Social Networking or Socially Exposing!
April 9, 2009
Business minds know what people can fall for! They are called marketing gurus in this era of “anything is saleable with correct marketing”! Emails and chats are still thrilling for people in this time of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol- which provides cheap internet calls in all over the world) and video conferencing! We like to feel the anxiety. Social networking sites have poured in last five years and still the market is wide open to this domain, because people are blindly falling for those!
It was an amazing thing just before a few years, to see our own picture onto a computers screen. We used to shuffle drives, floppy disks and scanners to get ourselves on to that cathode ray tube! But now it’s on your finger tip to upload photos in a minute and share with the friends! All fair, until it is played fair. But the commercial ideas behind this sites have not yet come to the light. They have been sensed by the experts of the industry. Over the time it is learnt that the power of data (which can easily be transformed into organized information) is phenomenal. Hence the plethora of information being uploaded by the users can never go without being utilized at the end. And it has just stared what we call it an information age. Essential is to be cautious while being on internet as you never know where you have been tracked and observed!
Social networks are a step ahead, which lure you to enter, submit, share and send information, pictures, videos openly to the world. The kind of information social networks store create a pattern of your activities. Sites like MSN and Facebook are clearly recording your activities as we like to update ourselves on internet every hour! At first sight, it wouldn’t seem that serious, but the first disadvantage is the addiction it creates. In one case, a middle aged relative of a girl signed off from the her network and as a result the girl got into serious depression for not finding that online friend for days! This was an emotional side of it.
Technical hazards are far more serious than this. Recently, Facebook’s terms created a firestorm, as it said that social network site claims the ownership to the contents and photos even if the users delete them.
But then they strategically changed to this…
“Consumer advocacy blog The Consumerist phrased Facebook’s fresh policy as “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever,” pointing out that Facebook’s ToS spruce-up removed several sentences in which the company said its licenses on user content expired upon account deletion.”
Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10165190-36.html
Please do not miss to view these links,
http://www.therawfeed.com/2009/02/facebook-thinks-youre-stupid.html
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=27381690528&topic=3981
http://themcode.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/facebook-privacy-policy-youre-exposed/
Well, this is something we can even see in the corporate policies and seek legal help. But what about those threats that we cannot even imagine about. There are huge networks who forge pictures and publish them on various sites! We are among the millions who post their information and pictures on such sites so the chance of being a victim is fraction of a per cent, but we cannot deny the chance.
Just for fun, to play a prank or may be just to take a little revenge against the you by your friend, your information and photos can be misused at any extent. With the perspective of uncertain human behavior, we cannot ignore this fact. It has been observed that most of the criminal and abusive instances take place as the result of spontaneous provocation or reaction, and that instance would not be of more than 10-15 seconds! But the victim may suffer the life for that.
Now the social networkers range from 12 years old to more than 80 years old. There are millions of groups like, ‘I don’t like doughnut’ Group to ‘Vote Obama’ Group. Countless hours are being spent on social sites nowadays! Many people do have more than 4 social network profiles. One more important issue which is the prime threat is social disconnection and isolation from social communities. Youngsters like spending more time on “Online” world, and what is more interesting is, they call the real world, an “Offline” world! It was quite dreadful to hear that word. The real world associations, friends, connections are all slowly slipping away. Even in offices, employees spend their hours in front of the computer, they laugh, feel sad, feel excited, get angry – looking at the computer screen without having a word of conversation with their acquaintances. More you share and access the information, more it is likely to complicate your relations and your own nature. That is an experience learnt!
What we all need to do is, just be aware and alert to what we are doing. It is great fun to see our pictures and share those with friends on internet, but is equally hazardous as well. Use your own senses and discretion!
Happy Networking!!!
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