The Impact of Social Media Networks - Term Paper Example

Contents Introduction 2 Discussion 2 Effects of Social Media on Business 3 Privacy and Identity Theft 3 Effect of Social Media on Society 5 Conclusion 6 References 7 Introduction Over the past decade, there has been a rapid change in the information technology. This rapid change has threatened two important components of business and society, identity and privacy. Man Institutions across the world like educational institutions, business have to deal with identity and privacy of their students or employees on a large scale. They have the obligation to protect the identity and privacy and sometimes even they come under attack. There has been widespread transformational effect of IT on communication, learning, health, commerce etc. in recent years. But inherent in such transformation is the critical need to pay attention for security of the identity. The era of faceless business transactions has accompanied with itself the need to take serious look at the identity of a person. Identity has become a database entry which can now be disconnected from any physical recognition. It can be bought and sold like a commodity and is subject to theft and widespread misuse. This report will take a look at the repercussions of widespread social media on business and society as a whole. Discussion Blogging and Tweeting are terms used in the world of social media and they also becoming par to business vocabulary. But such terms are tip of the social media iceberg. Companies like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn are now changing the rules of how companies are doing business. In 21st century social media is changing the working environment of the company. The employees and employers are now practicing more flexibility along with the ability to respond to such conditions quickly. For many businesses social media is a boon which can be used to reach out to large target customers in a cost effective way. But they are also taking a close look the risk involved like theft, cyber bullying, fraud, defamation and invasion of privacy. Many believe that social media has a corporate value and is critical to the success of marketing efforts. Many senior executives believe that there are many potential risks which are involved while using social media. According to them the primary risks include disclosure of proprietary information, out-of date information, identifiable information and fraud (Jagatic, Johnson, Jakobsson and Menczer, 2007, pp. 94-100). Effects of Social Media on Business The presence of Social Media has changed the way people communicate and interact with each other. But the world of social media has created a whole new world of security, privacy, intellectual property, employment practices and legal risks. Privacy risk refers to the process of protecting the privacy of the members who join social networking sites. Privacy and Identity Theft The use of social media can cause identity theft of individuals who are use social media. Identity theft is called as Crime of Twenty-First century. In 1998, Identity theft was mad a federal crime. This kind of theft is limited in locality of small towns and college campuses and thus insulated these communities from any kind of criminal access. But with rapid development of IT, it becomes easy for such criminals to easily access the information’s of faceless victims located anywhere in the world. This kind of theft mainly happens to college students who have no credit histories and are thus exposed to disruption during early stage of their careers. For any individual, the loss of control because of identity theft can be devastating to them. The consequences of such kind of activity can be enduring and far reaching. It can affect the credit history which can make it tough to get loans for small businesses or homes (Hope, 2007, pp. 87-92). It can even impact getting professional licences and freedom from incarceration and arrest. For a business, Identity theft can be debilitative since it means that criminals can have unauthorized access to secure installations and files of the company (Green and Hannon, 2007, p. 152). Identity theft needs the participation of a legitimate enterprise. It starts when a criminal identifies himself as a member of an institution or business in some manner by using the name and Social Security number of another person. Any business transaction has two fundamental elements. These include assignment of financial obligation and delivery of goods or services. Any misrepresentation can cause damage to the business since the goods or services will be delivered to a person who has no interest in paying for those. Misrepresentation of financial obligation can cause damage to an unknown person since his identity is being usurped. In both the cases, identity theft can have a significant impact. But taking into two scenarios, it is the business that can prevent such activity from happening because the victim is not in a position to know that his identity has been stolen. Also any kind of unwarranted assignment of financial obligation to the victim is due to business blunder (Gill, 2008, pp. 136-142). Thus it is the responsibility of the business to use proper authentication process to verify identity of an