Good Essay On Social Media Privacy

Today, social networking sites have more than a billion numbers of users online. The largest and most popular social networking site is Facebook. The site has over a billion users while other networking sites like Google+ and twitter have millions of users. Many experts may say that these networking sites are just passing by and will eventually be replaced by other internet applications, yet we cannot remove ourselves from it. Over the years, these social networking sites have increased in usage and become part of people’s daily lives. It is used as a virtual meeting place for people who know each other and sometimes even for those who are a complete stranger. Many of these social networking sites have the capability of tagging and posting. Many people may think and feel that these applications are just for fun, but they are unaware of the numerous security threats that this networks can have to their privacy. The social networking sites can really threaten our privacy and many people don’t have the knowledge about it.
One of the most common threats of the social networking sites to our privacy is having our identity stolen. Through the social media sites, identity thieves are able to gather personal information about a targeted individual. We can say that even if the social sites have a very high security setting, there are still possible ways to hack into the account. In most of the social networking sites, there are required information’s like the email address, full name, or birthdays. Most of the identity thieves are able to hack into the account in the social media sites through the email accounts. One can recover an account using the email address of the users. The email account of the users is one of the most important details into hacking. Through the email account, the hackers were able to access all of the information in the social media sites.
Another bothering threat is that stalkers can find people through the social networking sites. As indicated in the first part of the essay, people are very fond of using applications of the sites like tagging and posting pictures and other personal information. They let people know what they feel, what are they doing, or who they are with. Once the personal information is posted in the social networks, it will be circulated are be seen by many people; it will no longer be private. That personal information’s are not only circulated among people that they know, sometimes it falls to the hands of people who are thinking of doing something wrong. People become very vulnerable to these events if they keep posting and posting more personal information’s. It is right to say that some networking sites have a high security setting, but still, friends, companions, families, and even the advertisements of the brands that we interact with can leak personal information about us.
There are also threats that we may not see directly, but is hidden under everything we do. The overconfidence we have developed as we use the social networking sites daily is one of the biggest threats. We may believe that we have the most secure firewall against the threat in our privacy. There is also a common notion that ordinary people have no threat into personal information hacking, and that we don’t have to worry about our security since we are not popular. This is one of the overconfidence that may lead to the threat in our privacy. People must be cautious about everything we put in our social networking sites. Today’s technology really change how we connect with other people and how we interact with them but we must always remember that it is also one of the reason why there are a lot of hackers that can easily bypass our security settings. If we progress in technology, so are they. We must keep in mind that there are some things that we must avoid in posting to social networking sites. To keep our personal information’s safe from any threat; we must carefully pay attention to our online activities. Our confidence can let us post location information’s, travel plans, our families information’s like children’s names, and our address. With this kind of personal information in our social networking sites, there are a lot of things that bad people can do about it.
We can blame a lot to the social networking sites that we put trust to, but at some point we can also argue that there is no threat to our privacy while using the sites if we are just cautious and carefully thinking. The social networking sites are just there to become a tool in communicating with others and staying in touch with them. It is not their aim to put our privacy at risk. If we think about it, the blame should be put to the people who are using the networking sites. Other people will have no personal knowledge about a certain individual if in the first place, there is no information to hack or stalk into. Posting is one of the most threatening things that let people gather information and use against them. Posting can be fun, but without it, there can be less personal things that we can leak to other people. The users are the ones who are giving away the private information, so there can be no blame to the networking sites.
The use of the social networking sites have become part of our daily lives. We can say that it a very useful tool in communicating and connecting with others. Although, in real sense, the sites are not a threat to our privacy if we don’t use them, we can’t argue that once we are a user, there are a lot of threats to our privacy. In our technological age, we cannot part ourselves into using applications like Facebook, we can just become extra careful and aware of the hidden dangers that we can get from it.