Network Societies and the Implications for their Privacies Essay

electronic network Societies and the Implications for their Privacies - Essay ExampleThe popularity of the SNSs is quite evident when we find in a 2009 report, which stated that globally nearly 38% earnings users are a member of one or many of the SNSs, and maintain level(p) profiles in the social networking sites (Wray, Social Networking Booming with Doubling of Online Profiles, 2009). Facebook, at present is the most popular SNS, with a rise of nearly 86.1% in user percentage (ibid). One major characteristic of these SNSs is that the users can upload their personal info on these sites on a daily basis. As per the recent study do by OfCom in 2010, Social networking accounts for nearly a quarter of all time spent on the internet (23 per cent compared to 9 per cent in 2007). This has been driven by the rapid growth of Facebook, which grew by 31 per cent. The average Facebook user spent 6 and 30 minutes on the site during whitethorn 2010, (OfCom, Consumers spend almost half of th eir waking hours using media and communications, 2010. The 2008 OfCom report noted that an adult user, on an average, unploughed up(p) his/her profile on around 1.6 SNSs, while enter their profiles at least once, every two geezerhood (OfCom, Social networking a quantitative and qualitative research report into attitudes, behaviours & use, 2008). This expeditious rise in the system of social networking sites in the past decade, has created new problems, where there are increased instances of user personal data being misused through identity theft and cyber stalking, for various commercial activities related to unauthorised inquisitive for employees, or fishing for prospective clients (Brown, Edwards, and Marsden, Staking 2.0 privacy protection in a leading social networking site, nd). The internet and SNSs being open to all, the uploaded user information (even personal information) becomes doorwayible to a much wider user spectrum, in any event the intended user radical. Often user inexperience and a general unawareness coupled with foreign SNS website designing, unintentionally help in the misuse of private information by various commercial organisations. These misuses and the approaching potentiality of fraudulent activities using the obtained personal information have raised questions and concerns over the issue of creating a stronger security system that would assure SNS user privacy, and the inaccessibility of the uploaded information outside the targeted viewer group. As for example, a member of the medical SNS PatientsLikeMe, may opt to discuss his/her condition only with a specific group of people (like those sharing similar medical problems), thus making it imperative that the site gives the user his/her pay off to privacy. In this context, we will discuss network societies and the implications for their privacies, focussing on Facebook, as it is the leading SNS now. Discussion What is a SNS? Boyd and Ellison, defined SNSs as services provided that are internet-based and allow its users to Create user profiles which can be kept partially public or completely public, in spite of appearance the provide domain of the site Create a friends list and a group where they can upload and share private information Have an access to the friends profiles, and to these friends friend list, where the user can view all the connections made by their friends and often by new(prenominal) users (who are not direct friends, but may have common friends or common interests) within the domain of the same SNS (Boyd, and Ellison, 2007, 210-211). The