individual before exposing itself for any identity theft. It needs to correctly assign the financial obligation to an unknown individual (Heverly, 2008, pp. 199-208). It is important for a business to identify these two elements of any business transactions before doing business. It is essential to monitor elements which are closely connected with one another but are now disconnected in an economy. Such kind of identity theft happens because of collusion of institutions or business. It is seen that any kind of initial misuse of identity gets amplified into a full blown identity theft. In such cases, credit institutions accept transactions on behalf of the business without any confirmation of its validity. They use erroneous information or incorrect address while entering details of the transaction. Though in such cases, criminal is the main instigator of identity theft, institutions and businesses are main enablers of such kind of theft. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that desire of consumers is increasing and so is the competitive pressure on organisations to provide instant credit and quick transactions. Businesses sometimes engage in cross-database sharing of individual information which can endanger privacy. Effect of Social Media on Society With increasing use of social media, there is widespread social media harassment. Criminals use the loopholes in the social media and stalk others, abuse verbally and emotionally, sexually abuse others, sell illegal substances etc. Though social media have contributed more to the society, there is something which needs to be controlled. Social media harassment is committed by criminals to terrorize victims and families (Gross, 2004, pp. 633-639). Facebook takes action like removing the offenders’ pages from their website. But this does not stop the criminals from committing the crimes. Complete privacy is not possible for people. Cyber bullying is a major impact of social media. The immediacy which is provided by social media is known to friends as well as to criminals. Kids are especially vulnerable to such kinds of cyber bullying, where criminals initially posing as good friends gains their trust. After they have their trust they start terrorizing the kids in front of their peers. Such kind of online attacks can have a devastating effect on kids because it leaves mental scars on them (Giddens, 1991, p. 92). There are many cases where the victims have been driven to suicide. The main advantage for the criminals in such attack is that they have anonymity and can bring out dark impulses from within. According to a CBS News Report, 42% of the youth suffered from cyber bullying. The productivity of the youths also gets decreased. They spend a significant amount of their time in posting pictures, updating status, commenting and other things. The Youths should be careful in what he updates on the networking sites. Once he updates, the content is lost from this control and the network administrator can only control it. In such cases any person can download the picture and distort or edit it and post it back on the sites. This is extremely humiliating to the concerned person (Bullying UK, p. 62). Again there are cases of privacy with respect to their professional life. Though posting a picture of friends in a birthday party may seem harmless, it can appear less attractive for an employer which he does background check. There are instances where many employers can rejected a candidate after doing a background check on Facebook. Conclusion Social Media plays an important role in today’s corporate world and society. Social media has helped business in reaching out to a wide target market at target effective way. This shows that it has a widespread importance in business. But closer look should be taken at the disadvantages of social media on business and society. There is a chance of identity theft and privacy for individuals who are engaged with social media. The main parties which get affected are teenagers who spend maximum amount of the time on Internet. The interdependencies between opportunities and risks are due to risk-taking practices of youths. It is clear that social media has both benefits and threats associated with it and it is the responsibility of the business to use it in the right way. References Bullying UK. 2006. National Bullying Survey. London: Bullying UK. Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gill, T. 2008. “Space-oriented children's policy: creating child-friendly communities to improve children's well-being”. Children and Society, Vol. 22(2), pp. 136-142. Green, H., and Hannon, C. 2007. Their Space: Education for a digital generation. London: Demos. Gross, E., F. 2004. “Adolescent Internet Use: What We Expect, What Teens Report”, Applied Developmental Psychology, Vol. 25(6), pp. 633-639. Heverly, R. A. (2008). “Growing Up Digital: Control and the Pieces of a Digital Life” Digital Youth, Innovations, and the Unexpected. Vol. 4(1), pp. 199-208. Hope, A. 2007. “Risk Taking, Boundary Performance and Intentional School Internet Misuse”, Discourse. Vol. 28(1), pp. 87-92 Jagatic, T. N., Johnson, N. A., Jakobsson, M., and Menczer, F. 2007. “Social phishing” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 50(10), pp. 94-100. Read More