This document discusses how social media and technology have changed personal privacy and information security. It explores how businesses and governments now collect vast amounts of personal data from social media sites and online activities. This data collection often happens without users' knowledge or authorization. The document also examines how social media has changed communication behaviors. It recommends that privacy organizations educate the public on online privacy risks and lobby for laws to better protect individuals' information privacy.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA AND
INFORMATION SECURITY
BY:ALEXANDER DEUCALION

2. 1
Introduction: An Analogy
It used to be that you could tell what you looked like by standing in front of a mirror. You
could obtain quite a bit of information about yourself and also decide which and how
much of this personal information you would be willing to let others know; in fact let the
whole world know.
But nowadays you don’t usually stand in front of a mirror, but rather sit in front of a
computer and so now it has become a whole new ball game. Unlike a mirror that gives
you an accurate representation of what you look like that can only be seen by you ( and
anyone that might be standing by you), the computer is the new mirror- a gateway to
a world that has more information about yourself than what you know.
Starting to get creeped -out? Hang-on, you haven’t seen anything yet. The bad news is
that an undeterminable number of people are collecting and selling information about
you. Is there any good news? Don’t worry; by the end of this paper we will determine
that.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how technology is driving the virtualization of
society and its mores, the trends in cyber-culture and their impact on personal privacy
and the risk and prevalence of unauthorized disclosures. Given the pervasiveness of
public participation in and around unregulated practices of social media and online
marketing, this paper will also focus on the risks that both individuals and businesses
are facing regarding privacy violation and information security, respectively.

3. 2
Lastly, we will look closely at social media from the interpersonal communication
perspective. How has virtualization affected our ability to interact with people? There are
quite a few personal stories and observations about how people who converse
frequently using social media indicate being uncomfortable at the prospect of meeting in
person. Virtualization and Social media has drawn new lines for social interaction
remarkably different from traditional methods and these lines are not to be crossed.
Whether these trends are beneficial is a debate that has become mot given the
revolutionary reality of how we interact and respond with one another, with businesses
and with government.
Virtual me
One of the effects of the technology explosion of today is the memory lapse we seem to
develop when asked to think for more than two or three years back. For example-who
can remember how life was before texting first become available and widely used?
Another effect is the importance placed on the medium over the importance of the
message. Cyber-culture and digital communications have adopted their own protocols
and customs which as will be seen, rely on anonymity and transparency. And it isn’t
only online communications but off-line digital communications such as cell phones as
well.
Don’t call me-I’ll text you
Texting is by far the most widespread and popular form of communication in the Digital
Age right now:

4. 3
Cell-phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic
communication between teens and their friends and cell calling is a close
second. Some 75% of 12-17 year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45%
in 2004. Those phones have become indispensable tools in teen
communication patterns. Fully 72% of all teens – or 88% of teen cell
phone users — are text-messagers. That is a sharp rise from the 51% of
teens who were texters in 2006. More than half of teens (54%) are daily
texters. (Lenhardt, et al. 2010)
Texting is a perfect example of why the medium has become more important than the
message. Like traditional forms of communication, digital communications have
developed their own customs and mannerisms. When you get a text from someone,
they expect a text back. If you reply with a phone call you are likely to be scolded and
chastised and may be actually be considered “rude”. Consider the following Facebook
post:
I get a text this morning, "r u up yet?" I was still sleeping so I didn't
respond. since I don't respond so then u call me five mins later??? What
the Fuck? Some people need a Bitch slap in a half (Facebook post)
Texting is in fact an impersonal form of communication with its own vocabulary,
phonemes, and inflection (or lack of). One reason that texting is impersonal is that there
is no voice communication involved that may reveal vocal inflection indicating the
emotional state of the person who made communication. And these problems are
evident in online communications as well.
The rate of worldwide internet usage has doubled in the last 10 years.” About 26
percent of the world's population was online at the end of 2009…” (Ribero 2010) And
with that rate ever increasing we now have the justifications to be concerned about
personal privacy and information security But what are these concerns?
Welcome to my online world

