and social media persist and adapt. It is imperative that social media outlets, such as Facebook, battling privacy problems do not only focus on protecting vulnerable young people against the common mistreatment of personal information. “Protection of teens is a parental responsibility. But the education of teens and their parents to the growing privacy problem will require an educational effort that involves schools, social networking organizations, and government agencies” (Barnes, 2006).
Higher education law attorney Dana L. Fleming voices her controversial opinion in favor of institutionalized involvement in social network protection in her article “Youthful Indiscretions: Should Colleges Protect Social Network Users from Themselves and Others?” (Fleming). Posted in the New England Journal of Higher Education, winter of 2008 issue, Fleming poses the question of responsibility in monitoring students’ online social networking activities. With a growing population of students registering on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, she introduces the concern of safety by saying, “like lawmakers, college administrators have not yet determined how to handle the unique issues posed by the public display of their students’ indiscretions.” However, while Dana Fleming emphasizes the horror stories of social networking gone-bad, she neglects the many positive aspects of these websites and suggests school involvement in monitoring these sites when the role of monitoring should lie with parents or the adult user.
“The standards of what we want to keep private and what we make public are constantly evolving. Over the course of Western history, we’ve developed a desire for more privacy, quite possibly as a status symbol…”(Singer) Technological change leads to new abuses, creating new challenges to security, but society adapts to those challenges. To meet the innate need for privacy, we learn what to reveal and where, and how to keep secret what we don't want to disclose. “Whether Facebook and similar sites are reflecting a change in social norms about privacy or are actually driving that change, that half a billion people are now on Facebook suggests that people believe the benefits of connecting with others, sharing information, networking, self-promoting, flirting, and bragging outweigh breaches of privacy that accompany such behaviours,”(Singer) This is obvious by the continuous and unceasing use of social media platforms, but what needs to be considered is that this information is being provided willingly. “More difficult questions arise when the loss of privacy is not in any sense a choice.”(Singer) When the choice to be anonymous it taken away through social media, the person loses the ability to keep their personal information
In the essay “Say Everything” written by Emily Nussbaum, the author presents the argument that young people in this generation do not have a sense of privacy and tend to post whatever they like on the internet. She presents 3 different ideas of what happens when young adults are on the internet.
Social networking sites leave opportunities for vulnerability, however, I don’t believe many youths are an easy target. Using ethos, pathos and logos individuals can create their own reality to relate to the internet world who they think are and how they wish to be seen. In mediated publics such as Facebook and Instagram, the user has complete control of his or her profile and is the only one who can allow content about his/herself to be shared. It is my personal belief that as technology has evolved many people have taken to fabricating some truths here and there and omitting details to give an ideal representation of who they are without incriminating themselves or leaving themselves vulnerable for mistreatment. The fantasy of what is or could be is more desirable than reality. In the past few years, privacy settings have been adapted to cover the growing technological advances to keep users safe from online predators.
Therefore, Facebook is powered by a curiosity that feeds one’s desire to know about their friends and therefore perform surveillance activities. We are all encouraged to be “Facebook stalkers” and to expose ourselves, getting rid of our privacy and making room for visibility. Social media is more than keeping touch with friends and family, it is about curiosity, surveillance and control. We are constantly being monitored and monitoring others. Social media has made us willingly become visible to anyone who wants to observe, putting our privacy at stake, as we also reinforce this behaviour by doing the same to others. It has become a perfect monitoring system, as everyone is aware of what everyone else is doing with their lives in a very entertaining and addictive manner.
Unfortunately, children are being exposed the most on social media and are oblivious to it. From the moment children are born into the world of technology, their lives are being shared on social media. In Nancy Jo Sales’ book, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, she went around the country conducting interviews, researching the impacts of social media, and observing different social situations. According to many studies done by internet security firms, thousands of pictures of a child will be posted of them by age five. Almost ninety-five percent of kids will have pictures surfaced of them by age two. Never before have the ups and downs of growing up been present for everybody to see (Sales 32). Every monumental
Has your privacy ever been so invaded, you feel like your life is at risk? Do you even know if your life is at risk? People are being watched everyday and do not even know it. In the article, “How Private Is Your Private Life?,” by Andrea Rock, the author believes that people’s privacy is at risk. Similarly, in the article “Steering Social Media,” written by David Raths, the author discusses the issue with teenagers putting their private information on social media websites. Raths’s article also discusses how schools put information online to help students. Teenagers put too much information on social media, schools help protect students’ privacy online, and people’s privacy is at risk.
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.
