Social Networks - The Issue of Privacy

Social networking sites – the places where people network with friends, family and other people with similar interests. These sites are a haven for communication – with a whole myriad of functions that allow them to interact with each other; and at the same time, creating the uncountable number of chances that one can reveal too much personal information.

With the need to fulfil social needs, millions, no – hundreds of millions people flock to the new phenomenon that is Social Networking websites. They flaunt their information out in the public for all to see. They showcase their perceived hobbies and talents to be ‘in’. The communication with others in the network that they want to be associated with goes through and fro in an endless cycle.

What these people do not realize is their tendency to reveal too much about themselves. People gossip about the government watching every move of everyone, when they themselves are putting out more information than this government could wish for. With the right moves and right understanding of how the social networking sites work, anyone can mine information that can expose almost any part of these users’ lives. You can find out details even to the hour.

Sites such as MySpace and Facebook can only go so far to protect the users – because the users themselves decide what they want to put and they usually go overboard. This is not all bad though; the information one can gather from these social networking sites are also able to do good. The abundance of data may even help investigators search for missing people or allow companies to research the backgrounds of people and find the most appropriate employees.

The law has used this to their advantage and has found use in the ability to mine data from these social networking sites as evidence in court. One case that involved this occurred in Santa Barbara, California – where one woman was charged a jail sentence after her drink-driving incident caused the death of her passengers. What would otherwise have been just probation has become a more severe one that is prison.

From the comments people give to others to a simple ‘poke’ given in the oh-so-popular Facebook, one can determine where the person had been or even make out as evidence in court that proves the person was home. People usually leave subtle details that allow you to make out elaborate details, enough that you will not need the persons to tell you anything else.

The life of complete privacy we once had is no longer a reality as our actions are all tracked online – and this only serves to make it worse. Perhaps people would sacrifice this overrated right of theirs to show the world how significant they are via means of social networks; and they are doing it without even knowing that privacy is not even in their list of high priorities.

However, even with all these advantages, the significant few who use it to carry out malicious activity can do much damage. One of the terrible uses of the information that people put out is utilized by one of the most infamous criminals of the online world – sexual predators. These people can use the personal information to craft messages that create uncanny familiarity with the victim and lure them out like never before possible. With the amount of emotions people like to express nowadays, it only gets worse as these scumbags tap on these exposed vulnerabilities.

Perhaps it may even go so far as to allow people with killing intentions to find their victim. It is easier than ever before to study a person’s activities and create plans with the precision of a James Bond ploy; and execute it.

At a more personal level, people otherwise known as stalkers can mine enough data to watch their victim’s every move – and that is something that no one would like.

As time goes by, we can only hope that these social networks apply more stringent rules that will protect their users and raise awareness of this to allow people to protect themselves. Ultimately, the users decide on what they would like to put out and there is little these giants can do when that is the case; so informing people of the dangers may just be the best approach that we can only hope will happen.