Internet Safety

Emi Boren

Social networks are a danger to our privacy. Social media is a part of our lives, and we constantly post or text on them. Nowadays, forty-five percent of the world’s population uses social networks, that means 3.48 billion people connect to some form of social media. But, have you ever wondered how much information a person knows based on your feed? And a hacker? And a machine? 

80 percent of social media users report being concerned about businesses and advertisers accessing and using their social media posts. A great example can be seen in the dramatic story of the consulting agency Cambridge Analytica. The firm exploited the private information of over 50 million Facebook users to influence the 2016 American presidential election. 

But this is only an example in which privacy was violated by a huge firm. Privacy is violated daily, and it doesn’t discriminate. No one’s information is 100% safe, and you never know when you are going to be hacked, exposed, or tricked. 

We need to be really careful about what we post. When you post while you are on vacation, you are providing crucial information: your house is empty. Even though it is not intentional, you are asking someone to enter your place. Another example can be seen on the “like” you give to a post, or a comment. Has it ever happened to you that you liked a post about chairs, for example, and immediately in every social media application, promotions on chairs appear? Those are called cookies, small files stored on a computer that enable tracking the user across different sites. So basically, everything you like or dislike is kept by the system.

These and many other issues that I can keep developing, are the dark side of social networks. It is always easy to see and consume the bright side, but we need to make sure we raise awareness. As I mentioned before, the violation of privacy is not always intentional, and because of this, people should be informed. This topic needs to be taken seriously and handled responsibly. Everyone must know the risks- let’s share and protect!