The Effects Of Social Networking Web Sites

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

During these past centuries, due to geographical distances and economic concerns, connections among people were narrow. Today the Twenty first century is the world of 'Internet. And we get linked to our partners through internet. Introduce of the social network is made up of individuals that are connected to one another by a particular type of interdependency. It could be values, ideas, trade, anything.

Many humans feel an inherent need to connect and expand their connections between them. So that it is a deep rooted need among humans to share themself. This we can consider as connecting with people in digital way. Therefore the Social Networking web Sites have assisted us to connect with many aspects such as friends, colleagues, relatives, and strangers, while sitting far away from one end to another end. Many positive sides we can get from these social networking web sites such as about the people, their interests, their work, current updates where they going etc. Since many worldwide people using the social medial web sites it is gainful to learn different cultures, different languages, and different personality which could benefit youth in living their lives. Therefore the social networking sites possibly will open the doors of view on youth learning in many ways. Many SNSs has its own pros and cons. So this has been leaded to undertake too many good and bad to the each other’s lives.

The very First SNS was SixDegrees.com which was launched in 1997. Some of the most commonly used SNSs: Facebook, Google plus, Twitter, Flickr, Bebo, MySpace, Meetup, Meetme, Orkut, etc. Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are leading the Social Media flux with a combined 900 Million active users. (Bigfin, 2012) Today this process is extremely specialized between people, and engages with tens of millions of Internet operators. What happen in this Social media web sites is each user will create their own profiles, add interests, add photographs, add friends, add about them, add current status what they do where they went etc.

Today Technology has its own benefits and as well as drawbacks, when considering about sites, are usually taken as an essential asset to all internet users. Many people break the law of obtaining personal information which is an illegal activity. This will lead to many social issues hence many companies and education organizations block accessing to social media web sites to protect their personal and private information.    

Currently many social medial web sites help to grow large scale as well as small scale business through their service. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest symbolize a huge chance for businesses to take the attention of customers while concurrently constructing a brand image. There are lot of issues occurs during the use of social media for the business under this section it will be discussing what are they?

This plat form provides the word of mouth and to see it spread. As for an example if someone makes publish in social media, it will share with millions of people. In the developing countries this is growing fast. Lot of people connected through the internet and online. Once they saw a post they try to "Liking" and "comment" moreover to "share" with community which they have connected with. On Facebook can spread virally very rapidly all over the numerous social media channels. This comes to as negative wise or positive because than a glossy magazine publishing now days trusts lot opinions of their peers.

Moreover many consumers whenever they want to check a product details or review of the products what other people have described, they first tent go to the social media web sites as for an example YouTube to watch the review products and services using video clips. Let say as a product of mobile phone. This will has good and bad reviews. If YouTube channel make a wrong impression and wrong description and false details about that mobile phone, then the viewer will be misunderstand of the product. This is a very good point which the consumers will not trust the product and this will leads to the reputation of the company which will leads to less demand for the product as well Vice versa.

As well Companies can and do deliver products to popular under various social media web sites such as YouTube users to review for their subscribers as well as form their own branded YouTube channels with branded videos about their products. This will guarantee of showing the accurate data of the product as for the example we took the mobile phone, As well as Facebook make fan pages and get likes for the page and involve in discussion about the product. How and why people like the product and so on. Moreover These social networks allow persons to weight the contacts they begin within the social network to achieve a bigger objective like job search, a real estate search, a holiday trip plan, etc. this is a very good positive impact which is having under the social networking web sites. But it is a question that the info which provided is true or false, and even however the info is not updates with the current time period and If its years and years old then waste of time for the searching the data. Besides work according to the BCS code of conduct no-03 (d) "NOT disclose or authorise to be disclosed, or use for personal gain or to benefit a third party, confidential information except with the permission of your Relevant Authority, or as required by Legislation." (BCS, 2012). It can reduce the data misuse of inside the organization. Such as Facebook they use lot of people’s personal interest and data for marketing. It calls as Facebook Marketing. This has been verified extraordinary progress rates for lot of companies in the market. the promoters target people with ads inside Facebook based on use of cookies bits of tracking code that are released against your device/browser when you logging in to the web sites that recognize users interests, age, location to advertisers to advertise their product. Thus Lot of companies would like to use this tool since this has been made very popular and accurate targeted market. This may leads to extract private data so that privacy of individuals will damage in a way. But according to the Consequentialism theory (Actions are right or wrong subject to their consequences) In way use of cookies under circumstances it may not a key issue for privacy when in view of the internet users’ privacy such as cookies can record the logging info so if the same person changes the logging browser or PC this can be recorded and notify for the user it also helps to identify the third party people who logged in to your account. Which means from the data such as through the identity of the different location/ different internet browser/ or different PC etc.

