a. What exactly is Social Media?
Social media are web-based communication tools that enable people to interact with each other by both sharing and consuming information.
The social media conversation is not organized or controlled and not subject to physical boundaries. It is a two-way real time dialogue with millions of people, unlike reading a newspaper.
b. What are some of the common features in social media applications?
- Friends, followers, groups, hashtags and so on
- Information updating, saving or posting
- Like buttons and comment sections
- Review, rating or voting systems
- Notifications
c. List the privacy issues associated with social media applications.
Many social media platforms still get hacked from time to time despite having good security measures in place. Some also don’t offer all the privacy options that users need to keep their information as private as they want them to be.
Most of the social media sites have information that’s required, like your birthday and email address. Identity thieves tend to gather their victims’ personal information from the information available on the social media sites.
Identity thieves tend to hack their victims email accounts by simply using the personal information available on social media profile.
For instance, one of the more common techniques used by identity thieves, is clicking on the “forgot password,” and then trying to recover the password via email. Once they access your email account, they basically have access to all your personal information.
Sources:
What is social media? (article)
Social media (YouTube)
The Future of Internet Privacy (YouTube)
Class Notes 