The Social Web and Security Risks on People's Information - Report Example

Running head: RISKS ON SOCIAL WEB The Social Web and Security Risks on Peoples Information Affiliation The Social Web and Security Risks on Peoples Information The social web and social media are 21st concepts, although the idea of interpersonal connections has existed throughout history. Contrary to historical notions of social networks, contemporary social networks that exist in the space of the internet carry with them inherent risks to private information. While an individual can be sure information will not be carried far in an oral culture, in an online culture information spreads with considerably less effort. Indeed, those kinds of risks exist for both individuals and organizations—two kinds of entities that are both increasingly using social media as a way of communicate with others. Throughout this paper, the analysis of risks of social web will incorporate both individual users who may use social media casually to communicate with a particular circle of people, and organizations that may use social media to market their products and services to the public. Neither class is immune to the challenges that we all face when using social media to keep information private, since the process of making information public is irreversible. According to Pew Research (2011), the percentages of individuals using social networking sites, especially within the 18 to 29 age bracket, has skyrocketed since 2005 (Figure 1.). Similar sorts of trends can be observed in the 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 age brackets, although the sharpness of that curve is more subdued. Over half of people in all three of those age brackets, however, are using social networking websites, and roughly one-third of people 65 or older are using social networking websites. Considering the prevalence of social media in our 21st century reality, it is necessary to slow down and to give some thought to the drawbacks of this technology, in addition to its benefits. When discussing either drawbacks or benefits, one should keep in mind these rising statistics about usage. Social networking becomes more valuable as people join and connect, which means social media has a great deal of staying power. Figure 1. Social networking usage by age. Pew Research (2011). Figure 2. Communication methods used to engage employees. McCasland (2009). Clearly, social media is having a large-scale impact on how individuals communicate with others. However, organizations are increasingly utilizing social media. In fact, 21st century organizations consider social media as an important tool of marketing. In addition, social media has other uses, including to engage employees and to foster productivity (Figure 2.). As was mentioned previously, what is unique to the new phenomenon of social networking is that information uploaded to such websites is there permanently. In times of interpersonal networking without the internet, oral communication carried information from person to person. Oral communication is temporary and sometimes forgotten. However, in the 21st century, there is a public record of information that at some points in history individuals never would have thought to share with others. With such permanence to information, it is possible for undesirable consequences to come about by sharing. Sometimes these negative consequences are defined by a malicious intent, while at other times, these consequences are accidental. For instance, in organizations, blocking Facebook is not only a matter of preventing malware from entering company computers or keeping employees productive—it is also about positively representing the company to the public, which a Facebook profile essentially is (Cluley, 2010). Individuals sometimes forget that, like organizations, they have a public online presence that can be damaged by sharing their information in a public space. However, in spite of those potential threats, organization and individuals are still using the social web at miraculous rates. The primary benefit of social media is the connections that it offers people—recommending resources for people to use, experts for people to consult, and distributing content for people to read. The same goes for organizations, which push the resources, experts, and content to individual recipients as a means of earning their business. These were the benefits of social networking websites at least initially after they started. Now, with a vast majority of young people using social networking websites, the main benefit of using a Facebook profile may be the bandwagon effects and the drive to avoid social isolation. If one’s entire circle of friends uses Facebook and actively communicates over the network, it may be troublesome or even socially isolating to not use the website. Again, organizations benefit from social media in a few ways. Primarily, the marketing opportunities offered by social networking websites are unprecedented. Facebook is, essentially, a leads-generation marketing company that voluntarily collects demographic information from all of its users, which advertisers can tap into by marketing on individual profile pages. Instead of paying for ad space that may or may not reach its target audience, advertisers can now be assured that their message will be read by the right people. Social networking is probably an essential part of a 21st century organization’s integrated marketing mix. Like with individuals, there is a bandwagon effect where if one’s competitors are using Facebook, there is a drive for companies not using the free resource to do so. In addition, organizations are increasingly using social media to engage employees and to foster productivity in the workplace. While some organizations that block social