Social Media and Privacy

Social Media and Privacy

            There are more than 3.2 billion people around the world that have access to Facebook or other social media, which means that there is 3.2 billion people’s personal information out there. These social media sites have all the freedom to scrape data from these users without them knowing about it until they end up seeing ads for specific, personal problems, or even political preferences. This alarming fact brings attention to address the problem of unethical data scraping by social media platforms. Government regulation on internet policies and data collection should be implemented to protect owners from breaching on the information.         This approach may not be the solution to the invasion of privacy, although I do not agree that social media companies use this information with bad intentions, with Facebook admitting to the collection of data, it is clear that a solution is needed. The government needs to reform internet policies and the way social media collects data to protect user privacy. Reasons necessary for this policy is that users are being manipulated while there is unwanted and unknown data collection.

According to Aram Sinnreich and Barbara Romzek (1), social media should be used for the benefit of the free society. Negative issues about social media and privacy have raised the urgency for the government to treat it with a lot of seriousness. According to surveillance capitalism, many firms obtained individuals’ data on social media, which is a potential risk to both individuals and public privacy (Sinnreich and Romzek 1). Besides, the reports from Facebook Company reveals that many individuals and firms have been hacking their client’s information.

This practice has made them see the need for the government the implement laws on how to improve social media privacy. Also, many companies tend to engage in unnecessary data extraction, which is difficult to be eliminated, despite the deletion or replacement of social media accounts. Existence of power imbalance among the social media firms calls for the government intervention, therefore the increased extraction of personal data on social media will be reduced by the new regulation. It will make individuals engaging in online businesses to reveal more about themselves and will give individuals rights for their information to be deleted from social media servers.

Additionally, social media companies have been using unwanted personal data, which has shifted from their main task of protecting it. For instance, Facebook has shown insufficient social media privacy as a result of its main business practices that tend to portray its shift from their main objective (Zeynep 2). First, it gathers the information about individuals browsing behaviours where it buys the more confidential ones from illegal sources. It also encourages peoples’ data extraction as a result of their business technique, which allows information to be taken from its servers for money. Many social media firms have forgotten their role of privacy since it is a way of earning revenue. As a result of this malicious acts, government regulation will be effective to curb such misconduct by encouraging the expansion of messaging encryption that limits social media companies and other people from viewing data. Intolerable communication goal between various social media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, will be achieved through high privacy by government regulation. Also, it will encourage the use of safe mass messaging that will improve social media privacy, hence it will lower hate vaccine misinformation, speech, and fake news.

There are dangers of democracy as a result of minimal social media privacy. According to Applebaum (1), there i secretive removal of effective devices that are meant to monitor democracy on social media without the knowledge of relevant institutions. This claim results due to the unwillingness of social media companies to support political ad campaigns. In another case, social media firms have continued utilizing devices that extract their clients’ information without consent. For instance, Facebook has an application that allows them to monitor the use of mobile phones among its clients, which provides them with a lot of information about individuals (Applebaum 2). Such acts show less public involvement in the formulation of communication laws, which has been left in the hands of a few wealthy people. The outcome of exposure on such data leads to negative impacts on the nations since it determines the existing peace atmosphere. Besides, other social media companies, such as YouTube formulate their data privacy laws. This move gives them the freedom to control the whole communication process, in which they can decide whom to give the information or not. Also, they control and check the advertisements of business and political organizations, yet they are the models that shape the public realms. However, such undemocratic conducts can be minimized by regulating internet advertising, which will require full explanations about people by presenting them with unnecessary information. The social media regulation law will bring the need for limiting anonymity since it will be mandatory for people to know whom they are associating with. The law that requires openness among the advertising companies will be effective in realizing this goal, which will bring integrity in all public realms that encourages democracy, such as elections.

American citizens had shown mixed feelings on their use of Facebook when reports showed how the relevant firm is reaping from the use of their private information (Lee 1). In the United States, social media impacts live in different ways, some engage in for interactions, where individuals assemble in companies of friends and families. Besides, young adolescent individuals are utilizing it for strengthening their romantic relationships and spearheading friendships (Lee 2). Also, in the political and civic arenas, social media contributes towards sharing of scientific and health information, and also initiates and fuels protests, apart from being sources of news. These mixed impacts have made people develop different reactions on social media, even after being aware of its dangers due to privacy issues. However, there are still many people who are worried about the privacy of their personal information on social media. For instance, the 2004 research revealed that ninety-one per cent of Americans agreed on the incapability of individuals to control personal data, which is unnecessarily used by the companies for their benefits. On the other hand, eighty per cent of these people expressed that they were worried about the way advertising companies were gathering their information without consent (Lee 3). This situation made sixty-four per cent of them to request government intervention in this social media malicious practice. Besides, nine per cent believed that social media is keeping their data safe, while 74% believed that they have full rights of knowing who want to access their personal information.

From the research, sixty-one per cent of the Americans have shown interests in need of more efforts in increasing their private information security, while many have expressed the ineffectiveness of available laws in handling the matter (Lee 4). From the research, it can be noted that, despite the existence of complicated feelings in the United States about social media and privacy, many people have expressed the need for the government to take some actions about it. Some laws, such as the Union General Data Protection Regulation will help counter the associated negative effects of social media and privacy (Lee 1). This law will help to monitor and regulate the kind of technological information companies will obtain from citizens and increase their chances of checking how this data is being used.  Furthermore, since social media and the relevant government agencies have failed to take appropriate actions to address this issue, individuals in American society have formulated ways of avoiding the impacts (Lee 6). Some people have presented themselves in anonymous ways so that they cannot be seen by advertisement companies, while others have adopted new ways of coping up this malicious issue.

Social media companies are taking advantage of the attractive sites to lure individuals to accepting them so that they can obtain their data (Senior 2). Companies have forgotten to be keen on realizing that they are connected to more than a billion users with different intentions, thereby they need to monitor their habits. Also, most people have failed to take charge of their security since they have not encountered any effects on it. The public ignorance is the basis of limited social media privacy, making companies take advantage of such opportunities. American citizens tend to explore on social media due to their isolation feeling, making them display all their information. Also, many activities have been fully converted to online, such as banking and marketing, which is an effective way of providing private information to all social media users. These claims suggest that people have the full responsibility of taking appropriate actions in ensuring that there is complete social media privacy by monitoring their actions while browsing.

In conclusion, there is a need for the government to take actions in ensuring there is complete privacy on individuals’ data on social media. Companies have been making profits in using their users’ data after engaging it into the business. Government regulations will be an essential measure as a result of taking full charge in monitoring and checking the kind of data social media companies obtain from people. However, American citizens have the full powers of maintaining privacy by guarding their actions when using the internet, rather than putting the whole responsibility on the government