Posted: March 27th, 2020

CMNS A3

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CMNS A3: Social Media and Privacy

            Social media usage has become a popular mode of communication and leisure within the last decade. It has become almost impossible to operate without subscribing to Facebook, Twitter, and other preferred sites. The sheer amount of personal and confidential information shared across social media sites makes it necessary to perform an in-depth analysis of the related risks, and particularly the loss of privacy. Currently, approximately 1 billion people all over the world have at least two social media accounts. The users represent a significant number of people that are vulnerable to the improper usage of these communication tools. While the subscription part is mostly voluntary, a worrying number of social media sites are highly intrusive to the extent that they are mandatory for users requiring access to other websites. The problem of lack of privacy in the usage of social media sites has the potential to create additional issues that include identity theft.

            The way in which most social media sites have been designed complicates the process of securing personal data. Social media has been inspired by the need to simplify the process of creating a community of people who have commonalities (Scoble, Israel, & Benioff, 2014). Therefore, most of the functions within a basic site will be geared towards uniting common factors among different people. Recent innovations in the data mining discipline have made it harder for a subscriber to maintain their privacy. Several factors fuel this erosion of privacy measures across online sites. For instance, the commercialization of personal data has created a new business niche that has since been filled by internet service providers who have access to user data (Trepte & Reinecke, 2011). Many companies demand this type of data as it simplifies the development of a robust customer database. The other primary factor driving the rampant violation of privacy rights is the need to develop effective social media sites (Scoble et al., 2014). Companies behind these sites rely heavily on massive amounts of subscriber data to create customized and relevant content for different demographics.

When opening a new social media account, users are required to provide an extensive amount of personal information such as birthdays, full names, and occupations. While this data is valuable as it allows friends, colleagues, and acquaintances to find each other across the networks, it also exposes the users to malicious internet users. A recent example of such an occurrence was in 2013 when Facebook users were attacked by a bug that collected their information discretely (Weinberg, Milne, Andonova, & Hajjat, 2015). After the incident, many users reported that their private information was leaked to another company without their consent. The episode is a classic case of a violation of privacy rights.

The issue with privacy in social media is that people are used to having their own restrictions. Therefore, when they access the Internet, they are unaware of the different ways in which they willingly or unintentionally share their data with other users. However, merely signing up for a particular chatting service implies relinquishing several levels of privacy (Taddicken & Jers, 2011). The loss of confidentiality also acts as a gateway to other illegal and equally damaging behavior on the Internet. Stalking and harassment occur among both friends and total strangers. In some cases, these violations lead to individuals divulging sensitive information, which affects the self-esteem and social standing of the affected people (Weinberg, et al., 2015). Users of social media sites should be aware of the severe risks associated with losing privacy. Providing personal information may appear harmless at first, but it has the potential to escalate into defamation, stalking, identity theft, and other technological ills.

References

Scoble, R., Israel, S., & Benioff, M. R. (2014). Age of context: Mobile, sensors, data and the future of privacy. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Patrick Brewster Press.

Taddicken, M., & Jers, C. (2011). The uses of privacy online: Trading a loss of privacy for social web gratifications? In S. Trepte & L. Reinecke (Eds.), Privacy online (pp. 143-156). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer.

Trepte, S., & Reinecke, L. (Eds.). (2011). Privacy online: Perspectives on privacy and self-disclosure in the social web. Springer Science & Business Media.

Weinberg, B. D., Milne, G. R., Andonova, Y. G., & Hajjat, F. M. (2015). Internet of things: Convenience vs. privacy and secrecy. Business Horizons58(6), 615-624.

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