Privacy Issues in Social Media

Privacy Issues in Social Media

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.

Depending on two different sources the history when Social Networking Sites first started is different. “According to the definition above, the first recognizable social network site launched in 1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list their Friends and, beginning in 1998, surf the Friends lists.”( qtd. in Boyd, Ellison) On the other hand a timeline display of the history shows that in 1969 “CompuServe was the first major commercial Internet service provider for the public in the United states…” In 1971, “the first email was delivered.” I agree that the first step to the whole explosion began with the email. Through email people were primarily communicating with each other through the internet and having the ability to use the Short Message Service (SMS) to be ...

... middle of paper ...

...ildrens Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).” (Loeffler 2012) It was also shown how state laws were very minimal and there may even be states that do not contain specific privacy and information security laws. Two states that enacted laws on privacy and information security were California and Massachusetts in which state Attorney Generals were involved. “California law requires operators of commercial Web sites that collect personal information from California residents to post a privacy policy that identifies the types of personal information collected.”(Loeffler 2012) This discloses personal information from third parties that are requesting information from users. In these states the laws that would apply would be also relevant to state consumer protection laws. Thus consumer protection laws, prohibit unfair or defective acts from being practiced by companies.