5. 4
The fact that the Digital Age is rapidly changing our communications with other people,
both those we know and strangers is only one area to consider. Much work on the
interpersonal psychology of the Digital Age is available. Another area that needs to be
focused on is the rapidly changing trustworthiness of people and institutions. It isn’t that
they are more untrustworthy now but rather that many tools and resources are available
to demonstrate their untrustworthiness like never before. This will be our focus here.
This is not only true of malicious agents (spammers and phishers, etc.) but those
engaged in legitimate business and marketing on the Internet. The infrastructure of
online commerce largely depends on back-end collection personal information from the
seemingly harmless cookie to profile perusal and other forms of unauthorized
disclosures made regularly on a commercial basis
What a tangled Web they weave
Internet marketing relies on a click-based model. Technically, what makes the Web
work is the hypertext links that appear on every page one visits and when an ad or
banner is either clicked or mouse-over, that represents an event that is registered to a
database stored in the page’s web server. Every behavior displayed by a person while
online, every action of the mouse and keyboard can be recorded, collected and made
available much in the same way as telephone directory and other type of lists were
available in the “old days”.
While there are many resources and strategies for businesses to conduct online
commerce and marketing, we will just cover the nexus between business and social
media. Widespread information is available from almost everywhere the connection

6. 5
between the two. What this means for those concerned with personal intrusion and
surveillance by business and government respectively is what information they get how
they get it and what they use it for.
“Infollecting”
Facebook is the largest and most popular and widely used site. It has since its
beginning managed to become steeped in controversy. Mashable, a supersite for
disseminating Social Media news and information has a large repository of articles
regarding Facebook’s information collection and privacy intrusion behavior. One such
article asks if reports of privacy concerns on the rise are accurate. Another discusses
the information collection habits of Facebook and how user behavior and disregard for
privacy provisions can introduce a risk of unauthorized disclosure of personal data.
Consumer Report’s annual State of the Net study found that people are
increasingly concerned with their privacy on Facebook. The report breaks
down social privacy into a handful of categories: over-sharing by users,
underuse of privacy controls, over-collection of data, over-sharing of data
by apps and cyber bullying or harassment (Fitzgerald 2012).
There are of course concerns about other Social Media- Google + has raised
eyebrows about their privacy policies which have an element of ambition and
user control. According to an article in Mashable, Google has made all of their 70
some policy rule documents into one master document (Freeman, 2012). And
another article discusses the concerns that the public (Fox, 2012) has with
Google’s privacy workarounds in order to amass more ad revenue (Kessler,
2012). Twitter has been in “the hot-seat” a time or two. Mashable covers news
about these two Social Media sites as well.

7. 6
Big Brother is watching
Even though there has always been a considerable amount of citizen surveillance by
government, especially during the Nixon years, it was not until September 11, 2001, that
it was openly justified (although sometimes questionably so). That one act of terrorism
did more to forever change how we protect our personal privacy than any other on
record. The government made a radical departure from its usual citizen surveillance and
accelerated its efforts through the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.
Along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this department has developed
practices and policies that allow it to conduct surveillance on citizens in typical
“McCarthy fashion”.(Note: Senator McCarthy conducted an extensive surveillance
campaign during the height of the Cold War in the 50’s to monitor citizen activity in the
hope of detecting communist supporters. The” witch hunt” singled out many individuals
without substantiation and ruined many lives)
Today communism has been replaced by terrorism. Terrorist activities and suspicion of
terrorism have spurred massive surveillance efforts of citizens by any means available,
including Social Media. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI openly admit
to tracking what users are sharing on Facebook and Twitter. According to the article
"Homeland Security Tracks These Keywords on Twitter and Facebook”
“Social media outlets provide instant feedback and alert capabilities to
rapidly changing or newly occurring situations,” states U.S. Homeland
Security internal documents. “The [Media Monitoring Capability team]
works to summarize the extensive information from these resources to
provide a well-rounded operational picture for the Department of
Homeland Security.” (Pan, 2012)

