Post 1 – Siva

The internet has become an essential aspect of our life. We are getting more and more dependent on the internet. Our daily life to professional life, things all depend on the internet. People feel flexible, easy and relaxed while making a quality life via the internet. But the privacy concern is more important than all of the comfort received by internet usage. People were not concerned about privacy as they are now. The year 2018 has been a year of awareness about privacy concerns. The Facebook data breach made people aware of what they had not concerned about before. This issue opened their eyes and they came to know what had happened. “I can be sure that not everybody can read what I write on my [Facebook] wall but when it comes to Google, privacy means to me that I am not sure because Google saves.”(Katharine & Lisa, 2017) ” They realized that they are getting comfort by using the internet but in fact, they have lost control over their data that had harmed their lives too much. After realizing all this mess, they demanded the control of their data.

According to Mark Zuckerberg the owner of Facebook: “I’m generally skeptical that there is as much data leak strategic risk as you think,” he wrote at the time. “I just can’t think of any instances where that data has leaked from developer to developer and caused a real issue for us.” (Issie, 2017). It shows that even the owner of Facebook didn’t aware of the reason for the issue. The whole world is depending on this app or social media network that is not concerned about privacy. The very first blame goes to the people themselves who didn’t concern for their privacy and trusted Facebook by giving their personal information. The second reason is the unawareness of the leader of this social media, they didn’t make any security measure to analyze that either they are providing a secure environment or not.

Mark Zuckerberg asserts that people are going to be more comfortable with social media and sharing their personal information there. In the start it was a secure social network, you were able to make a social group of your own choice. But with the passage, if the time it is going to make the information public. Now, almost all of the information of users is by default public. The users have only one choice, making the information public that they want to be. People are more responsible for their privacy. They can decide their privacy by keeping their personal information private. The information goes public by their own hands so they can keep it private by do not share it on the internet. All it relates to the awareness if people are aware of security issues. Surely they will not make their information public. So the point is to give them privacy awareness more than blaming the social networks for their improper security measures. “Privacy means that I can decide who is going to see what I am doing but it is not possible on the internet.”

References

Katharine Sarikakis, Lisa WinterFirst (February 1, 2017) “Social Media Users’ Legal Consciousness About Privacy”, Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/stoken/default+domain…

Issie Lapowsky (March, 2017), “How Cambridge Analytica Sparked the Great Privacy Awakening” Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-fa…

Cybermum Australia (May 13, 2019), “Privacy Awareness Week 2019 – Protect Your Online Privacy” Retrieved from https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/consumer/family-safet…

Post 2: Srinivasa

Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have become a key part in everyday life of human beings. These provide users with information what is happening around them and connect with random users to start conversations. Despite possessing many useful features these platforms in particular Facebook has been a soft target for many online hackers and trolls spreading fake information. Even though taking several safety measures by the Facebook organization there has been no change in spreading of this kind of information by one way or another. The most recent attack that took place is the populating Facebook with fake news of presidential candidates in 2016 general election by Russian hackers.

The constant spread of fake news in Facebook has became serious problem with many governments across the world as they find it hard to stop and eradicate it completely. Beard and Wolf stated that, “These fake information or news will portray themselves as a legitimate source of information making users to believe this information and influence them”. Moreover, this spread of fake news can also challenge the principle of democracy and individual freedom which can have adverse effects on users over the course of time. For this reason, governments should regulate this to prevent this kind of fake news from being shared in the platform.

The other reason why government should regulate Facebook is for sake of safeguarding user’s privacy. Social media platforms have tremendous amount of user information that includes all their activities, purchases and communications which posses’ high value for other organizations. This is the main reason for intruder’s target Facebook for stealing of data so they can sell that confidential information to the highest bidder in black market. Moreover, the data which is usually gathered by Facebook is sold to other companies without the consent of user which can be huge breach in their privacy (Ellison, Steinfeld & Lampe, 2007).

Generally, Facebook usually allow advertisements of several products on their platform for their financial gains. Organizations to promote their services or products take help of this by constantly advertising it to the user on a continuous basis. Moreover, these organizations collect data from Facebook to know the user preferences and start promoting it. This way of promotion always make user uncomfortable as they are commonly get bullied by these advertisements and influence them in a manner where they will be left with no choice rather than purchasing it.

Finally, government should take necessary actions in regulating this Facebook so that they won’t cause any harm from a single user to the entire nation. The regulations should be strictly enforced making every social media platform not only Facebook liable for any sort of data leakage with severe impositions on them. Moreover, every platform should also make necessary changes to overall functioning so they can stop any interference from outside on the user and eradicate the fake news from being widely spread across the platform in a short and timely manner.

References

K. W. Beard and E. M. Wolf, “Modification in the proposed diagnostic criteria for Internet addiction”, Cyberpsychology and Behavior, vol. 4, pp. 377-383, 2001.

N. B. Ellison, C. Steinfeld and C. Lampe, “The Benefits of Facebook “Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites”, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 12, pp. 1143-1168, 2007.

N. Shi, M. K. O. Lee, C. M. K. Cheung and H. P. Chen, “The Continuance of Online Social Networks: How to Keep People Using Facebook”, Proceedings of Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, January 2010.