Social Networking - Essay Example

? Social Networking Social Networking The more rise in new social networking platforms, the more increase in social interaction which challenges the traditional ideas about ethical conduct. Millions of people are connected to each other through social networking websites forming a community that is interacting with each other to a high extent than before when these platforms were not invented. Not everyone in this kind of social community would be a good member and follow the ethical rules of the online community. And as the interaction is not physical in nature but virtual, people start making negative use of this fact and break the moral and ethical values and boundaries of the social networking community and society as a general. Brief Definition and Description of Social Networking Social interaction taking place over the internet is called social networking and the platforms that support this activity are the social networking websites. These websites’ main purpose is to create an online community consisting of internet users who are free from the issues of distance, time and cultural differences and interact with each other and share all kinds of information from personal experiences to general opinions. Through these websites, users usually establish an online connection with known persons like their family members, friends, office colleagues and many more. But they may also get connected to unknown persons who may be different from them in terms of race, religion, nationality and the like but became friends due to common interest. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 304). Currently there are many websites catering the purpose of social networking. One such website is called Facebook.com and it is the website which has been ranked first as the total minutes per month spent by users on this website exceeds 14 billion. There are other popular websites also such as: MySpace.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter, each one catering the interests of users in their own particular ways. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 305). General Ethical Issues Social networking gives rise to the following ethical issues: 1. Cyberbullying: Social networking websites allow cyberbullying to occur in the easiest manner. This kind of activity is usually done by females who are students in their mid- teens. Cyberbullying is an harassment in which a person or a group mentally tortures other persons or groups, and humiliates them or threatens them by putting online any private or embarrassing or threatening information that may harm them. Statistics show that the major negative effect of cyberbullying is that the victim may commit suicide as it may give him severe mental torture. 2. Cyberstalking: This activity is the adult version of cyberbullying in which similar activities of sending threatening emails, stalking each others information and then misusing it online. Research reveals that there are 50 to 500 requests per day for help from victims of cyberstalking. 3. Uploading of Inappropriate Material: Videos and images that depict violence or vulgarity are not permitted by many social networking websites through their policies. The terms and policies of the website also state that any user violating the policies and terms would get his account deleted or deactivated by the website owner. But still these policies are not enough to stop people from uploading such content as websites do not have enough resources to monitor the millions of activities of millions of users. Uploading of such content harm the persons who are subject of the content. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 310-313). Business and Social Networking Apart from social interaction and playing games, social networking is also one of the cheapest ways to advertise oneself and his business and all the services and products it offers at a very low cost or totally free. When companies saw the widespread use of social networking websites, it attracted them and they thought of improving their productivity and communication among workers through the use of social networking websites. Social networks can be used to improve business operations. When the workforce of any company is spread in different parts of the world, they can connect themselves through any social networking website from where they can collaborate, share and learn information from different parts of the world. Companies use social networking websites internally so that employees communicate and produce elicit ideas for the company. LinkedIn.com is a social networking website that has more than 30 million users and most of them are business professionals. People who are part of this social network get to read and discuss on the basis of their choices and participation, and they are not annoyed or intruded by others. LinkedIn.com started a new service called the Company Groups, in which a company’s employees form a digital community which is private in nature and where they can discuss and share their ideas and information and ask questions to each other related to the company affairs. Employees connect to each other and share market research reports. This new service also includes job listings, advertising and premium subscriptions and these help the website to generate revenue. Furthermore, business professionals say that social networks help to represent the culture of their company very well. (Swartz, 2008). Moreover, social networking is providing new ways for companies to unlock tacit knowledge within. Every organization has tacit knowledge which is a huge and valuable distributed database in the minds of persons and does not have easy access by the persons of any organization. Before the existence of social networks, this knowledge was shared among employees through calls and face to face conversations. But social networks have reduced the space of time and distance and made the knowledge to be accessed more easily. Tacit knowledge is deeply embedded in the minds of employees as it has been acquired through experimentations and such knowledge is difficult to express orally; so social networks provide a reasonable platform to do this. They connect employees and help them find other employees and experts in their company and communicate with them.