Social network Boon or Ban

Social networking privacy issues

Favor (Boon)

• Social networks are new way of staying in touch with whole world.
• Public sharing of private lives has not led to a rethinking of anything. It's just reminded people to use extreme caution when publicly sharing their private lives. If you wouldn't do something in front of everyone you know, don't do it on the internet.
• Laws should --never-- be extended to allow privacy protection for things that people say and do in the public domain. Perhaps the greatest part of the internet is the lack of control, the utter and complete freedom of speech. What is needed is a basic warning from parents or friends to those who are new to the internet, warning of the possible pitfalls that can come with such freedom.
• Humans are social animals by our nature and social networks are just one other outlet for humans to interact. We should not look at social networks are threats but as opportunities for us to interact with people globally. I myself am an active user of social networks and have made many friends and business contacts online that I would otherwise not have had the same level of opportunity or interaction.

Against (Ban)

• Social-networking sites allow seemingly trivial gossip to be distributed to a worldwide audience, sometimes making people the butt of rumors shared by millions of users across the Internet.
• Public sharing of private lives has led to a rethinking of our current conceptions of privacy.
• Existing law should be extended to allow some privacy protection for things that people say and do in what would have previously been considered the public domain.
• A guy who posted a video on YouTube weightlifting, skiing, and performing karate exhibitions. He was fired from his job for showing to much Bravado.
• Like other human social interactions which are transient, e.g. talking to friends over lunch, the Internet keeps a permanent record of what we say to each other. If you are having an online conversation with your friend(s) then you should be aware that conversation can be seen by countless others and that a record of that conversation will be kept somewhere on the Internet. Indeed, now with some social networks introducing geolocation services a record of where we go and how long we spend there will also be maintained.
• There was one incident where robbers using user's geolocation on Facebook to find out when target is at home or not.
• People need to be aware of the environment within which they are communicating to others. If you are discussing things in a public forum then all that information is available to everyone else in that forum. Therefore they should take a common sense approach to what they should and should not discuss. In real world we only talk about sensitive issues when we are in private and with people we trust. I think though that when people are online they can fall into a false sense of security because there are physically in a secure place using their computer either in their office or their home which results in them divulging information they should not.

Conclusion

• Social network is indeed boon for human race as it is bringing people closer and letting them communicate with each other without any fear and barrier. But still one nee to cautious of what level of personal information they are revealing on the social networks.