Answer

Privacy in the Age of Social Media

Social media pertains to any digital tool that lets users create and share content online through virtual networks. Some of the common types of social media are social networks and media sharing networks (Foreman, 2017). Social networks comprise Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, whereas media sharing networks comprise Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube. These different categories of social media are thus helpful to users. It helps them identify the proper and more suitable channels to use while looking up for their right target audience.

However, as social media has its advantages, its use also exposes users to considerable challenges, mainly on their privacy. Social media users are often vulnerable to various entities such as service providers and third-party sites who can easily access their data and violate their privacy. Despite an individual user being solely responsible for protecting his privacy, the lack of exposure to information and awareness of protection mechanisms is a significant issue. Social media sites usually have privacy policies and general privacy settings, which provide users with information on how their data will be collected, stored, and shared. Most users tend not to go through these terms and conditions as they may be lengthy and require much time to read. The legal language used may also be challenging to grasp, forcing most users to accept the given privacy policies blindly.

Most users share private information such as gender, age, images, location, and addresses. This kind of information puts individuals’ privacy at risk as they are entirely unaware of who might be accessible to such content. Such knowledge, which is open to the general public, may even be exploited for financial benefits by online attackers, consequently causing financial losses and emotional distress.

Some of the social media sites found to violate user privacy include;

Facebook

For advertising purposes, Facebook usually uses cookies to track the behavior and interests of different users, thereupon invading the user’s privacy.

Instagram

Instagram’s issues in privacy were also noted in 2015. Their security flaws were evident when videos and images that were previously public then made private by a user could easily be seen by anyone who had a link to that given content.

Snapchat

Snapchat gives a false sense of privacy to its users who feel that their content cannot be saved and others cannot trace it. In reality, the Snapchat privacy policy allows the site to store all the content shared by its users in their storage units and share it with third parties and service providers.

Users can, however, enhance their privacy on social networks and prevent the sharing of information without their consent. Restrictions on privacy can be made through;

1. Implementation of privacy settings to restrict the kind of content other people can view or access on their profiles.
2. Adopting a virtual private network that protects information about their location and identity against service providers. This protects them from service providers who can gather details on their browsing history, location, and even connection.

iii. Researching any social networks before agreeing to their privacy policies and signing up for an account.