Social media has been undoubtedly reshaping the ways people live although social media security has become serious. In my view, we could enjoy surfing in social media as well as take any necessary actions to protect ourselves.
Social media is becoming one of the most powerful tools when promoting a brand because its unique feature – social media is a social platform for people and their social connections to interact with each other. This feature makes people actively transform diverse images, videos and reviews about thing they pay attention to. The speed and power of information spreading among people in this way is incredible comparing with the traditional advertising media such as TV, even official websites of brands. For example, Facebook lunched “Facebook Offers” for businesses on May, 2012. Since then, each person can easily claim offers, just clicking “Get Offer”, as showed in the following picture of Macy’s offer in Facebook. Furthermore, each time people claim an offer, they could share the offer information with their friends. The benefit of Facebook Offers can be imagined from one fact that more than half of Facebook’s 845 Million active users have accessed this Macy’s offer at Facebook. (The data and following picture are cited from http://www.marismith.com/facebook-launches-facebook-offers-for-businesses/)
Macy's Offer at Facebook
At the same time, we cannot ignore the security problem of social network. From my point of view, there are two different security problems. One is that people know their private information is being used in some ways while they have little control on it. For example, people can see the advertisement closely related with their email content when they log into their Gmail account. This is because Google scanned our emails and analysis the content for its advertisement service. This kind of behavior causes debate. Some people believe it invades their privacy while other people think it should be allowed because it brings convenience to their lives. The second kind of security issue is caused by hacker. Many people might have met with such problems as their email accounts or chatting tool accounts are stolen by hacker, with some illegal technical methods. Once this happens, people will certainly lose control of their private information. What make things worse is that this electronically stored information will be very easy to copy and quickly spread through Internet, which will cause unpredictable bad affect.
Although security issues look very serious, it should not prevent us enjoying the advantage that social media bring to us. We should learn to protect ourselves by some ways. First, we should create and use our passwords securely. We should create long password with some kind of complexity just as urT@257_. (Reference from GuidetoFacebookSecurity.pdf) We should use different password for different account and timely change them. Second, we can install powerful Antivirus software which can distinguish unsafe websites and prevent hacker invading into your computer. Third, we should separate our professional and social email. We’d better use different email accounts for different purpose. There must be other better methods to improve network security. Any advice and discussion about how to protect ourselves are welcome.
The Macy's ad article you quoted, was slightly incorrect. The article stated that half of Facebook's 845 million users used Facebook on mobile not accessed the Macy's offer. You are correct in pinpointing where the security problem lies. It lies in user's inability to do anything about companies using their data. The majority of people interested in privacy already know very well about google scanning gmail emails for keywords. Hacker's also spread their share of social media malware . Using social media malware spreads are very easily , especially since curiosity gets best of people and they click on links may be dangerous. Complex passwords are also essential to protecting your online social media identity. Even more important is to have different passwords for different accounts because in the case that one account gets hacked then the rest of your accounts are safe. You recommended these great safe-measures towards protecting your social media identity. One thing on the technical side which is important for security, is that you encrypt the passwords when it is stored on the server. So even when hackers get into the server they cannot use the encrypted passwords which they find. Overall very good tips and advice regarding social media.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much for your reply. And your suggestion about encrypting the passwords when it is stored on the server is very useful.
DeleteBy the way, I read the Macy's ad article again, and the original sentence is "More than half of Facebook’s 845 Million active users access the site via their mobile devices." It seems that I misunderstand the meaning. Thanks very much for pointing out my mistake.
Thank you Jingmei for giving a broad view of Facebook Offer and Gmail scanning. In fact, the so-called "Facebook Offer" is just one of many ways Facebook makes profits. Macy and many others do have to "give" or "donate" to Facebook for "advertising" their brand. It is similar to free mobile apps come with ads. I'm sure that there are security concerns with these "Facebook Offer", I have not tried them but my friends who tried confirmed that there might be certain tasks you have to do (depending on offers), which may include clicking some links, registering email, sharing... This is seriously a big security concerns, which I wish you could have mentioned, because all those tasks to get the offers may lead to the compromising of one or several accounts
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