Social Media and its Impacts on privacy

Hackers’ expert command of technology, their ability to so easily dupe humans in their quest for information, and especially their ability to watch the watchers made them an especially subversive force to law enforcement. (Phreaks, Hackers, and Trolls, Pg: 108, E. Gabriella Coleman) Social networking sites have made our information public. Although there are privacy policies for each of those sites, our information is dwelling there somewhere in the virtual world. There are many people out there searching for such information. Identity theft and phishing is a huge issue. Tech savvy people who know how to find information about an individual online, and intend to commit these crimes have a free platform, the web, to look for any kind of information. When we are posting pictures and other information, a lot of times we do not really think where all these information is going. With our email address readily available, they use a genuine looking profile to send us emails asking for personal information such as bank account information, social security number, etc. We have to be very careful about what we are posting online.

Websites like facebook, twitter and myspace require users to create a profile. Users are asked to use their own names as a profile name so that other friends can find them in a click of search button. Information like date of birth, email addresses, location, name of the city, occupation, sometimes even phone number, relationship status, likes and dislikes of users have to be filled in to create a profile. Users upload photos and videos on the websites. While posting status on facebook if the user is not careful enough the website shows where the status has been updated from. Sometimes people tag themselves on different locations. This makes it easier for the cyber stalkers to gather information. Even these websites come with option to only show chosen information to others only photos can be good enough to track a person.

Although these cites ask to disclose information, most people do so with ease. Very few of us seem to understand the issue of privacy online. To a lot of people, it is like posting information on their “computer screen” without the thought of who has access to it. Since most of the people add people they know on the social networking websites, they do not think twice before disclosing information. But different websites have different privacy policies which not many people take the time to read before hitting the “accept” button. They do not realize until their identity has been stolen. The photos users uploaded on the websites to share with friends and family can be helpful to identity theft. Sometimes people post their emotional feelings as posts in facebook or twitter, others might use these information to find out what you are like. Sometimes, when you tag yourself or your family at certain location a burglar might know that you are not in the house and could feel free to break into the house.

Websites provide with options to keep ones privacy and lets us decide what we want to share and to whom we want to share but hackers and blackmailers may come up with idea to break into the websites. Since the user can be tracked via the internet and thus there is threat on his/her privacy and confidentiality. Sometimes jobseekers can be victim of social networking. Since employees might discriminate them relating to their sex, age, religion, etc. one might lose a job because his employer might get a chance to know something the employee would not have to show in the resume. Sometimes there are applications that would collect user’s personal information and sell it to the marketing companies. Most of these appear as lottery, games, or quizzes