Privacy on Social Networks

Social network is where our family and friends get to know a little about our personal life and we would get to know a little about theirs too. As technology slowly starts to upgrade and as long as you have an account in any social network, you will have the tendency to share,share and share. Letting everyone know where you've been, your activities and what you've been up to on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. It's a platform where you share your personal information to everyone.

According to statistics found on socialnomics, a huge amount of 81% crimes involves social sites. It also shows a whooping 78% of thieves uses social networking to know their victim's location so they could plan and take their move. This is due to our personal information are too easily leaked out to unwanted parties. Does this makes social network a safe place to be?

Social media is also where data mining industry loves to target the most. They would go out to collect data and information without even you knowing or realizing it. Those information they've collected are their source of profit as they would sell that data to other private companies to do their research. For me, this is the horrific part because we don't know those information are sold to whom and what research are they conducting. One thing is for sure, I won't want anybody to sell my personal information away.

Some social networks would even sell away their user's personal information to these data mining industries to gain extra income. They would use various ways to bring you into temptation in clicking on random advertisements or surveys to get even more of your personal information.

I notice that some people are aware that these are the consequences in using the social network, but the users in social media has been increasing everyday. There are people that are oblivious in thinking that they will not become the victim of data mining industry or hackers, but it is always better to be safe and sorry by keeping your personal information to the minimum on social networks.


Reference:

American Bar Association (2014) Privacy and Social Media. Available at: http://www.americanbar.org/publications/blt/2014/01/03a_claypoole.html (Accessed 14 January 2016).

Global Internet Liberty Campaign (n.d.) Privacy and Human Rights. Available at: http://www.gilc.nl/privacy/survey/intro.html (Accessed 14 January 2016).

Socialnomics (2014) The Shocking Truth About Social Networking and Crime. Available at: http://www.socialnomics.net/2014/03/04/the-shocking-truth-about-social-networking-crime/ (Accessed 15 January 2016).

USA Today (2014) Social Media Research raises Privacy and Ethics Issues. Available at: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/08/data-online-behavior-research/5781447/ (Accessed 14 January 2016).