(Kavur, 2010, p. 1). There are two kinds of social networks: one is internal/ private to the company and the other is public like Facebook, Twitter etc. It totally depends on the company which way they choose; however, using a public forum can help create skills that may prove to be valuable to the employees at their workplaces. Communicating through social networks helps to develop good and effective communication skills as connected people transfer skills in each other, and these skills become valuable for the organization. For example, NASA videotaped the engineers narrating the stories about how they brought project teams together in order to elicit tacit knowledge. In this way, other employees watching these stories could interpret them and find their own ways on how they can bring project teams together. Through the internal discussion communities which can be formed through social networks, the above purpose can also be achieved. A Microsoft employee said that the main way they communicated in Microsoft was through discussion groups which brought success for them. And they built a culture that demanded employees to be rewarded if the conducted the act of sharing information as it would prosper the company as a whole. (Kavur, 2008, p. 2). Business Social Networks and Their Security With benefits, the use of social networking in business has also brought security risks and challenges for the companies. Anything that has been posted on a social network group by an employee of a company becomes a rolling stone of his or her life. And he or she has joined more than one social network service and all these services are connected, a status update on one service gets posted to all the other services automatically causing replication and distribution of information that cannot be easily deleted. Social networking allows interconnection of services like for example, a user’s Facebook.com account can be interconnected to his or her Twitter.com account and LinkedIn.com account which means that all three are interconnected. This interconnection is beneficial in one way, but it gives rise to security risks. In order to solve the effect of interconnected social network service, companies immediately URL filtering and block access to the sites such as Twitter and LinkeIn.com. However; this isn’t an appropriate solution. There is actually a need to protect the data not block access to the websites. Data protection can be done in many ways, and the first step in the implementation of data protection is educating the users who are dealing with the data and information. Furthermore, the computer and network security industry is playing its role by creation data protection tools and tutorials so that users can learn how to protect sensitive data. Data protection involves the issues of levels of access of data and who can access it. In this way, IT can produce data protection policies that when implemented are very effective. IT can also produce user education programs to change the behavior and perceptions of users; plus a system that monitors the data flow and sharing of data so that in case of data leakage, it can be quickly recovered. Hence, the most beneficial way to make the users of the company data aware of safe data practices and how they should be handled instead of blocking web access that can be a loss as customers and users are connected to it. (Price, 2009). Conclusion Social networking, as aforementioned, is a way to connect with the related people around us and share our information with them. However, the use of social networking is not limited to this extent as they are now also being used by business companies in order to boost the productivity of their businesses and increase the communication and sharing of tacit knowledge among the employees in order to move the companies in the forward direction. This also creates security risks and challenges as social networks are main target of attacks by cybercriminals. The reasons of this are because these sites consist of loads of data such as a user’s personal information which can be used by cybercriminals for malicious purposes. Secondly, cybercriminals usually join such business communities and act as if they are a part of it in order to extract information related to the business as the users of these online communities trust each other. Thirdly, social networking websites are easier to be attacked by cybercriminals and steal the information as these websites have recently become the target of attacks and thus lack the security implementation and measures. So businesses need to ensure that their sensitive data does not get leaked by making users aware that they should not discuss the sensitive issues on social network platforms. Reasons Why I Chose This Topic ` I have particular interest in being a part of the development of a social networking website. Along with programming, the construction of a social networking website requires the involvement of the study of human psychology and a lot many things. The designing of such websites involve the study of human computer interaction concepts that particularly interest me. These areas can be studied and implemented in a manner in order to reduce the ethical issues that are arising. Social networking website construction is a vast subject not simply programming and coding. If I do research in this topic, I’ll be able to understand the complexity and intricacies of the topic. And someday I will become a valuable member of a social networking development team most desirably facebook.com. Three questions are: 1. How can the design, features and functionalities of social networking reduce the ethical issues that are arising? 2. How far privacy settings should be strict in a social networking website? 3. Should such websites should remain free for everyone or they should have some monthly fee so that people do not misuse it? Works Cited Kavur, Jennifer. (2010). Social Networks Help Businesses Share Knowledge. Retrieved June 8, 2011, from PCWorld Business Center Web site: http://www.pcworld.com/business cente/article/ 189863/social_networks_ help_businesses_share_knowledge.html Price, Howard. (2009). Social Networks Risks for Business Security. Retrieved June 8, 2011, from PCWorld Business Center Web site: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter /article /161270/social_networks_risks_for_business_security.html Reynolds, George. (2009). Ethics in Information Technology. United States of America: Course Technology Swartz, Jon. (2008). Social Networking Sites Help Companies Boost Productivity. Retrieved June 8, 2011, from USA Today Web site: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2008-10-07-social-network-work_N.htm Read More