Privacy Risk With Social Media Essay

The effect of social media in our society is enormous and significant, although its privacy issues have been in the news for bad reasons. Every person is entitled to a certain amount of privacy to his or her social media accounts. Among the social media platforms that are commonly used are Facebook and Google. The way people use this accounts may have an impact in their lives either positively or negatively. When using the accounts, people should be concerned about their privacy. The article written by Reputation Defender in the year 2016, focusses on privacy issues of social media especially Facebook and Google accounts and the reasons why people should keep their online information private.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

There are the most pressing social media privacy concerns. First, there is account hacking and impersonation. Kaplan, Andreas, and Michael noted that spammers, hackers, and online criminals are the people that compromise the privacy of social media users (59-68). They are increasingly aiming at social media networks. A compromised Facebook or Google account makes it an easy target. The Reputation Defender explains that the criminals may get into someone's account and then impersonate them and begin posting information pretending to be the account owners. Since people are inclined to believe the information they get from their friends on social media, they are more likely to open links without any consideration. The act of opening the unknown links affects the gadgets they are using like computers and smartphones. The unfortunate scenario is when the cybercriminals use social media platforms to steal an identity. According to Barnes and Susan, the criminals responsible for identity theft mostly utilize social networks to collect information about the targeted victim (46). The intimate social media description contains a lot of confidential information that may be used online criminals to make credit cards in your account using your name or else abuse the victim's digital name.

The Reputation Defender raises another concern which is the tendency of employers compelling their workers to turn over the passwords of the social media accounts.it has been a growing trend of employers to ask passwords to the employees' social media accounts to ensure that they are not sharing confidential data of a business.

In addition, there is privacy disadvantage of services based on location. Most commonly, the current users of social media do not access the internet assistance on computers alone but also on the smartphones. As companies that run social media continue to make excessive use of mobile gadgets and location-based services, the capability of security and privacy arises (Raynes & Goldie, 120). Truthfully, most mobile phones automatically collect location information continuously, and internet accounts' applications are some of the largest utilizers of the collected information. Without the regulation of well-defined legislation and laws on privacy, social media services provide a lot of easy way for how the companies put into the usage of this particular data. There are many examples of individuals becoming targets of criminals due to geographical locality information that was automatically divulged by the website applications.

With the rising privacy concerns, individuals and companies should ensure the privacy protection of social media accounts. Veil, Shari, Buehner, and Palenchar acknowledged that a person should be in charge of the privacy of their Facebook and social media accounts (110-122). First of all, Google account user needs to know what Google knows about them. By default, google gathers enormous data on its users. Once a person signs into their Google accounts on a website browser, a user is directed where to go. Once you log in, all the information will be visible only to the user. However, people are supposed to be aware of what is being saved, and have control over it. A consumer of social media is supposed to know when to delete it and when not to delete it. The page displayed after logging in has everything a user has done, downloaded, and areas an individual has accessed. On the same account, the consumer is supposed to initiate security and privacy check-ups. The settings are available to see what account owner might want to change.

Secondly, when signing up for a social media account, people are advised not to update their facebook, twitter or google profiles. The additional information a person displays on any network, the more it creates an easier way for someone to get their hands on it. Account owners are advised not to cooperate. Facebook users should not update their personal information because the people who are supposed to know their date of birth, phone contacts and email address already possess the details. So, there is no importance attached to giving too much information about yourself on your online profiles. If you are concerned about your privateness, you will not do it. Other experts advise that, when opening a social media account, give false information about you (Raynes & Goldie 120). There are personal questions a person is supposed to answer, therefore in this case, it is advisable to lie. This, in turn, may confuse the possible hackers and stalkers and might save you from privacy breach.

The social media users should also lock down their hardware by setting up their computers and smartphones to require a password when it boots up. A Facebook or Google user may believe in the people they live with and share the same house, but what if the computer or the digital mobile phone is stolen? They should not only use a password to gain access to them but also they should install an application with the ability to locate the mobile phone gadgets and computers in case they get lost or when they are stolen. In addition, a gadget owner may restrict it or delete every data so that unknown person cannot get entry to the private particulars stored in it. With the developments in technology, the social media users should protect their laptops and smartphones with software applications that will help in preventing criminals from stealing valuable data.

