Protecting Privacy in Social Media - Research Paper Example

Users create profiles which they share with friends as a form of self expression. When registering as a user of a particular social media; the information mostly shared with other users and available to the public includes photos, age, gender, contacts and interests (Massey 3). Moreover, most people provide their biographic data such as their education, employment history and hometown. Although users have a right to determine who accesses their information on this social media; their information may got to unauthorized persons thereby infringing on the rights of the user.

Security and privacy of one’s information is a major concern for many users of social media, where some networks allow personal information to be accessed by advertising groups or some malicious people who can use such information to the determent of the users. Privacy involves the right of an individual to control collection and utilization of personal data. Problems Associated with Social Media Usage The major privacy problem of experienced by social media users is that their information is accessed by unauthorized persons.

Additionally, there is usually a problem of having social media allowing other applications to access users’ information which is used for various purposes such as marketing. The other privacy issue is where some users sign up to the social media with intention of spying on someone and eventual doing something malicious to them or disturbing them. The other problem in social media is posting of indecent photographs and videos which should not be viewed by children although these networks do not have adequate measures to protect children from such materials.

The other security and privacy issue arise when one’s status update may be used by criminals to in crime. According to (Jackson et al 212), security and privacy issues related to social media are generally behavioral issues rather than technology. The other problems associated with use of social media is that the applications that are used to lure users into the network also expose this sites prone to infection by malware which can lead to shutting down of organization network while keystroke loggers may access credentials.

Other risks in social networking include sphere phishing, spoofing and social engineering. Solution Section To guarantee security and privacy the information of social users, it is important that when registering on the social media, one must read the privacy policy. This is because most social media have a functionality which allows users to define the people who can access their information or the people who can they can share information with. Although most social media offers security and privacy setting most users do not take set their security information (Jackson et al 214).

Security setting in social media helps users to control the people who can access their information. Additionally, privacy settings help to ensure that a user’s information cannot be accessed when searched on the common search engines like Google (Notess 41). When registering as a new user, one needs to review the security policy of the social media since there are some social networks which share emails and other data with third parties. To protect the security and privacy of our information on the social networks, we must be cautious before clicking a link to access to a new page or when opening an online application although the