Privacy and confidentiality come into our mind when we talk about internet-related things such as online transactions or social media. Especially with new media, there are rising concerns about privacy. A lot of older people think social media is a way of giving access to our daily lives. I really don’t think posting a picture of your Starbucks every morning on Instagram can get you murdered unless the followers hate Starbucks. But, sometimes people post too much on these social media sites. One of my favorite YouTubers said that no one should ever do their collection videos because that can get you robbed or broken in. I agree because a lot of people post about expensive materials on sites that public can access and doing so is not safe at all.
Aside from that, there are other concerns related to new media such as identity theft, sexual predators and stalkers. We can lose privacy only if we put out so much information out there. We can be discreet with the way we use our social media. No one needs to know what time we leave school and what route we take to get to school. We shouldn’t post stuffs that can harm us physically and mentally. Copyright issues can also arise on social networks. But, Youtube prevents it by making put in the song and artist name on our description box and agree that the song is third party material.
Among the social media concerns, Facebook concern is probably the biggest issue. Due to the functions provided, people can make fake accounts and send messages to other people. I received a lot of messages from fake profiles in the past but once I changed my privacy setting to “Only friends can send message”, I don’t receive any more of strange messages. Recently, one of my close friends typed in her own name and she saw 2 accounts with the same name, both using her face as the profile picture. She was alarmed and she asked me what she should do. I found out that the fake account was made to advertise things and had about 300 friends. I clicked on “report” button and reported that that profile is a fake profile. And, we shared fake profile link on our timeline and asked help from our friends to report that person. Within 2 days, the other profile was taken down. This is just an example of how we can lose privacy but there are ways to prevent it before it occurs and after it occurs.
About Me
- Caroline Su
- :) Thanks for visiting my page! My name is Caroline and I go to Baruch College!
I am sorry to hear your friend got her profile identity stolen. Personally, I know how this feels; my Facebook account was hacked and used to send spam. Unfortunately, I couldn't restore my account and had to create a new one. The stories like this happen so often now.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think that people who do that should face an administrative punishment. As you mentioned, people who show off their collections via social network might be robbed. But people get robbed every day on the streets, on subway or somewhere else. Yet the real life thieves get punished for what they do, but the online robbers don't. Despite the fact that shared personal information on social network is public. No one should be allowed to use it without personal agreement. If Facebook reported those people who opened fake accounts to police, I'm sure they'd have much less desire to do this again.
Unfortunately, getting a real identity of online thieves is much harder and sometimes impossible. Perhaps, in future such thefts would be handled better.
That's very scary. You make me want to check to see if my profile got cloned and is now used for advertisements. I don't get messages from fake profiles but I do get people asking me to be friends with them except their profile has nothing but a couple of pictures and random posts. Obviously, this must be a fake account.
ReplyDeleteNobody should be dealing with these issues and I feel that social networking sites need to do something about this. Perhaps giving harsher punishments. In the case of you friend, her identity was stolen by another person and that person should have been punished to the full extent of the law.