Social Media and privacy concerns

Social media has become an indispensable part of our lives. The fine line of distinction between real and virtual life seems to fade each day, even more during these uncertain times when the entire world is under lockdown in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic. 

Such times have provided people with an opportunity to develop or enhance their skills, start that blog which they thought of a while ago but had no time to invest in it. People have seemed to reconnect with their long lost hobbies and are now more confident to display them on the internet, particularly social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and audio-video platforms like Tik Tok and youtube.

 Utilising their time productively we have come across n number of influencers, chefs, motivational speakers, video bloggers, writers etc. who have gone public on social media with their work to make it big. 

World wide web, no doubt has provided a free space for upcoming artists to display their work and writers, enabling them to self publish. However, when it comes to Social media, going public brings with it, some concerns, primarily 'Privacy concerns'.

In the digital age, the role of social media is not only limited to connecting with fellow users but also promoting one's business so as to increase the market value of their products and services to models, hoping to land a contract through their aesthetic Instagram feeds or artists wanting their work to be discovered and appreciated. Everything is digital.

 

Social media, in the digital age, has great potential to become a huge employment generator. The question that now arises is if or not our privacy is maintained on websites. To subscribe to a website's products and services, it becomes imperative to provide socio-demographic data like personal details, phone number, email and at times GPS location. With the trend of memes and trolling, a person who posts something that does not interest an individual's core values is likely to become a victim to online harassment and trolling. Online harassment often includes actions carried out through an electronic medium like a mobile phone, tablet, or a computer intending to directly disrupt a person's mental peace or making them fall victim to a crime.

 

Crimes are also committed online. Such a crime committed through an electronic medium is termed as 'cybercrime'. Very often, the content that we choose to post on our social media handles and lack of privacy measures that enable us to go public and our choice to share each every aspect of our lives on such platforms end up making us a subject to cybercrime. All it takes is your IP address or if you choose to go public on social media platforms, then your GPS location for a stranger to find you. There have been real cases when crimes have been committed with the accused figuring out the real-time location of the victim through their social media. 

 

Citing the example of a popular Netflix show, 'YOU'. Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) stalks a girl, Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) through her public social media handle in the busy city of New York until he finally gains  access to her mobile phone and eventually her social media contacts. In the entire course of the show Joe stalks Beck and murders her acquaintances and ultimately, Beck herself. Indirectly or directly, the show portrays how easy it is, in digital age for our data to be misused.

 

Just like your real life, your social life must also be private irrespective of  a public or private social media handle. Avoid posting and updating about your personal life. Check your settings regularly so as to know if your location is being used in background by a website or an application. Last but not the least, refrain from providing personal details to websites on the world wide web.

Stay Cyber smart. Stay Cyber safe.