Laws also apply to social media web sites. If no laws implemented the SNS may obtain and misuse there customers (users) personal information without their knowledge, due to this a law should be implemented to stop this crime. The social media website users should be given the privacy and there freedom to access their social websites without any problem. User’s personal information should be protected or else issues will arise and necessary actions will be taken by the higher authorities who enforced the laws. Users prefer a user friendly, safe and protected social website, if users feel cheated; the social media will lose their customers of that particular social website. The laws implemented should be forced follow.

Many people would love to listen, share with their best friends and download music and music videos. And this has become a thread for the music industry since impacting illegal downloads and edits of the music. Now days many social media has been allowing to have independent music artists, music labels and video content vendors to upload share and sell their content to a public of users with interests in the particular media. With this method many Users in chance of having to listen to hear sample music, download and share songs with friends and other members among.Agreeing to the Sri Lankan Intellectual property act No.36 of 2003 PART II CHAPTER I , downloading of others copyrights computer programs and music without buying originals is against to the country law (Nipo, 2011). Sri Lankan websites or the internet engine should follow the implemented law to protect the user’s personal information from been taken and misused without any knowledge of the user’s. If the social media web sistes do not follow the law necessary legal actions will be taken for going against the country law. This can put to more trouble and problems will rise.   Above discussed law is only applicable for citizen of Sri Lankan internet users’ therefore so it is good to check some of the international laws and regulations basically there are many several important acts and regulations can be taken such as; Data protection Act /1998 – UK government and Digital Millennium Copyright Act /Section 512(c). Implementing laws and regulations would help to build up a better social environment. Laws and regulations stated for users who access social media will help to protect their user’s personal information being   misappropriated and misused. The social media web sites should follow the laws without breaking the country law or else issues will arise and legally right actions will be considered. Most importantly they are held responsible for protecting their customers (users) personal information , users privacy accessing and should build up a good image of the websites so users will feel more comfortable in accessing social websites and user’s personal information shouldn't be used for negative purposes.  Similarly there are certain detailed cods of conducts which should be monitored by IT professionals which mean people who working with IT such as for an example Facebook employees. If they follow this professional code of conduct it can minimize the impact of violating the privacy of each Facebook holder’s accounts. According to BCS codes of conduct; BCS 1(a) and 1(b) (under public interest section), moreover the customers’ privacy information must not be abused or disturbed by the computing professionals. Also according to the BCS- 03(a) and 4(a) duty to relevant authority and Duty to the Profession must not be violated. (BCS, 2012).

Similarly according to the UDHR (Article xx) everyone has a right to privacy and freedom, equality, dignity are the fundamental rights of every individual (UN, 2012). But as widely described in the above through this action, these essential rights of social networking web site users are directly violated with ensuing many of serious privacy offensives. Such as many people use to put fake details of them self or else create account under different people and make use of it. A survey done by Acquisti and Gross showed on Facebook membership information sharing, awareness, and privacy issues of college students. Many college students has been use to put fake personal information than the actual listing of private information such as birthday, sexual orientation, partner's name, and cell phone number, address and so on (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 2013). If people has use to put other people’s info it will leads to make bad impression to the original person. And pointing out a huge privacy issue to the original person. With this there will be ‘identity theft’ they are the theft of account holders’ which without permission to commit crimes with the use of personal information. For an example identity theft force to use personal information for shopping online, opening new accounts (Ex: - email/other social networking web sites etc.) and even taking out loans which makes so dangerous. "Collect operators’ delicate information in exchange for free service and those information can be misappropriated for public use (or published)" Violating the Right to Privacy (UDHR/Art 12). Following this ethical issue will make use of reduce the mistakes happening under the social media web sites. But there will be a positive side as well while many students/society wants to put fake detail. If the real person without harming to another person putting fake details will leads to protect the individual privacy. We can take an example like celebrities they are more famous in the society and many people would like to get in touch and contact with them so if they wants to have account in the social media the best way is to put fake details such as contacting details this will make them to relief getting many messages and call. As for an example a celebrity will put the original personal telephone number for the contact details and it leading for that celebrity getting hundreds of call all over the world and this will be a pain for the celebrity.

