Dangers of Social Media

Social media can be dangerous due to the personal nature of most social media sites such as Facebook, where all users are required to input at least some personal information to create an account. Though not all social media websites require personal information like Facebook, almost all still require a user's email address to register.

One of the largest potential dangers of social media is the exposure of the information given by the user through user error or data breaches in the website's servers.

A data breach is when information is accessed without authorization, such as when an employee of a company accesses a file they are not meant to see, or a malicious hacker distributes files it finds on a company's network. Data breaches often happen due to malicious intent, such as a person deliberately trying to find ways to access a company or organization's network. The implications for any groups which suffer a data breach include the suspicion that their network security is inadequate, a reluctance for people to share information with them and potentially a criminal offence charge if the breach is not reported.

Phishing

One of the dangers of social media is "phishing", which is when someone tries to present themselves as someone else or gives a falsified narrative for the purposes of getting their target to share personal information such as online passwords and usernames. Victims of phishing may find that their online accounts are being abused by others for various reasons such as spreading malware, or they may find that money has been siphoned out of their online accounts such as Paypal etc. Phishing can cause massive financial losses, compromise social media accounts or even lead to data breaches therefore phishing can be devastating to someone who falls for it and the phishers know this, so their main targets include the elderly, who are generally less safe in their use of technology due to lack of understanding.

Mass Media

Another danger of social media is that it is a great tool for spreading malicious software (or "malware") to other people's computers through social engineering. Social engineering is the use of deception with the intention of making the target give away important information, which is then used for fraud. If malware is successfully installed onto a victim's computer, there are various different effects it may have; some malware comes in the form of "keyloggers", which record the key presses inputted into the affected computer, while another type of malware is "ransomware", which encrypts the files on the host computer and displays a message telling the owner of the computer to send untraceable cryptocurrency to the creator of the malware (cryptocurrency is essentially digital currency). Malware is dangerous because it usually poses a danger of either crippling the computer or extracting important information and abusing it through fraud.