8. 7
Your Tax Dollars at work
That these actions by the government are unconstitutional and deprive citizens of their
basic privacy and freedom of speech, this author has no doubt though a debate could
easily be made. But not everyone agrees with the government. A civil liberties and
privacy watchdog, The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reports that it used
the Freedom of Information Act to obtain volumes of documents on how DHS monitor
Social Media use. A contract has been made with General Dynamics for developing a
system to enable DHS to monitor and track social media sharing (2-Fitzpatrick, 2012).
Need I go on?
Conclusion
I have given a few examples of how the digital culture has changed the face of
communication and given the reader some cases where the use of social media can
infringe on our privacy and information security. Hackers and other malicious agents
could easily get profile information to stalk former spouses and create spamming
situations. Businesses try to get all the information they can about you through your
online behavior, including what links you click and what banners you mouse over. Often
this information gathering represents an unauthorized disclosure. In a lot of cases the
information is authorized but the use of the information is misrepresented and other
uses that you ar not aware of can happen. We have seen how the government uses
social media to “spy” on citizens in an attempt to uncover possible terrorist tendencies
and national security violations-so they say.

9. 8
Recommendations
While it is not necessarily going to happen that the misuse of personal information by
business and government is going to be successfully dealt with completely, nor are
Social Media sites going to adopt inline safeguards to protect your privacy ( since they
amass revenue from advertising and marketing sources), the recourse lies in public
concern and education. Privacy and Information security watchdogs such as EPIC and
the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (http://www.privacyrights.org/) can both lobby to
defend our privacy freedoms and provide “privacy education” to allow people to have a
more prudent and wise attitudes and behaviors when going online for any reason. The
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has all the up to date news, trends, concerns and ways to
take charge of your privacy information.
In conjunction with self-education on online privacy, I would like to see some of these
watchdogs hold national PSA campaigns about privacy protection-kind of like the “Don’t
Drink and Drive” campaigns that seem to be everywhere. The privacy PSA campaign
could have a slogan too (perhaps “Surf Smart”) and basically have different types of
short spots that deal with various privacy topics. I am convinced that the very
technology that has numbed people’s sense of caution can be used for the benefit of
the people and not against them.

10. 9
References
Lenhardt, Amanda, Kristen Purcell, Rich Ling, and Scott Campbell. “Teens and Mobile
Phones”. Rep. Pew Internet, 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 May 2012.
<http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx>.
Ribero, John. "More Than One in Four Use Internet Worldwide, Says ITU." CIO. 25 May
2010. Web. 04 May 2012.
<http://www.cio.com/article/595014/More_Than_One_in_Four_Use_Internet_Worldwide
<Says_ITU>.
(1)Fitzpatrick, Alex. "Study Says Facebook Privacy Concerns Are on the Rise-Is It
Accurate?" Mashable. 03 May 2012. Web. 04 May 2012.
<http://mashable.com/2012/05/04/facebook-privacy-concerns-study/>.
(2)Fitzpatrick, Alex. "Lawmakers to Homeland Security: Social Media Monitoring
Threatens Free Speech." Mashable. 16 Feb. 2012. Web. 06 May 2012.
<http://mashable.com/2012/02/16/social-media-homeland-security/>.
Fox, Zoe. "Google Privacy Creeping You Out? Microsoft Says It Has Alternatives."
Mashable. 01 Feb. 2012. Web. 05 May 2012.
<http://mashable.com/2012/02/01/microsoft-google-alternatives/>.
Kessler, Sarah. "Privacy Watchdog Complains to FTC: Google's Search Engine Is
Unfair." Mashable. 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 May 2012.
<http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/watchdog-ftc-google-social-search-unfair/>.
Freeman, Kate. "Google Changes Again, Launches One Privacy Policy to Rule Them
All." Mashable. 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 May 2012.

11. 10
<http://mashable.com/2012/01/24/google-changes-again-launches-one-privacy-policy-
to-rule-them-all/>.
Pan, Joann. "Homeland Security Tracks These Keywords on Twitter and Facebook."
Mashable. 02 Mar. 2012. Web. 06 May 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/social-
networking-monitoring/>.