-- Social media has taken over our lives in recent times. The majority of the world population who have access to the internet use it daily to share their day-to-day experiences, their lives and their wisdom.
The impact of popular social media apps on our lives is profound. We use Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc., to stay connected with our friends, share information, and express ourselves. We also use it for entertainment.
We all know stories of people changing their lives with the help of social media or how social media has brought forth a lot of information otherwise unknown to the general mass. Therefore, social media can be dubbed as the most powerful tool of modern times which can make brands and shake old beliefs.
However, with great power comes great responsibility, and as responsible citizens, we need to learn a lot about what these applications do with our private information.
Recent events like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal have brought attention to the widespread data-gathering practices of various social media apps. These data-gathering practices have later contributed to the profitability of these social media applications.
In most cases, without our informed consent, personal data such as interests, private communications, facial biometrics, and more are often collected, processed, and shared.
We will shed light on the privacy risk associated with popular social media apps through this article. The sheer volume of your personal information that is being misused and how open it is to security lapses may astound you.
Data Collection on Popular Social Media Apps
One of the biggest privacy concerns of our day is the massive amounts of user data that popular social media platforms collect. When you download an app like Facebook or Instagram, you give personal information like your name, email address, phone number, location, interests, and more.
This is just the beginning of the data collection process. As you use these apps, more information is collected through your activity: posts, likes, shares, searches, messages, contacts, and more. Your usage of the app provides a goldmine of data to build an extensive profile on you.
Everything that an individual does on social media is monitored, logged and examined. For instance, a Cambridge Analytica leaker claimed that Facebook gathers more than 98 different types of personal information on its users. The platforms can better understand you using this information and target advertisements to generate revenue.
Due to this scandal, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO and founder, was summoned before the US Congress. Users often need to be more knowledgeable about how much information social media platforms collect about them that, often include their information intimate to their lives for marketing purposes.
Most consumers unwittingly consent to substantial data mining due to the small print on permission forms. This lack of informed permission raises moral concerns about privacy on social media.
Data Sharing
Top social media apps leverage their enormous repositories of user data for purposes other than internal use. Third parties like government authorities, app developers, data brokers, and advertising partners also gain access to this data.
These cases of data sharing were brought out in the open. When it was discovered that the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had inappropriately obtained the data of 87 million users due to Facebook's data-sharing policies. For this, Facebook came under heavy criticism in 2018.
This demonstrated how haphazardly Facebook has been sharing user data for years with outside organizations.
Even without well-publicized incidents, social network data-sharing policies continue to cause anxiety. For example, a Wall Street Journal story claims that Facebook distributes user data with over 150 organizations. Additionally, partner businesses receive Twitter data for targeted advertising.
There is a dearth of information about what data is exchanged, with whom, and why. Users have minimal influence or control over how the internet distributes their data.
Security Risks
Social media applications are a sweet target for hackers because they maintain vast amounts of personal data. These sites have amassed billions of users, making them veritable gold mines of private and sensitive data.
Hundreds of millions of users have been impacted by significant data breaches, which include famous incidents on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Quora. Email addresses, passwords, direct messages and contact information have also been leaked, and other sensitive information made public.
Security experts caution that adept hackers and even unscrupulous workers may continue to be drawn to the massive, concentrated data dumps of personal information on social media.
Basic account takeover by fraudsters using stolen login credentials is another frequent security problem in addition to external threats. Password-stealing phishing scams are a common occurrence on social networking platforms.
Recently, the use of two-factor authentication has contributed to increased security. However, it is also essential to know that hackers are always on the prowl to improve their techniques.
Critics have always argued about the corporations' unnecessary stockpiling of user data. This is so because this unnecessary stockpiling can seriously jeopardize user privacy.
These platforms must immediately implement end-to-end encryption, tighten access restrictions, lock down security, and reduce data collecting to shield consumers from the mounting dangers to their privacy.
Facial Recognition Technology and Its Cons
Some prominent social media app development companies have started using facial recognition technology. This is a step towards mitigating privacy issues arising from social media platforms.
Nonetheless, when Facebook’s facial recognition technology was made public in 2018, it sparked a massive controversy. This technology uses AI to analyze images and videos to recognize faces. People believed this made them an even easier target for the hackers.
Although Facebook cleared up any confusion by stating that this makes it simpler to tag individuals in pictures, privacy activists argued that it collected biometric data without the informed agreement of users to an excessive extent.
Nevertheless, Facebook was able to compile an enormous database of biometric face data on users without proper consent. This made the users' data more susceptible to being breached by hackers.
In general, facial recognition is a prelude to more extensive monitoring enabled by social media information. Authoritarian governments might use these capabilities for detrimental purposes, such as widespread monitoring of citizens.
There are concerns that, if mishandled, face recognition data from social media applications may eventually become part of a comprehensive mass monitoring system. There is an immediate need for more controls and protection.
Social media has completely changed the way we communicate and go about our lives. As a result, our right to privacy as world citizens has suffered a lot. Social networking applications pose concerns such as security breaches and participate in massive data mining and dubious data sharing activities.
As users, we must insist that social media networks handle our data with more significant ethical standards, responsibility, and openness. It is also up to us to restrict the quantity of data we provide on such sites.
It is essential to understand that online privacy and personal data are crucial for one's digital footprint. Therefore, we must not just hand it over to social media platforms for convenience.
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