networking at work may be missing an opportunity, others are using the internet to get the most out of their employees while at work. For both individuals and organizations, these benefits come with drawbacks. Along with the potential for maliciously or accidentally sharing information that should not be made public over social networks, there is also the inherent possibility of identity theft when one operates with a public profile. It is indeed possible to create a profile that incorporates all of the information about a real person and then to pretend to be that person for the purpose of joining private networks, spamming others, and so on. Increasingly, identity theft is a problem in a society dependent on the interconnectedness of information; in this kind of environment, the lines between private and public information is blurred or mistakenly drawn. Just like a neighborhood in which everyone keeps their doors unlocked at night, a social networking world that encourages openness may also be open to abuse and deception. Social media for a business organization can also be abused, depending on the situation that the organization finds itself in. Organizations that decide to utilize social media more heavily expose themselves both to the risk that they will not receive a return on their investment, and that they might publish something that works against their desire for new business. With respect to the first risk, the labor and materials necessary to building a social media presence is more than simply setting up a page. A social media website thrives on constant information updates in order to stay relevant. It is difficult for a company to accurately assess the resources that it must invest into creating and maintaining a public profile, and it is even more difficult to assess the returns a company is getting from this investment. Perhaps a company’s Facebook page is getting many views, but are these views leading to purchases of products or services? With respect to the second risk, it is entirely possible that a public profile may backfire, especially if the company posts something that is contrary to its own values or the values of its consumers. As a result, companies must devote further resources into its investment in social media to determine whether the information being posted to the online website is worth the risk. A good first step in preventing abuse of one’s public information on a social network is to avoid oversharing. While Facebook and Twitter have led to unprecedented amounts of personal expression in a public sphere, this tends to produce an overabundance of information for readers to sort through. In other words, users tend to overshare with others. A service called “Foursquare” tells the world where individuals are at each moment, which produced the opposite effect—a website called “Please Rob Me” that is based on the premise that if individuals are not at home on “Foursquare,” they may have their belongings burglarized. The “Please Rob Me” website is of course a parody of Foursquare, but it comes with the message to “not overshare” (Fletcher, 2010). For organizations, reducing one’s risk exposure to misuse of information is similar. For marketing purposes, the goal is not to bombard individual users with data about the company and its products. However, just as individual users have a tendency to overshare their information with their networks, organizations might take a quantity over quality approach. In other words, visibility is a higher value than creating original content. The problem posed here is not only a marketing bad practice, but a potential liability. If an organization is under the impression that more is better, even at the cost of value-adding information, then it will post more information, and the more information posted into the public space, the more potential exists for misuse and abuse of that information by others looking to perhaps gain a competitive advantage. Organizations use social networks very publically, which makes sense considering that they are used for marketing purposes. As was discussed previously, putting too much information into the public sphere posed problems for companies with respect to how they control that outflow—a process of control that perhaps limits their ability to engage employees at work or to market their products in an innovative way. While there are enormous benefits for both individuals and organizations in social networking, there also exist tremendous drawbacks and potential for misuse. Information posted into the public sphere of social media is permanently saved, which is a recent development from oral culture in which information was short-lived and not easily passed. Individuals ought to prevent oversharing by being conscious of the fact that anything communicated with others reflects upon their personal profile. Organizations ought to do the same, but while doing so, keep in mind that there is a competitive push to using social media in appropriate and innovative ways. Simply from trends in social media usage, one can see the ever-increasing relevance of information privacy and protection going forward into this century. References Cluley, G. (2010). Sizing up the malware threat – key malware trends for 2010. Network Security, 4, 8-10. Fletcher, D. (2010, February 18). Please rob me: The risks of online oversharing. Time Magazine. McCasland, R. (2009). IABC Research Foundation and Buck consultants employee engagement survey. Retrieved January 15, 2012, from IABC: http://www.iabc.com/researchfoundation/pdf/EmployeeEngagement.pdf Pew Research. (2011, August 26). 65% of online adults use social networking sites. Retrieved January 14, 2012, from Pew Research Center: http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2011/PIP-SNS-Update-2011.pdf Read More