Social Media Data Privacy Wiki

## Social Media Data Privacy

Data privacy is an important subject to raise awareness about, as a great number of individuals use social media, and reveal personal information across various platforms. Everything that is shared online is only secure to a certain point. While some may think what is posted online is only viewed by friends, family, and a small number of strangers; in reality, social networking platforms harvest user data and analyze personal data. The platforms collect information by data processing. The personal details that people include online are collected by social networks, which essentially enables the platforms to know a great deal about them. Once personal data is analyzed, social networking sites can target advertisements towards users based on their interests and characteristics. This method is effective because the ads viewed on social media can be specifically targeted towards individual users, therefore, users may be more inclined to pay attention to the advertisement.

Social networking platforms are able to collect our information by tracking it. The most common platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. and Snapchat, all collect our personal data. Each social platform has a unique way of collecting user data to target advertisements towards the user. Although each site has a specific privacy policy, personal data is collected that the user is not always aware of. Revealing personal information and characteristics online gives individuals the opportunity to utilize your information for their benefit. A specialist in IT Privacy and security issues writes *"It's an incredibly slippery slope, an opening for social engineers, cybercriminals and real world crooks and stalkers; it's more data to be scraped and gobbled up by marketers and advertisers, and social networking posts also provide 'open source' intelligence for government or law enforcement".*  Marketers and law enforcement are two groups that use data processing to collect a user's personal data. There is not much a user can to obtain complete privacy on social media. Losing a certain amount of privacy is the price a user pays to be on social media.

*Social Media image -*

It is important to practice protecting personal information online. The information we expose online can reveal personal information to people we may not know have access to it. Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg made the following comment about personal information on social media: *"'People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.' "*Social media has significantly developed over the past years. It may seem unfair that by utilizing social platforms, personal information is revealed, but that's the nature of social media. It's important to consider what we decide to share online because our personal information could be analyzed by someone we don't want seeing it. In EMC's privacy index, the data showed *"51% of respondents were not willing to give up their personal information for an enhanced experience (27% were)"*  Although 51% of respondents were not willing to reveal personal information, in reality, they already were revealing personal information by using social media.

*People and clouds image* -

## References

1. ↑ Technology Services at Illinois. (2016, March 31). Social Media Data Privacy Awareness [Video file].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhhYSrUHnao
2. ↑ Smith, Ms. (2012, January 16). Data Privacy Day: Social media 'private' data is fair game for
e-discovery in court. Retrieved April 4, 2017, from NETWORK WORLD website:
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2221567/microsoft-subnet/
data-privacy-day--social-media--private--data-is-fair-game-for-e-discovery-in-court.html
3. ↑ Havenstein, H.
(2008). One in Five Employers Uses Social Networks in Hiring Process. Available
Online: www.computerworld.com/article/2532900/web-apps/onw-in-five-employers-uses-social-networking-in-hiring-process.html
(Retrieved April 13, 2017).
4. ↑ Social Media Marketing [Photograph]. (2017, March 31). Retrieved from http://marketingland.com/library/channel/social-media-marketing
5. ↑ Lupardi, K. (2015). Privacy on Social Networks. Retrieved April 4, 2017, from Storify website:

https://storify.com/KatieLupardi/privacy-on-social-media
6. ↑ Smith, A. (2015). We Have Destroyed Privacy Through Social Media. Retrieved April 4, 2017, from

Social Songbird website: http://www.socialsongbird.com/2014/10/
we-have-destroyed-privacy-through.html
7. ↑ Newman, D. (2015, September 15). How social data drives consumer experience [Illustration].
Retrieved from http://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/blog/
social-media-metrics-using-big-data-and-social-media-improve-retail-customer-experience