A POSITIVE WAY TO LOOK AT PRIVACY INVASION
Privacy is right. Privacy gives one the power to control who can access their body, their property, and even information about them. In other terms, privacy lets us set boundaries to limit unwarranted access to anything to do with ourselves. Protecting all the listed domains above makes privacy be an essential base for safeguarding human dignity and as well a basis from which other human rights develop.
On the other hand, social media are interactive technologies driven by computers to enable the creation and sharing of information. The technology pointed at here are internet based apps and websites that facilitate the creation of content that can include text, pictures, and videos which then can be shared via networks provided the social media platforms such as groups and direct chats. Social media platforms have in a great was affected the existence of privacy and had of late become the critical factor in influencing human dignity. In the 21st century, has been known for the significantly developed social media networks, which have facilitated the sharing of even the most private information ever. It has impacted how privacy has been a protector of human dignity. This paper looks into how social media has helped reveal information from around the world and dumping privacy as deep as possible.
Social media has become a very vital object in everyone’s life, and each day, everyone is trying to get as much as possible from these platforms. Some people are very anti-social, but they at most find peace on social media. These people post their problems, life, and feelings which are considered privacy through social media information of a post in a bid to express their feelings. They are sharing their lives’ ordeals, and it is perfectly okay for one to share it. In the process, someone can comfort them, or advise them on how to cope up with the situation if they had gone through the same challenge at some point. Getting this private information from someone in a different planet without social media can prove very hard for people who are not very social or outgoing. In the long run, social media has cut the privacy boundaries of the person and let us know what they are going through. An excellent example of this form is Facebook. It links millions of daily users all over the world, letting them access information from those people despite the violation of the users’ privacy.
On the other hand, social media as a security tool has dramatically impacted the security of countries and societies. Before the introduction of surveillance apps, criminal offenses were on the rise. However, with the introduction of web-based applications that could track the position and activity of a person using digital cameras and geolocations, security has been enhanced. We generally accept that by applying surveillance in tracking and stalking people, we violate the privacy of the victims, but the overall security enhancement outweighs the violation of privacy rights. It is therefore advantageous for a nation to assure its citizens of their security by violating the privacy of someone of a group that can be susceptible to terrorism. For instance, prominent terrorists have been brought down by the use of surveillance systems. A renowned terrorist Osama bin Laden, who was also the leader of a terrorist group al-Qaida was tracked down and killed this way. The increased technology facilities allowed an American security agency to track a phone belonging to him that was in use and tracked down the words in the call, relating them to be al-Qaida information. The agency, by the use of social media, managed to identify his compound and eliminated the security threat. The other case is when the Boston Marathon bomb suspects were identified by the use of surveillance systems in which the privacy of the suspect was invaded.
The third question on social media is concerned with the security of children. In well-developed homes, children have access to computers in a bid to gain materials necessary for their education. The danger associated with children accessing the internet is them meeting wrong people who may harm them physically and psychologically. The other effect is when children access explicit content such as porn and music videos that are erotic or oriented sexually. We can’t deny these children the access to the internet by thanks to social media; we can violate their privacy and get to know information about whom they talk to over the internet and advise them accordingly. Optionally, it is possible to restrict the site these children access by configuring the firmware of the home router in such a way that it cannot allow any computer in the home to access the sites offering pornographic content. It is another positive impact of social media that violates privacy to protect others.
Recently, privacy terms of users of popular social media were being violated, and they benefitted the people who were after information about the victims. However, the violation was as a result of a bug that was discovered and fixed immediately. It was found that on Whatsapp, during a voice call, the caller was allowed to upgrade the call to a video call which enabled them to view the victim’s surrounding and what they were doing. This ability of Whatsapp enabled the caller to intrude the victim’s privacy. In the process reveal some information that could be very vital to the caller such as in case the called lied that they were in the house yet they were out partying, or in case they lied, that they were doing some work wherein the real sense they were elsewhere. This is another action of social media in privacy to produce something advantageous out of it.
Privacy has been easily compromised by spouses who feel their partners aren’t faithful in a relationship. Apps that can run in stealth mode in a victim’s phone are used to spy on the victims. These third-party apps can read a victim’s messages, call logs, and their activity on other communication apps. These apps then feedback the information gathered from the victim to the spies. In this way, they can know whether the partner is cheating or not. It is a positive move by social media to ensure cheating spouses are caught but by violating privacy terms, of course.
On other grounds, social media has been used to spy on different companies and organizations in a bid to know how they develop their products for competition purposes. Companies rich in telecommunications produce gadgets loaded with software programs that secretly generate information stored in the device back to the manufacturer. This information is sourced from a big organization can help those spying on it to access information and learn how to build better products. On the same note, data could be sourced from personal gadgets such as phone contacts and email addresses. A popular money lending app in Kenya by the name Okash has recently been accused of violating the money borrowers’ privacy. It is by enabling the app to read a borrower’s private information which they could later use by sending messages asking the contacts to ask the borrower to return the borrowed funds. As seen, the app violated the privacy of a user, but on the same note was able to get in touch with people surrounding their victim and help them make that person pay the debt.