The Dangers of Social Networking
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| Social sites |
There
are many inherent dangers of social networking sites because of the
way the websites work. One of the biggest dangers is fraud, sometimes
having to do with identity theft. Because these sites are based on
friends and the passing along of bits of personal information,
thieves realized the potential instantly. There are endless social
networking scams
that
crooks can try to pull off with this medium and we have only seen the
“tip of the iceberg” so far
CEO
Michael
Fertik
has co-authored a new book that discusses the importance of managing
your online presence and the impact it can have on an entire
company's reputation.
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| Dangers |
The
newest mainstream social network is Twitter. It’s based on people
following others and getting to read their tweets of 140 characters
or less. This is one of the dangers of social networking sites
because many people want as many followers as possible and they
aren’t shy about what they say in their tweets. This highlights the
trouble
with Twitter
and many other social networking sites. Many people’s goals on
these sites is to have as many friends as possible and they just
don’t think before they message or add friends. Unfortunately, this
sets them up to be victimized by one scam or the next.
The
biggest social network in the world is Facebook. Started in 2004 by a
Harvard student, this site has had a meteoric rise. Facebook has
become a huge software platform that houses every application
imaginable and millions of games and groups. This brings me to
another one of the dangers of social networking sites.
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| facebook |
With
the goal of becoming bigger than big, can these sites really protect
the average Jane or Joe while on their site? Yes, this should be up
to the individual user, but certain things cannot be controlled by
the user and when the site has 200 million users (100 million log in
everyday!), how much resource can be used for protecting clients of
the site?
With
so many people logged in everyday that contribute personal
information constantly, the crooks have followed and committed
Facebook
identity theft
to get what they need. There are truly endless scams they have tried
and will try to pull off on the social networks. There are thousands
and thousands of Facebook
impostors
out there looking to make an easy buck or harass people they know. Be
careful!
