By: Vidit Soni

Massive Threat to Security Caused by Social Media

The introduction of the Internet was ground breaking. Having access to a wide variety of
information at the touch of a button was a fantasy that had come true. However a fairytale is not
complete without a villain. Social media is the villain that has taken birth as the internet rose and
become more accessible to a large variety of individuals. Many nightmares have unfolded
because of this. Social media has led to the obstruction of privacy causing peoples security to be
threatened.
Many would say that social media sites such as Facebook, twitter, and many more have
many different settings that allow users to be able to make their uploads private. The issue is,
that once information is uploaded onto these sites, it is permanently saved onto servers and
databases. Even if users disable their accounts, their uploads will still be stored online and
readily accessible. In the article Protect Your Privacy on Facebook and Twitter it was stated that,
Facebook offers users a way to disable or deactivate an account, but it doesn't seem to provide a
method for completely deleting an account. Photos and status updates might be available long
after a user has shut down a Facebook profile (Bradley). As a matter of fact, a persons profile
picture, and other small key pieces of information such as where they work, birthday, etc. that is
provided when signing up to social media sites, is displayed to everyone who views the persons
profile (Willis, 70). Therefore privacy is something that practically does not exist on social
media sites.
With social media on the rise, the exposition of peoples personal information is also
occurring. This is a real problem considering a vast number or people are joining and uploading
personal information everyday on private sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. On average in
By: Vidit Soni

Canada, approximately 63 percent of people aged 18 to 34 have visited a social-networking site,
and 55 percent of those people have placed a profile. These numbers are sadly constantly
growing everyday (OConnor). The more information that people post on social media sites, the
more that will be available to the public. This means that the safety and security of individuals is
threatened by the large number of people that can view all the profiles online. In the article
Protect your privacy: Leave out details that can be used against you it was stated, Facebook
warns users that, unless you're prepared to attach something in your profile to a resume or
scholarship application, don't post it. (OConnor). Many times, information that is posted
online gets misused by individuals. In the year of April 2007, a U.K. house was holding a party.
An invite to the party was posted on MySpace, and in the end the house was destroyed by 200
party crashers who caused a shocking $50,000 worth of damage to the property (OConnor). If
the cruel villain social media did not exist, the house would not have been destroyed and these
problems would have been unheard of.
Not only is information widely available on social media sites, a persons location is also
widely available. Whenever an individual posts a message, image, or any sort of information on
a social media site such as Facebook, their location from where they uploaded that piece of
information is revealed to all of the persons friends, and if they have kept their profile open, then
their location is revealed to the whole world because everyone who views the profile of the user
can see the locations from where the information is uploaded (Keen, 15). These amazing location
services provided by social media sites has led to the birth of horrifying smartphone apps such as
one in particular called Creepy. The app Creepy provides its users to see the location of their
Facebook or Twitter friends around the world. Imagine how greatly this app can be misused.
Another website called SnoopOn.me allows its followers to see what their friends are doing on
By: Vidit Soni

the computer. The massive threat to peoples security the app and site cause is indescribable
(Keen, 45). The sad truth is that there are a vast number of apps along with sites like creepy and
SnoopOn.me that are available at the touch of a button just like social media.
Furthermore, identity theft is an enormous issue that took flight with the introduction of
social media. Many peoples identities are constantly being stolen and misused on social media
sites. Whenever a famous individuals name is searched up on a social media site, many different
profiles for that famous individual will most likely pop up, and it can be easily understood that a
single individual cannot manage this many profiles at once. The truth is that the persons identity
is actually being misused by other people, which is identity theft. This is something that happens
very often. There are individuals all throughout social media sites posing as other people and
misusing their falsely obtained title (Willis, 70). Fraudsters make use of the personal information
that an individual posts on social media sites. In the article Protect your privacy: Leave out
details that can be used against you it was stated,
Fraudsters can also take advantage of personal details in your profile. The credit report
agency Equifax recently warned consumers not to put personal information on social-
networking sites for just this reason. (OConnor).
Although there are so many warnings out there, people are doing absolutely nothing to make a
change, and the increasing number of identity theft complaints over the years is clear evidence of
this. In the year 2006, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) received 225,532 identity theft
complaints. 10,835 of those complaints were from teens aged 18 and younger. While in the year
2004, there were only 9,595 identity theft complaints from teens (Youn). This means that
By: Vidit Soni

identity theft is increasing over the years, all because of social media, and this is clear evidence
of the horror that is unfolding.
Similarly, sexual abuse and luring is also done by individuals on social media sites.
People get tricked by disgusting and horrid predators to send explicit images or pictures of
themselves very often. These images and pictures are then used as a threat method by the
prowler for money, or for even more explicit pictures. In the end the victim is sadly trapped, and
usually abides to the wants of the predator as to maintain their status in society. A social media
awareness site called cybertip.ca when first launched was able to log 5,771 reports of potential
child sexual abuse cases and an approximate total of 21,000 cases till date. They were able to
discover that 93 percent of people lured are females and 73 percent of those females are between
the ages of 12 and 15. In these cases, the suspect is 93% of the time almost always a male
(OConnor). A large number of kidnapping cases also occur because of social media. Young kids
and teens are lured by predators on social media sites and are then kidnapped. The National
Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the US has stated that one in five kids online has
been propositioned. (OConnor). Would any parent want their child being kidnapped? Would
they want to face the wrath of social media? The answer to this question is very simple for many
people. However, because of social media this exact issue is occurring on a large scale. This goes
to show how greatly peoples security is threatened by social media.
With the creation of social media, many horrors have unfolded including the exposition
of person information, identity theft and finally, sexual abuse along with luring. These issues
greatly violate a persons privacy, causing more importantly a threat to the individuals security.
Therefore the only way these issues can be stopped is by users demanding full control over their
information along with privacy, and the use of better privacy protection technologies to allow for
By: Vidit Soni

a better method of managing personal data. People have been given rights and should freely
exercise those rights to make a change for the better. Imagine the benefit to future generations if
a change could be made to social media. As it has been said by Margaret Mead, Never believe
that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.














By: Vidit Soni

Works Cited

Bradley, Tony. "Protect Your Privacy on Facebook and Twitter." PC World. 01 Dec. 2009: 110.
eLibrary. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Elaine O'Connor CanWest News Service. "Protect your privacy: Leave out details that can be
used against you." Regina LeaderPost. 13 Oct. 2007: G4. eLibrary. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Erin, For. "Rethinking privacy in a digital age." Calgary Herald. 03 Aug. 2009: A9. eLibrary. Web.
16 Apr. 2014.

Keen, Andrew. #digitalvertigo. New York: St. Martin Griffin, 2012. Print.

Willis, Laurie. Web 2.0. New York: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Print.

Youn, Seounmi. "Parental Influence and Teens' Attitude toward Online Privacy Protection."
Journal of Consumer Affairs 3(2008):362. eLibrary. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.