The growing popularity of information technologies has significantly altered our world, and in particular, the way people interact. Social networking websites are becoming one of the primary forms of communication used by people of all ages and backgrounds. No doubt, we have seen numerous benefits from the impact of social media communication: We can easily meet and stay in touch with people, promote ourselves, and readily find information. However, these changes prompt us to consider how our moral and political values can be threatened. One common fear among users is that their privacy will be violated on the web. In her book, Privacy in Context, Helen Nissenbaum suggests a framework for understanding privacy concerns online. She focuses particularly on monitoring and tracking, and how four “pivotal transformations” caused by technology can endanger the privacy of our personal information. One website that may pose such a threat is Facebook.
There has been controversy as to whether parents should limit the use of social media by teenagers. Teenagers feel that there is no need to limit the use of their social media networking, but on the other hand, parents should feel the need to limit their use and also keep track of their teen’s social networking. Social media allows students to be connected with their peers, teens who post positive status are more likely to be involved in extracurricular activities, and for many teens putting up “selfies” is a self confidence boost; however, too much social media can affect students GPA in school, cyber bullying can affect social health. Social media networks can give out personal information. Social media sites such as Facebook are one of the most popular social media sites that has 700,000-750,000 members joining each day.
Social Media is a current way in which people are using to interact with one another daily. Since the launch of various Social Networking Sites (SNS) its been a huge attraction in a new way to share information with others and correspond with interests of your choice in many different forms. Although social media sites allow users to share information with friends and other sites on the internet, many people are unaware of how their privacy is getting out. Now that the expansion of global connection through these social media networking sites are so highly present in todays society, giving us easy access to information, the lack of one's privacy is being diminished. Everyday peoples privacy rights are being taken advantage of and the government should therefore implement more laws to avoid violating users. This is affecting countless users online and is a problem because personal information may get out that is not wanted.
The use of social media has risen exponentially in the past decade, and with it the impact of its ubiquity has become evident. Although social media can undoubtedly be a positive vehicle for self expression and social interaction, it is largely restrictive of personal liberty and subsequently does more harm than good. Though this applies primarily to the individual, the negative effects of social media on personal freedom extends to interpersonal relationships and can therefore negatively affect groups as well. The convergence of audiences and associated privacy concerns on social media sites like Facebook can result in self-censorship, while the inbuilt filtering systems create a sense of censorship. Data collection and surveillance make it
Social media is described as content created and shared by individuals on the web using freely available websites that allow users to create and post their own images, video and text information and then share that with either the entire internet or just a select group of friends (Affilorama, 2012). They are more like a website allowing you to express your daily activities, beliefs, locations, likes, dislikes, photos, music, etc. They are used by creating a profile, and logging in through either the website, or apps now used on smartphones, or any portable device with Wi-Fi connection. Although most social media networks are directed towards adults and young adults, young children are getting into these websites as well. There are usually age limits but there isn’t a certainty that all the users provided their actual age, allowing whoever wants to be a member of these sites to bypass an age limit “security” procedure. Facebook and MySpace require users to be at least 13, but they have no practical way to verify ages, and many young users prete...
Technology has advanced tremendously over the past decade, and appears to be advancing at a rapid pace each and every day. The social media is growing just as rapidly. Social media is an interaction between individuals that want to exchange information, photographs, and ideas in different types of networks. Social media users include people of all ages. These people have various experiences, have different cultures, and have various technical skills. (Brandtzaeg 1008) The social media depend on net-based technologies to generate the network for users to share. Social media includes everything that has to do with the Internet. By using the Internet, users can communicate with people locally and worldwide. People are no longer required to travel across the world to experience another culture. This can be done with social networking. The types of social media today come with many different types of communication such as social blogs, wall-postings, songs, photographs, and podcasts. The communication between users is informational, interactive, and also educational. However, unfortunately, most social networking sites keep track of all the interactions that take place, and this is a concern about Internet privacy for Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other social media users. Not only do they keep track of all interactions by the users, they also own all the content, including pictures that the users upload. The social network keeps this information on the user, even if the user deactivates their account with that particular site. Most users do not have any idea that the operator of the networking service keeps this information, and has access to all pictures and tags. By not having adequate security...
In the twenty -first century, teenagers live in a life of social networking and life’s online. It’s hard to believe how much the world has changed over the decades, especially in technology. Technology helps people to contact relatives and friends from long distance more easily and conveniently. People can now talk to each other from everywhere in the world simply through chat and video calls. By time, internet connections have spread throughout households and social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram has increased gradually. However, the internet and several modern technologies have wasted many times and has hurt the society. Social media plays such a big role in people’s lives that some people couldn’t even imagine