If a Facebook or Google account user does not require people with physical availability to the internet to know where they are spending time online, then they may activate "private browsing," which is a fixture found in each major web browser. It gets rid of internet messages, non-permanent files on the internet, and surfing history after shutting down the computer's viewing area. Any business that publicizes its commodities online is concerned in being what places customers visits on the internet, things they purchase, and which people they interact with when they are on social media platforms, their likes and dislikes. When collecting data regarding people's internet undertakings, the companies may present a user with specific adverts that are more probably lure him or her to make a purchase of something. For instance, some social media networks like Facebook, and Google possess objects that are on each website that permits the interconnected systems to trace a user despite of having an online account or not. Other times the companies rely on the information collected on the embedded code to track people's taste, population statistics, and visits. If individuals truly care about their privacy, they will browse the internet by making their IP addresses unknown. They can do this using security networks which are handled by volunteers all over the globe.

There is also a trend whereby most people use the same password for more than one social media websites. Truly, it can be difficult to recall a dissimilar password for access to social media services you operate. The disadvantage of usage of similar passcodes for a number of accounts is, if someone gets the security code through a phishing attack, they can gain entry in all your media platforms and give rise to all kinds of conflict. To get rid of this difficulty, a person with numerous social media accounts can use a password manager that will not only recollect all your passcodes but will create outstanding and distinctive one, and spontaneously store them in the database at a click of the button.

A person can restrict his or her social media accounts with the use of two-factor computing. This is a situation whereby when someone wants to gain access to the networks, they will be required to key in a unique set of symbols that the internet website sends to the mobile phones. Other media services need the special code every instance a user enters the account, apart from when you are utilizing an unfamiliar device to browse. The two-factor authentication functions effectively by preventing other people from accessing your accounts.

Facebook users are supposed to keep private the activities they do the social network. They are supposed to check their Facebook settings to ensure that the only people that can see what they are doing are their friends on social media (Joison & Adam). The same case applies to Google account. There you can adjust settings and make sure that there are specific people that you can communicate with directly, criticize your posts or to initiate a dialogue on social media.

Reasons for Keeping Personal Information Private

There are various reasons why people are cautioned against exposing their personal information. First of all, there is an increase of identity theft incidences. It is currently the top-most cybercrime on the webs. With modern developments in technology, individuals' identities are being stolen the day in day out. It happens when a stranger attains entrance to your confidential details and uses it to log onto various websites and causes damage on your behalf. Among the crimes committed by the cybercriminals are fraud, stalking and hacking. This can have negative consequences, especially for your online reputation.

When maintaining privacy, a person is able to protect their banking information. A lot of people feel a sense of security when banking online, but that is not the case. They mostly fail to protect their banking information due to a false sense of safety. Online criminals might get your personal banking data and perform unsanctioned transactions. Despite the fact that banking web pages have codes, it is important to nevertheless exercise privacy protection by frequently adjusting the passcodes and to not signing in the websites anywhere away from your home.

With rising tendencies of employers requesting to access their employees' social network accounts, it is good to protect your employment record. Petronio and Sandra warn that people should be careful with what they update on their social media accounts as status updates are not just for communicating with your pals and followers; they may also equip an upcoming employer with an easy hint of what kind of worker you might become (1-9). Publishing intimate information such as what you like your and what you dislike about current issues like politics or religion or your recent employment can act as obstacles to the future employment chances. Be cautious of data you are updating and posting be it on Google, Facebook, or Twitter, and make sure you have a clean online record to enable you to get the job.

The reason why many company owners request for passwords from their workers is that they want to manage their business online reputation. For instance, when you are operating a business online, practicing business reputation management is a must. Exposing a business or a company's private information can damage your online reputation (Aula & Pekka, page 43-49). Some employees might gang up with criminals and extract the company's information and come up with invalid email accounts and forgery employees' names and even get into the corporate computer...