Is Social Media Truly Safe?

We all have used social media at least once in our lives. It is something that you really can’t avoid in our day-to-day world and influences what a lot of people do. It is an extremely influential force in our world that can be severely misused but can also be used to help people and create opportunities for yourself and others. Everyone uses social media in their own way, and everyone should be aware of the risks they are taking when they upload or do anything slightly personal on the internet. “Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn’t be the price we accept for just getting on the Internet.” (Kovacs) I believe firmly that social media is important for us but we need to know where to draw lines on privacy and other security problems.

There are many lines that need to not just be drawn, but physically put there. Social Media has become integral to how we communicate with each other, however it has also become a severe privacy and security risk for anyone using that platform. “Overall, a 2014 survey found that 91% of Americans “agree” or “strongly agree” that people have lost control over how personal information is collected and used by all kinds of entities” (Rainie) Most of the time these companies end up selling your data to a third-party, and that data usually goes towards targeted advertising or what the third-party chooses to do with it. Most of our information is going somewhere that we don’t even know. It is bizarre that we don’t really address the privacy and trust breaches these companies commit on us and what social media companies are doing with our personal data.

On the other hand though, social media has created so many jobs and opportunities for people. YouTube would be the greatest example of this, people make multi-millions from videos on their platform. It gives a voice to people who might not think they are able to speak out and share their creativity with a global audience. “They’re already following you for what you do for a reason. So they’ll follow you to help out people as well. Follow they have. His streams have raked in more than $26 million” (Pollard) This YouTuber Jacksepticeye was able to leverage his platform in a positive way. He earned more than 26 million from charity livestreams and put that towards non-profit mental health associations. Social media is not only a profitable medium, it empowers people to support and help out others.

Both perspectives I feel are justified, social media is a medium that is not stable. There is a lot of potential for people to misuse it to posts harmful content, but there is potential for beneficial things to come out of the internet. I feel though that there should be more laws and regulations surrounding social media and how they collect data on people. I don’t think it is fully morally wrong to collect data on people, but there should be an awareness to the user of the data being collected on them. Overall, I think everyone should try and strive to regulate social media, and use it in positive ways to help out other people.

“136 Vimeo Social Media Icon” by webtreats is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
“Social Media Landscape (redux)” by fredcavazza is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.