The Social Web and Security Risks on People's Information Essay

The Social Web and Security Risks on People's Information - Essay Example Indeed, those kinds of risks exist for both individuals and organizations—two kinds of entities that are both increasingly using social media as a way of communicate with others. Throughout this paper, the analysis of risks of social web will incorporate both individual users who may use social media casually to communicate with a particular circle of people, and organizations that may use social media to market their products and services to the public. Neither class is immune to the challenges that we all face when using social media to keep information private, since the process of making information public is irreversible. According to Pew Research (2011), the percentages of individuals using social networking sites, especially within the 18 to 29 age bracket, has skyrocketed since 2005 (Figure 1.). Similar sorts of trends can be observed in the 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 age brackets, although the sharpness of that curve is more subdued. Over half of people in all three of tho se age brackets, however, are using social networking websites, and roughly one-third of people 65 or older are using social networking websites. Considering the prevalence of social media in our 21st century reality, it is necessary to slow down and to give some thought to the drawbacks of this technology, in addition to its benefits. When discussing either drawbacks or benefits, one should keep in mind these rising statistics about usage. Social networking becomes more valuable as people join and connect, which means social media has a great deal of staying power. Figure 1. Social networking usage by age. Pew Research (2011). Figure 2. Communication methods used to engage employees. McCasland (2009). Clearly, social media is having a large-scale impact on how individuals communicate with others. However, organizations are increasingly utilizing social media. In fact, 21st century organizations consider social media as an important tool of marketing. In addition, social media has o ther uses, including to engage employees and to foster productivity (Figure 2.). As was mentioned previously, what is unique to the new phenomenon of social networking is that information uploaded to such websites is there permanently. In times of interpersonal networking without the internet, oral communication carried information from person to person. Oral communication is temporary and sometimes forgotten. However, in the 21st century, there is a public record of information that at some points in history individuals never would have thought to share with others. With such permanence to information, it is possible for undesirable consequences to come about by sharing. Sometimes these negative consequences are defined by a malicious intent, while at other times, these consequences are accidental. For instance, in organizations, blocking Facebook is not only a matter of preventing malware from entering company computers or keeping employees productive—it is also about posit ively representing the company to the public, which a Facebook profile essentially is (Cluley, 2010). Individuals sometimes forget that, like organizations, they have a public online presence that can be damaged by sharing their information in a public space. However, in spite of those potential threats, organization and individuals are still using the social web at miraculous rates. The primary benefit of social media is the connections that it