The Update

Should there be governance of social media?

Posted In - Social Media

Think only your friends, contacts and connections can see the information you post on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Think again. With social networking becoming as commonplace as email, there is a dire need to implement some form of protection against online predators as well as identity theft.

Believe it or not, an industry of capitalizing off of people’s naivete is developing online, namely with examples like pleaserobme.com. This site utilizes a simple feed of any time anyone, friend, contact, acquaintance or total stranger, posts that they are away from their home, so any and everyone on the web can access this information and use it to the unsuspecting status poster’s disadvantage.

While there is a high potential for spawning paranoia and overly cautious behavior, when it comes to the safety, security and protection of people, it seems evident as a basic human right to prohibit anyone outside of an individual’s established “circle of trust” from accessing what is unofficially deemed as “privileged information.”

By hindering or inhibiting the personalized quality of an individual from expressing themselves on these forums is entirely antithetical to the whole principle and underlying backbone of social media as it is understood by its users and creators. Establishing a set of limitations on what can and cannot be said on social media channels contradicts the very foundation that it is based upon: an open sourced, readily accessible means of connecting with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

So what can be done? A more appropriate form of governance that looks out for the well being of the general public, but also particularly on behalf of the youngest generation of people under 18 years of age is absolutely necessary. I have witnessed first-hand the negative ramifications of younger people in my life unwittingly misusing these channels due to sheer ignorance and naivete: a close family friend (who is under 18) had her Facebook account hacked into by a male peer, who then proceeded to solicit all of her girlfriends for nude pictures. Additionally, I have first-hand accounts of young people lying about their age and alleging that they are from another country on MySpace, further perpetuating the likelihood of being solicited by strangers under false pretenses.

On top of it being paramount that greater enforcement on underage misbehavior be implemented, social media users need to be more cognoscente of what image they are presenting, and keep in mind that when seeking employment, employers have a high likelihood and propensity towards looking up their prospective employees. Pictures of extreme imbibing and/or provocative photos that you wouldn’t want your mother to see are probably best to leave off of these social networking sites.

With tragedies like that of the late Chelsea King and Amber DuBois, viral phenomena utilizing social media channels can both be helpful (as it was in these cases), and can also be detrimental when exploiting personal information that can be readily accessible to any and all people, provoking the potential for online predators to peruse profiles that should be inaccessible.

So what is the solution to this dilemma? There should be stricter prohibition on the information available to any user about any other user, more governance over individuals under 18 years of age, and users should be generally more conscientious of what they are sharing with not just their contacts, but truly the worldwide web.