Reflection 1


Social Media Scanning: The Next Generation Privacy Threat?

AUTHOR: Nikki Williams

PUBLISHED Wednesday, November 26th, 2014

First Impressions:

That it’s all about invading someone’s privacy by scanning through his/her social media.

Quote:

“data brokers collect and store billions of data elements covering nearly every U.S. consumer.”

Refection:

                The article basically reveals that social media are vulnerable nowadays and can be used by some other groups or organization to spy on you. It is possible through the use of scanning software like Ditto, an advance type of software that can collect detailed information about the subject matter. This is very alarming in a sense of protecting your privacy especially if those information are that matters to you. Although the use of this scanning technology somehow helps some industries to develop and gain benefits for their businesses, some of them still use those information like what happened to a marketing analytics startup, Piqora that was found guilty in illegal use of information by keeping images of their competitors for later review. In our country, people are very keen to using different social media which is why this issue is a matter of concern for people in here. Some might not realize that their information that they share through this social media might be gathered and therefore compromise the security of their privacy. Worst thing is people have been too attached with these social media sites before they got to know the vulnerability of information that can be dangerous if have been compromised.

5 things that I’ve learned:

  1. Social media can be used to collect detailed information against you
  2. Private and non-private organization can use software scanning tools to get information from you
  3. Every action you make on social media accounts are used to monitor your behavior and determine your preferences.
  4. Social media is being used for other business companies to benefit them by gaining some information from their customers and therefore be able to know what they want.
  5. There are a lot of untrustworthy businesses that tries to get information from these social media sites.

5 Integrative questions:

  1. What are the legal and illegal concerns that are related with social media scanning?
  2. How can people have the options of keeping their information in private?
  3. What are the security issues/concerns we can derived in using social media sites?
  4. How can we prevent other companies/businesses to compromise our data?
  5. Are there any other legal/illegal implications in using these social media sites?