Another study done by the same researchers made downloading and analyzing Facebook profiles at Carnegie Mellon University. It says that "Less than 1% of Facebook users changed the default privacy settings, while many provided large amounts of personal information including phone number (39.9%) and current residence (50.8%)." (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. 2013). This will leads to extract personal information for various organization for various usages such as marketing; put some once identification to illegal activities and so on. This will highlight that Facebook users are principally unaware or unconcerned with limiting entree to private data on their accounts. In that way according to the Utilitarianism theory, the action of colleting internet users’ privacy information through the social media web sites in order to finding the suspects of any illegal online activity can be ethically justified. Because through this action for social media web sites able to protect privacy and freedom of their internet users/consumers and benefits for not leaking out the personal information.

Internet is a global network connecting millions of computers for over more than 100 countries. The laws and acts applied to internet activities are not similar to each country, also some countries hasn't implemented any laws until now. Sri Lanka is one of the countries that have successfully set a law for internet activities. According to the Sri Lanka the Sri Lankan Computer Crime Act, No. 24 of 2007, act no 07 declares "Any person who, knowing or having reason to believe that any other person has without lawful authority obtained information from a computer or a storage medium of a computer, buys, receives, retains, sells, or in any manner deals with; or downloads, uploads copies or acquires substances or meaning of such information shall be guilty of an offence" (ICTA, 2011). All the Sri Lankan citizens who are using internet will be safe from hacking and fraud, personal information will be secured and protected. And if any one comes against the laws and questioned, they will be taken into considered as illegal. 

From 2013 onwards Facebook has been developed a new option for their customers to give a better service. But from this new feature is it effect for positive side of their customer? Or else simply as a method that customer’s privacy will vanish away? The answers are below. The tool is called as Graph Search and it will lets you search for people established on their Facebook movements. Once you able to use this tool it will help to find information such as restaurants your friends already have liked, childhood photos enclosing specific family members, and alumni from your alma mater who live near your next vacation place and so on. The Facebook says like this "With Graph Search, you can look up anything shared with you on Facebook, and others can find stuff you've shared with them, including content set to Public. That means different people see different results." (Facebook, 2013) This sometimes can act as to investigate a particular’s behavior. Therefore it can be a very dangerous privacy issue. As well as it will good for people who like to be update with their friends and family members. With this tool it makes very easy.

It is ok if you have already made the Facebook privacy settings locked and tight up. Then you should not to be worried too much reason for concern. Nevertheless, ever since the new tool searches across all of Facebook, you still need to be aware of posts from family, friends, and coworkers that may have info approximately you that should to be private, especially photos and videos. If a question rises like asking what searches have you used most, then the answer will be 1. Photos of [X], 2. My Friends, 3. People named [X], 4. People named [X] who live in [Y], 5. Friends of [X], 6. Photos by [X], 7. Photos of my friends, 8. Photos liked by me, 9. Photos liked by [X], 10. Places [Restaurants/hotels/etc.] near me. (Todd Wasserman, April 2013).

As for the conclusion, the social networking websites has become critical need for today’s life for most of people, moreover they give opportunities for interaction and communication. But this will but also raise new privacy concerns discussed above. Among them, the Facebook stands the popular web site and issues getting in.

Accessing data from social media web sites accounts are regularly done by many people all over the world. Even the social media web site providers such as Facebook Company as for an example. User accessing online should be a save and private system, since when user accesses a site users information’s may be distributed therefore the social media web sites must ensure its save and its freedom of the user (human rights).

To ensure that the sites should save to use, social media web sites can display privacy statement that will give the users a good and trustworthy image of the site. So that many people will have a better interest of using the particular social media web site. The following picture will show how Facebook have made their privacy setting for their customers.

It is also a strong recommendation for Govt. international cyber jurisdiction to take part and maintain the privacy and other social issue happening and minimize them by putting legal action and regulations. It’s also nice to see that sites like ICO (The Information Commissioner’s Office) has brought many people to complain their rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals. So the ICO accept all the complaints, and give guidance to individuals and organizations, and proceeds suitable action when the law is damaged.

Less education of the IT literacy will leads many people’s privacy so it is good to recommend from the startup of their life teach the correct IT knowledge and good and bad of it. This can take in to an action schools or colleges. Not even that many young teenagers privacy will be misuse since they don’t know what is going or basically they don’t have a proper idea of what Is the good and bad. It responsibilities for parents to make sure always stays in touch with their children and teach them the right and wrong of using the social media. If the parents misuse making the children not use then it will leads to reduce the relationship of children and parents because then somehow children try to use social media without their parents acknowledge. So that it is good from the start up make children right path and teaches them.

As discussed above collect details of people’s account, mostly used the internet cookies technology so that it is good that government restrict to have standard level of cookies to use in all the social media so that it can reduce collecting person data and selling gathered personal information to third parties. Not only government it can also ok that if an organization monition and make sure all the social media web sites has a particular slandered of cookies.