No More “Social” Networking!

Social media and networks – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, including WhatsApp – have changed the lifestyle of people across the globe, by providing them a ‘universal’ socializing platform and empowering them to connect ‘freely’ to millions of users with a click of the button, sans any identity ‘profiling’ or ‘self-regulation’. What’s so “social” about them?

No wonder, in all the affairs of life, happenings across the world, public and private actions, the space and time they have ‘occupied’ or ‘taken’ in most of the people’s lives seem to have filled a ‘void’ which was perhaps ‘unexplored’ and ‘disconnected’ people from the rest of the world.

Now, the world wants to talk, tell, learn, know, see and show?  People effortlessly connect beyond boundaries, become global spectator, player and voice, be part of crusades and noble causes, bond with who’s who, marginalized and non-mainstream people, family, friends, people with mission, new contacts etc and communicate with them in their own lingual and visual language. They build social connections, networks or relations among people by sharing and showcasing ‘in-demand’ selfies, ‘un-censored ’and ‘every-moment’ images, ‘timeless and ageless’ photographs, ‘round-the-clock’ activities, ‘un-told and ‘un-cut’ backgrounds, real-life connections, ‘unstoppable’ and ‘right-to-freedom’ expressions, emotion, feelings, voices and much more. How much of all these are “social”?

Today, their popularity and ‘need’ cannot be ignored and cut short. People from all walks of life and age groups – kids, youths, elderlies, couples, married or unmarried, individual or groups or unions, officials, businessmen, government and social workers, political or apolitical people, connect with one and all to share, care and reason.

However, social netwoking sites that seemed so ‘user-friendly’, ‘secure’ and ‘free’ have lost its space to ‘wrong hands’ and ‘unmindful thinking’ that have been threatening and making them more vulnerable and risky platforms and communication mediums. Recent acknowledgement by WhatsApp and Facebook about the risk of spyware, malware attacks and data leak raises more questions than anything more secure. Cybercrimes are on the rise and so are hacking incidences. Hackers, anti-social elements, business competitors, propagandists, rivalry parties, foreign state actors, extreme-minded groups and individuals troll these social networking sites. As a matter of fact, on a social networking site, once anything is posted, it is no longer private and the more information you share the more vulnerable you become as a victim of privacy attack and identity theft. What’s so “social” about it?

A few recent studies and reports suggest that now people use these social networking sites carefully and judiciously. Hope the promoters meet the challenge to make these networks and sites secure by evaluating users, monitoring what is being uploaded and managing the content.