communicting to create

Teens, Social Media, and Privacy. Pew Research Centre- Internet, Science and Tech. [online] available at:http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/05/21/teens-social-media-and-privacy/. Accessed 20th September 2016.

There are many positives and negatives with the growth of social media, although only the negatives have been addressed and highlighted here, social media has allowed for individuals to connect on a whole new level and communicate instantly in a borderless setting. Businesses have a space to advertise and publicise their goods and services and content creators can share their work. But, there is a dark side to social media where ‘hackers’ or users with malicious intentions can take advantage of these platforms and gain access to information that should not be shared and even the sites themselves, such as Facebook with such a monopoly in the online industry, have made up the rules to the game and can also take advantage of users.  Everyone has a right to privacy and should also be able to use social media for their own benefit, but users should be cautious in what they are sharing and not be so eager to share private details about themselves so warily.

Since the advent of Web 2.0, social media platforms have grown exponentially, which has created the hacker and thus social media fraud has thrived. Social media is the fraudsters’ playground, deregulated, highly visible, easily exploitable platform that connects with billions of people for some with malicious intentions.  [Foster, J. Fraud and Social Media. 2015.] In the relatively unmonitored world of social media, the devices’ screen’s blocks one individual from another and act as a wall which separates the to. Individuals can hide behind these screens and create a façade where they can pretend to be anyone they want to be, often taking advantage of others, ultimately jeopardising users privacy and safety. The most common example of this are fake accounts made on sites such as Facebook and dating websites where certain individuals are victimised and these vulnerable users give out their personal information, such as credit card information, where they live. This has resulted in the increase of online scamming, fraud and has also been fatal.  In a Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10 (source of information about publicly traded security in order to make investment decisions) Facebook estimates that 100 million of their profiles are fake accounts. [United States Securities and Exchange Commission, Form 10-Q quarterly report pursuant to section 13 or 15d of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Facebook, INC.] In order to create such accounts, all one needs is an email address and a password and then a false identity is created. In Australia one in five individuals have been victims of identity deception and hacking of online banking details. Since Web 2.0, social media has been created but the ‘hacker’ has been a result of this and there is now a platform for devious individuals to create fake online profiles and take advantage of naïve users social media and jeopardise their privacy. 

Data Privacy is the aspect of information technology that deals with the ability an individual or organisation has to determine what data in a computer system can be shared with third parties. Social Media organisations each have their own privacy policies in which they determine what third party organisations (their partners) can access your information you have given them access to and what they are accessing. When signing up for a social media site, it is required to give personal information in order to use the site, this can include your gender, age, location, email address, phone number etc. Access to this information is not restricted to only to the site in which you put it on, because social media companies who have a monopoly in the market, such as Facebook have many third party organisation such as Instagram and WhatsApp, information is shared between these sites.  This is called third party application programming interface (API). Third party API uses features such as messages, invitations and photos in a bid to increase activity on the sites, such as a gaming app you signed-up for with Facebook inviting you to ‘share’ your results on your Facebook profile. Whilst this is occurring, many individuals are not aware that they have given access to their private information between the ‘different’ social media platforms and that is creating a world in which privacy is diminishing. Instagram notifies users when a ‘Facebook friend’ has now joined Instagram, Facebook notifies you when your friend is in a nearby location, Facebook’s ads are based off your previous browsing history and what sites you have purchased online from. Your personal details are all in one shared pool in which many different third party organisations are granted access to, but it is also accessible by other individuals who use it for more deceitful purposes.

Point 2:  Hackers and fake accounts. Technology and social media gives people a screen to hide behind and create a facade to be somewhere they’re not. Can be innocent, but often  used for malicious reasons and these hackers often have the intent of accessing private information about others on their chosen social media sites. Examples; fraud, identity deception, theft. 

WikiLeaks official website

Anonymous official website 

CyberPolitics are politics of the internet that exists predominantly online. EDemocracy is the internet’s role in real world politics that exists predominantly off the internet. Types of democracy include direct, representative and deliberate. Types of eDemocracy include Wikileaks and Anonymous, which are two online sources that expose news and information in which Governments and corporations hide.  Wikileaks was created by Julian Assange in 2006 in order to expose information that Governments and Government agencies had hidden, such as files on the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay and other secret service files. The site is known as a whistleblower website and had been scrutinised for being unethical. Anonymous is a decentralised group of internet hackers who target Governments, institutions, religious groups and everything inbetween. Anyone can join an anonymous campaign in order to expose hidden information or stop internet sites from operation. Anonymous have to date deleted five thousand Isis twitter accounts after the recent Paris terrorist attacks.   The controversial intents of these group raise many questions as to whether they are hackers or hacktivists, whether the groups are cyber terrorists wishing to gain unauthorised  data or to bring attention to a political/social cause. The information in which has become available from these two sources would otherwise not be heard or known about through mainstream media, which means that global citizens are more aware of the political and social events occurring in the world, but also there is a boundary between ethical and unethical when it comes to exposing individuals personal information.  I believe they are for the greater good of society, but in the wrong hands, the information can have serious consequences to the safety and wellbeing of citizens. 

Read this article by Gail Hand, on 10 tips to be smarter on social media. Via collegeXpress. 

My survey was on social media and asked questions about whether people feel safe on social media and if they believe they are in control of their personal profiles. I had 9 responses and 100% of the people who took part in the survey used sites Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat which, are within the top ten social media sites, globally. When I asked if they believed their information was kept private on these sites, 70% of people responded no, but continued to use these sites. 75% of people believed they were a “user” of technology where 35% said they felt “used”, those who felt used responses they felt this way because of how businesses profited from their usage and how they require unnecessary information about the user.  70% said they felt as if their information was not kept private on social media and responded with “there is always a way to access this information” for example, but when I asked the hypothetical question asking if that same information needed to sign up for a social media site, was posted in a physically public area, would you still? 90% said no.  I believe that users of social media do not think critically enough about what is really going on behind the screen and are too naive when it comes to giving out this information. I am not accusing the sites of using this information maliciously, but I do believe that users are oversharing on social media. 

(all answers remain anonymous) 

Because of the increased use of social media, the name is becoming increasingly ironic. People are spending more and more time on social media sites with the average person checking their social media at least four times a day. Are we entering into a World where technology is going to control our lives, where our personal information is for anyone to take? Social Media has both pros and cons, but it’s just about being aware and critically thinking about the way in which social media and the internet as a whole operates and making smart decisions on what you choose to like, post, share or retweet. 

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