Abstract
The growth of social media and Internet technologies have changed the way businesses and people interact with each other on a daily basis. Not only does social media make communication much easier for people around the world, it provides a number of ways for people to pass the time interacting with each other in a digital medium. However, there are also privacy concerns associated with social media and social networking technologies. Social media and social networking do not provide privacy protections for people the way that they used to, and the amount of information available to the general public is actually quite alarming. This discussion focuses on a number of different issues associated with privacy in social media, including the ways that social media companies can benefit from culling information about users. Moving forward, people should be very careful about what they put on social media, as there is always someone watching and listening in these forums.
Introduction
There is no doubt that the growth of the Internet and the rise of related technologies like social media and networking technologies has changed the world inexorably. In today’s world, social media is almost a necessity—in fact, many businesses rely extensively on social networking for advertising and similar purposes. Social Networking is one of popular communication way to keep contact with people and share their information and states, but there are some important negative issues that people may not notice during using social networking, such as privacy issues. The purpose of this discussion will be to describe and analyze the intersectionality between social networking and privacy issues in the modern world. This research looks into the issues of social networking privacy and how the issue of surveillance is handled in the modern world.
Descriptions of Social Networking and Issues
In today’s world, there are more than two billion social media users (Holmes, 2015). In fact, there are more social media users logging on to the various social media networking sites on the Internet every day, and as the Internet becomes more ubiquitous through mobile phones and similar technologies, these networking sites become more and more expansive with more and more information. Social media can be a great way to interact with people all around the world: these applications allow people to share photos, media, messages, and other types of data from one corner of the globe to another with little to no wait time. Social media has made the word flatter than it has ever been before, and it allows people to feel closer to loved ones and friends who are geographically very far away. There are many positive aspects to the development of social media (WebWise Team, 2012). As social media applications grow in number of users, they often also grow in scope. A social media application like Instagram, for instance, began as a way for users to share photos; however, over time, this application has developed more and more capabilities. The commenting system was introduced, and then the programmers introduced short video capabilities into the feed. After a while and the development of a partnership with Facebook, one of the social media giants of the world, Instagram changed its format and decided to allow slightly longer videos. This constant re-development is a hallmark of social media (WebWise Team, 2012). Most social media sites allow for some level of modification to one’s personal profile; indeed, most allow users to edit their profile (Boyd & Ellison).
One of the types of edits that can be done on many social media networking platforms is an adjustment of the privacy settings for a particular site. However, privacy is sometimes an illusion more than a reality on social media. Even when the user is able to hide his or her information from the outside world and prying eyes, his or her information is nearly always being recorded by the social networking sites themselves—and, in some cases, the government. Many people are completely unaware of the amount of information that they are spreading to the outside world, and many social networking companies rely on this kind of ignorance to be able to sell personal information that belongs to users to third parties or to the government. The government often has its own reasons for wanting this kind of in depth knowledge about users (Boyd & Ellison). Sometimes this information is monitored by the government out of concern for citizen safety or as a way to protect the national interest. However, most governments have laws that strictly forbid the government from spying on its own citizens without a legitimate reason to do so.
The Impacts of social networking privacy on research
The impacts of social networking privacy on an individual’s personal life can be very dramatic. When people experience problems with stalkers, they sometimes express shock regarding the amount of information that someone with nefarious purposes can glean from social media. Social networking has undoubtedly changed the way that people expect privacy as well, as these platforms encourage people to share more information more readily with others. Social media is no longer purely a communication tool—it is also a tool that is used to gather information about users and transmit that information to a wider audience. Many people do not feel safe when they find out how much of their information is really shared on social media. In fact, “horizontal” sharing, or sharing between friends and friends-of-friends can be quite dangerous, as people’s personal information is passed on from person to person who they do not know (Albrechtslund, 2008). This kind of sharing can lead to strangers fining a social media page and learning a great deal about the owner of that page without ever having met him or her.
Personal Experience
Social media networks and their advertisers often use the information culled from a page to target advertisements towards the user, which will bother the user while he or she is browsing. Every move is recorded; social media networks keep track of searches and search terms, which allow them to better target their advertisements towards the specific needs of a user (Albrechtslund, 2008). This also allows these sites to track spending habits of users over the long term and attempt to predict what they might want to purchase again. The advertisers will sell products to you that is based on your personal information, such as work, locations and interests (Holmes, 2015). This information is based on past history, but it can also have a distinct effect on the posts that a user sees and is able to read, and also what kinds of sponsored sites appear for the user. Over time, advertising takes up more and more space on a social media site until it has more or less consumed the site, and user-generated content is more of a secondary function of a site than a primary function.
Conclusion
Social networking sites are sometimes thought of as a place where someone can express his or her innermost thoughts to friends and family, but this is not the case. There is no freedom of speech on social networking. Freedom of speech indicates that someone can say something without fear of the government, but the government has been demonstrated to be watching social media time and again (Holmes, 2015). Some words that would cause an individual to get into trouble and could not say on Facebook and Twitter because government is reading the people’s social networking pages (Obeidallah, 2012). To avoid getting in trouble, some people censor their thoughts, even though the freedom to openly express one’s opinions—without inciting violence, of course—is something that is very strongly protected in society today. To avoid getting in trouble, some people take a more passive role in social media. Instead of contributing, these people will like or share other people’s statuses, but not contribute anything specific of their own.
Today, social media is not like it was before. I have found that the new forms of social media tend to encourage people to share other peoples’ statuses rather than creating their own. For me, social networking is the most important communication tool; I use it extensively to communicate with friends all around the world. The tools available via social media allow me to see what these people are doing and how they are getting on in their daily lives. However, increased advertising has become a problem, and more advertisements can be seen on social media than ever before. As a Film and Media studies student, social networking privacy is an interesting research topic.
Privacy does not mean what it used to mean, but this is also because people who use social media are choosing to give up their privacy to share their experiences with the world. The research let me know more about social networking privacy. It is not just under surveillance by government or social networking sites, but also strangers. There are many concerns associated with privacy issues in social networking. The privacy issues change the culture of social networking that also affect people’s social activities. People want to stay out of trouble, and they know that on the Internet, people can become offended by almost anything—so instead of creating their own content, they tend to share other people’s statuses. In addition, advertising has caused social media to be more cluttered and less useful than before. Even though there are billion members on social networking sites, but the personal states or information are less than other advertising or shared websites. Privacy issues are something that people should be concerned about in today’s world, as the more information that is readily available the harder it is to remain anonymous.
References
Albrechtslund, A. (2008, March 3). Online Social Networking as Participatory Surveillance. Retrieved July 02, 2016, from http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2142/1949
Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2010). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. IEEE Engineering Management Review IEEE Eng. Manag. Rev., 38(3), 16-31. doi:10.1109/emr.2010.5559139
Holmes, R. (2015, December 9). 5 Trends That Will Change How Companies Use Social Media In 2016. Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://www.fastcompany.com/3054347/the-future-of-work/5-trends-that-will-change-how-companies-use-social-media-in-2016
Obeidallah, D. (2012, March 9). The government is reading your tweets. Retrieved July 09, 2016, from http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/09/opinion/obeidallah-social-media/
WebWise Team. (2012, October 10). What are social networking sites? Retrieved July 9, 2016, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/guides/about-social-networking
