Social Networking

There are countless things we can do with Social Media. From getting into contact with a company recruiter about a job or connecting with old friends from college. There are also other uses countries have found that have proven to be quite helpful. In the article, “In India, Using Facebook to Catch Scofflaw Drivers”, Heather Timmons wrote, “With just 5,000 traffic officers in this city of 12 million people, the social networking site is filling a useful role, a police officer said. “Traffic police can’t be present everywhere, but rules are always being broken.” Surprisingly, a lot of people want to contribute to make roads a safer place in India so they took initiative. Now a simple bystander can help the police crackdown on traffic violations by simply taking a picture and posting it to the Facebook page. 

Although it has been proven that Social Media has countless benefits, it has also been used to exploit innocent people. In the article, “BBB: New Wave of Phishing Scams Uses Facebook Info for Personalized Spam”, a BBB news release, it has been stated that, “Scammers are tapping into the personal data available through Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn to pose as your friends in fraudulent emails.” I can speak to this personally because a friend of mine was recently scammed out of a brand new iPhone. He posted a picture of his phone on a buying and selling page and someone created a fake account, added him as a friend and scammed him into sending him the iPhone without paying him. This has been an ongoing theme on Facebook, LinkedIn and even dating websites. I believe these technologies are going to continue to decrease human interaction and increase the opportunities for scammers.  Although companies are trying to combat fake accounts, scammers always seem to find a new way to exploit innocent users.