Twitter: Protecting User Privacy Essay

Social media today is a very free place. We are allowed to post whatever we like and comment on whomever’s picture. However, social media can be a very dark place too, because of this freedom. Hate across the world can be seen, different accounts are made only for bringing down others, and the arguments of the small things are formed every single day. Although these problems are seen on social media they are not related to the topic I am concerned about. I want to discuss all of the hidden powers social media websites like Twitter and Facebook have along with the idea that our government should have those powers.

Over the course of the past few decades, technology has been on a fast track to more advanced opportunities for communication. These developments have increased efficiency in society, however, it is evident that the basic values, such as privacy of personal information, are compromised significantly. Privacy is an essential element of a free society and without which, individuals would lose the ability to interact with one another in private. With the advancements of technology there is a clash between an individuals right to guard their personal information and the power of the cyber world to penetrate that information. Innovative technologies such as various forms of social media and surveillance are invading the freedom to said privacy.

In The Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Stone emphasizes Twitter's punishment in harsh tone in hopes to spread awareness in the urgency to change these careless entities running social sites such as twitter. Stone surfaces the need for outside parties intervening Twitter’s management skills and declares the, “...setup [of] a security program that will be audited by an outside company,” proposing the sites monitors and management teams were unskilled and negligent (Stone). The desperate call for help exposes the corrupt business practices of the social network. This case sheds light on similar issues leading twitter to believe "we think [the FTC] saw it as an opportunity to make an example of us in the hopes of curtailing breaches - including those many more serious than ours - in our industry" (Stone). Emerging the existence of conflicting cases surrounding the entire industry, Stone further builds an argument in agreeance with Kafka’s Bureaucracy, suggesting the whole industry of social networking sites to be fraudulent in the interest and pursuit of the privacy of data

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

Social media. People’s daily lives revolve around social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube; the growing number of social media sites and users has increased the likeliness of these social media sites being used as news sources. Protecting the freedom of speech on social media will spread important worldwide news like wildfire, informing users of social media sites about current events quickly and expands the knowledge people have on situations happening in different countries that can’t be or aren’t reported by news reporters.

Twitter has a wide variety of young users who are often eager many would say over-eager to share information about their personal lives. And as is the case with all social media, Twitter is operating in a 'wild, wild west' of a lack of legal restrictions. Despite concerns over alienating users, the desire to make what is now a relatively old and established site more profitable (perhaps in answer to the shaky performance of Facebook's public offering) has apparently won out. Recently, "in a move that has sparked privacy concerns among social media users,

Social media like Facebook and Twitter have become more and more popular in recent times. Their popularity is creating new opportunities for data collection performed by the state and private companies like Google and Facebook. The point of this exercise is to outline a theoretical framework for defining monitoring social media in the context of today's society and understand its broader societal implications.

Social Media is a current way in which people are using to interact with one another daily. Since the launch of various Social Networking Sites (SNS) its been a huge attraction in a new way to share information with others and correspond with interests of your choice in many different forms. Although social media sites allow users to share information with friends and other sites on the internet, many people are unaware of how their privacy is getting out. Now that the expansion of global connection through these social media networking sites are so highly present in todays society, giving us easy access to information, the lack of one's privacy is being diminished. Everyday peoples privacy rights are

To the average technologically advanced American, Twitter is one of the most visited social media sites. From a popularity contest standpoint, Twitter would be amongst the top winners; however, when evaluating Twitter from a business analytical aspect it might not be a lucrative business venture. The attractive attribute to Twitter Inc. is the fact the sites does not make any of its users pay. Twitter is designed to allow users to voice multiple thoughts, ideas, or share different information amongst the site’s visitor. Unlike Facebook, Twitters does not have multi-million dollar corporations using the site on a regular basis to market more potential users. Therefore, with a low revenue base and poor strategic development implementation

In our society, social networking has become very popular over the last 5 years. Twitter is a social networking site that allows users to become “followers” of other people and stay informed about current events and social trends. Many argue whether or not these social websites such as Twitter, are good for society. In two articles about Twitter, the authors present different arguments about why Twitter is good or bad for society. The author of “Heading off disaster, one Tweet at a time” by Jim Spellman, states that Twitter is a good way of communicating current events happening around the world. The other article, “Is Twitter Bad for National Security?” by Tony Bradley, argues that Twitter could have dangerous effects on our nation’s

This paper will be structured as follows. Section 2 will cover a basic overview of the rise of social media through the past few years and the government’s use of social media for surveillance. Section 3 will cover an Utilitarian and Kantian ethical view on the use of government surveillance on the social media of local citizens. Section 4 will cover the social impact and views that citizens may have about the surveillance of their social media accounts. Lastly Section 5 will cover the global impact of surveying social media accounts.

Walk into a library, you have a computer, you are most likely carrying a phone, at home, you most likely have a computer, laptop, tablet, or even all three. This shows that we have social media access at the tip of our fingers, making it so easy to open up the site or app and just type out a phrase or paragraph, letting hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions, of people know what you think. Back then, it was harder to let the nation know what you were thinking, and it took even take months before everyone knew, versus today, where the nation might know by the end of the day, and it’s because of this that companies regulate what their users are posting, attempting at keeping the online world free from threats, hate, harmful words, and more. Rutenberg quotes Jeffrey Goldberg as he says, “At a certain point I’d rather take myself off the platform where speech has become so become so offensive than advocate for the suppression of that speech” (2). Twitter also said that “everyone on Twitter should feel safe expressing diverse opinions and beliefs, but behavior that harasses, intimidates or uses fear to silence another person’s voice should have no place on our platform” (Rutenberg 2).

Twitter is a service for people to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages. It's an online social networking and micro blogging service that enables users to send and read short 140 character text messages, called "tweets". Twitter is a social website where people are allowed to make posts about different things. Twitter has 645,750,000 registered users as of January 1, 2014. Twitter is now stepping up to global television. Micro blogging is the posting of very short entries or updates on a blog or social networking site, typically via a cellular phone. Twitter allows its users to keep their friends and family informed of their current status. Twitter first began in 2008 as a small project; but now

Social media is more and more used to make presumptions and decisions about people. If I get to know someone I will go to Google and try to find out what can be found instead of waiting how all info itself will arouse by time passing. It’s debatable if it is ethical to spy about people in social networks because behavioral patterns witnessed there belong more to private sphere. But if person is willingly giving away his rights to privacy?  Also we seldom think of privacy issues when applying for “bonus” card to get 5% discount. It seems that sometimes people need to be protected against themselves and until there are no new and relevant social norms aroused, this is were policymakers should puzzle and offer solutions. Of course the balance is a key issue.

Do you ever feel like you are being watched or followed, feels a little creepy right? That is exactly what is happening every time you log into one of the many social media sites offered via the world wide web. Some users say that if you aren’t doing anything wrong, what does it matter if our every move is being tracked and recorded. It matters because our privacy is being violated, having privacy is one of our basic human rights. When we sign up on social media we knowingly give up that right as Kent Anderson, author of “People are Willing to Trade Less Privacy for Access to Social Media”, writes, “ Social networks are based on sharing information, so anyone using such a network is automatically accepting