Furthermore, social media allows false information to be spread through the internet. It only takes one person to create an internet post that becomes viral. Posts with biased, emotion-provoking content are more likely to be re-posted or shared than those containing neutral information. Social media revolves around many peoples’ egoistic nature. The desire to be the center of attention is fulfilled when one’s thoughts and ideas are gratified. Some people will do or say anything in order to have their ideas redeemed by their peers. People will post things that are not true or supported by facts because they want attention. Unfortunately, many people tend to believe everything they see on the internet. Even stories that are mostly false are spread because they are often more exciting than the truth. There are some positive things that have resulted due to how fast news spreads through media, though. More than 50% of people discover breaking news articles on social media. (Marino) Details on current events, ranging from sports games to court cases, are discussed on social media websites. This may be beneficial depending on whether the article is actually reliable. Approximately 49.1% of people have heard false information through social media. (Marino). Social media was created to increase the knowledge of society, but it has, ironically, caused society to be more ignorant and uninformed.
Stories on social media are often exaggerated, causing widespread hysteria. False information is released about popular current events, which has often resulted in nationwide panic. For example, this October, over 340,000 people shared a story about a town in Texas being quarantined after a family was diagnosed with Ebola (Dzieza). This story was entirely false, but it successfully caused an unnecessary panic across the United States. This exemplifies how easily a satirical article can be mistaken as news. Websites publish these false articles because they earn money each time the story is shared. The cogent site owners know made-up stories are more capable of becoming viral due to how extreme they may be. This is not a rare or new occurrence on social media. False breaking news stories have gained fame several times over the past few years. About two years ago, false information was spread about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting through social networking websites. Stories were posted with incorrect details of the shooting. Several fake stories were shared, despite the lack of credibility. These deceitful news articles are growing in frequency and extremity. Social media allows thousands of people to fully believe disingenuous articles.
Social media sites open users to intrusion from the government, corporations, hackers, and identity thieves, as well as, potentially introducing users to viruses. In fact, the government uses social media as a tool to find information that could potentially indict individuals of crimes. In 2011 the US Department of Justice intercepted 1,661 pieces of information from social media users (McCullagh). Not only does the government intercept specific pieces of information from social media sites, but the Library of Congress has saved all public tweets since March, 2006 (Raymond). These statistics are only regarding the government using social media to discover information. Corporations also use social media to find information about people for many purposes such as displaying selective ads that you may be interested in. Corporations use social media to find information about potential customers, but other groups can also access and use personal information. Identity thieves look for information such as birthdays, phone numbers, high schools, and pet names which may be used to access private accounts.
Many identity thieves have found that information users have set to “public” is useful to gain access to accounts as some of this data is often used in security questions and passwords. Studies have shown that 68% of social media users share their birthdays, 63% share their high school name, 18% share their phone number, and 12% share their pets name (Topping). Due to this large quantity of information that is available, identity thieves have begun to increasingly use social media to find and target potential victims. Not only does social media open some users to identity theft based on shared information but computer viruses can quickly spread through social media sites. Many social media sites do not scan messages and posts for viruses which led to the Steckt.Evl virus quickly spreading through Facebook chat windows (Waugh). These viruses, which are easily spread through social media, can expose users to further attacks and personal information being leaked and used.
Stories on social media are often exaggerated, causing widespread hysteria. False information is released about popular current events, which has often resulted in nationwide panic. For example, this October, over 340,000 people shared a story about a town in Texas being quarantined after a family was diagnosed with Ebola (Dzieza). This story was entirely false, but it successfully caused an unnecessary panic across the United States. This exemplifies how easily a satirical article can be mistaken as news. Websites publish these false articles because they earn money each time the story is shared. The cogent site owners know made-up stories are more capable of becoming viral due to how extreme they may be. This is not a rare or new occurrence on social media. False breaking news stories have gained fame several times over the past few years. About two years ago, false information was spread about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting through social networking websites. Stories were posted with incorrect details of the shooting. Several fake stories were shared, despite the lack of credibility. These deceitful news articles are growing in frequency and extremity. Social media allows thousands of people to fully believe disingenuous articles.
Social media sites open users to intrusion from the government, corporations, hackers, and identity thieves, as well as, potentially introducing users to viruses. In fact, the government uses social media as a tool to find information that could potentially indict individuals of crimes. In 2011 the US Department of Justice intercepted 1,661 pieces of information from social media users (McCullagh). Not only does the government intercept specific pieces of information from social media sites, but the Library of Congress has saved all public tweets since March, 2006 (Raymond). These statistics are only regarding the government using social media to discover information. Corporations also use social media to find information about people for many purposes such as displaying selective ads that you may be interested in. Corporations use social media to find information about potential customers, but other groups can also access and use personal information. Identity thieves look for information such as birthdays, phone numbers, high schools, and pet names which may be used to access private accounts.
Many identity thieves have found that information users have set to “public” is useful to gain access to accounts as some of this data is often used in security questions and passwords. Studies have shown that 68% of social media users share their birthdays, 63% share their high school name, 18% share their phone number, and 12% share their pets name (Topping). Due to this large quantity of information that is available, identity thieves have begun to increasingly use social media to find and target potential victims. Not only does social media open some users to identity theft based on shared information but computer viruses can quickly spread through social media sites. Many social media sites do not scan messages and posts for viruses which led to the Steckt.Evl virus quickly spreading through Facebook chat windows (Waugh). These viruses, which are easily spread through social media, can expose users to further attacks and personal information being leaked and used.