Anti-Social Networking?

Authors: Jarrod Trevathan, Trina Myers

Abstract:

Social networking is one of the most successful and popular tools to emerge from the Web 2.0 era. However, the increased interconnectivity and access to peoples- personal lives and information has created a plethora of opportunities for the nefarious side of human nature to manifest. This paper categorizes and describes the major types of anti-social behavior and criminal activity that can arise through undisciplined use and/or misuse of social media. We specifically address identity theft, misrepresentation of information posted, cyber bullying, children and social networking, and social networking in the work place. Recommendations are provided for how to reduce the risk of being the victim of a crime or engaging in embarrassing behavior that could irrevocably harm one-s reputation either professionally or personally. We also discuss what responsibilities social networking companies have to protect their users and also what law enforcement and policy makers can do to help alleviate the problems.

Keywords: Identity theft, misrepresentation, cyber bullying, online scams.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1056661

References:

[1] ABC News (2010), "Immigrant Teen Taunted by Cyberbullies Hangs Herself", (Online). Available: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/cyberbullying- factor-suicidemassachusetts-teen-irishimmigrant/ story?id=9660938
[2] A. Acquisti and R. Gross, "Predicting Social Security Numbers from Public Data", in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2009, pp 10975-10980.
[3] Business Insider (2009), "Montana Town Demands Job Applicants' Facebook Passwords", (Online). Available: http://www.businessinsider.com/montana-town-demands-job-applicantsfacebook- passwords-2009-6
[4] Cyber Bully Alert (2008), "Cyber Bullying Statistics that may Shock You!",(Online). Available: http://www.cyberbullyalert.com/blog/2008/08/cyberbullying-statisticsthat- may-shock-you.
[5] J. DiMicco, D.R. Millen, W. Geyer, C. Dugan, B. Brownholtz and M. Muller, "Motivations for social networking at work", in Proceedings of the ACM 2008 conference on computer supported cooperative work, San Diego, CA, USA, 2008, pp 711-720.
[6] R. Dhamija, J.D. Tygar and M. Hearst, "Why Phishing Works", in Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems, Canada, 2006, pp. 581-590.
[7] C.E. Drake, J.J. Oliver and E.J. Koontz, "Anatomy of a Phishing Email", in First Conference on Email and Anti-Spam (CEAS), Mountain View, CA, USA, 2004.
[8] C. Dwyer, S.R. Hiltz and K. Passerini, "Trust and Privacy Concerns Within Social Networking Sites: A Comparison of Facebook and MySpace", In Proceedings of AMCIS, 2007.
[9] R. Gross and A. Acquisti, "Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Social Networks", in Proceedings of the ACM workshop on privacy in electronic society, 2005, pp 71 - 80.
[10] Huffington Post (2009), "Alarming? One In Four Teens Admit Sexting Nude Photos, Survey Finds" (Online). Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/03/sexting-teens-stilltexti_ n_378285.html
[11] B. Krishnamurthy and C.E. Wills, "Characterizing privacy in online social networks", in Proceedings of the first workshop on online social networks, Seattle, WA, USA, 2008, pp 37-42.
[12] Megan Meier Foundation (2012), (Online). Available: http://www.meganmeierfoundation.org/
[13] NextAdvisor (2008), "Facebook Identity Theft Protection Guide: 6 tips to protect your identity on Facebook" (Online). Available: http://www.nextadvisor.com/blog/2008/03/04/6-tips-to-protect-youridentity- on-facebook/.
[14] NineMSN (2009), "Cyber bullying" (Online). Available: http://today.ninemsn.com.au/entertainnent/840251/cyberbullying
[15] Reuters (2009), "Facebook surfing while sick costs Swiss woman job" (Online). Available: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/04/24/us-swissfacebook- job-idUKTRE53N4JF20090424.
[16] Reuters (2011), "Woman sentenced in Boston wedding show scam" (Online). Available: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/usbridal- fraud-idUSTRE72H8E820110318.
[17] Sophos Facebook ID Probe (2007) "Sophos Facebook ID probe shows 41% of users happy to reveal all to potential identity thieves" (Online). Available: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/press-office/pressreleases/ 2007/08/facebook.aspx, 2007.
[18] Today MSNBC (2009), "Her teen committed suicide over ÔÇÿsexting-" (Online). Available: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29546030/ns/todayparenting/t/her-teencommitted- suicide-over-sexting/
[19] Townsville Bulletin (2010), "Facebook fight a battle of words" (Online). Available: http://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/article/2010/08/03/159881_news. html.
[20] J. Wolak, "Online "predators" and their victims: Myths, realities, and implications for prevention and treatment", The American Psychologist, vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 111-128, 2008.
[21] H. Xu, N. Irani, S. Zhu and W. Xu, "Alleviating Parental Concerns for Children-s Online Privacy: A Value Sensitive Design Investigation", in Proceedings of the Twenty Ninth International Conference on Information Systems, 2008.
[22] M. Ybarra and K. Mitchell, "How risky are social networking sites? A comparison of places Online where Youth Sexual Solicitation and Harassment Occurs", Pediatrics, vol. 121, no. 2, 2008, pp. e350 -e357.
[23] M. Ybarra, K. Mitchell, J. Wolak, D. Finkelhor, "Examining characteristics and associated distress related to Internet harassment: findings from the Second Youth Internet Safety Survey", Pediatrics, vol. 118, no. 4, 2006, pp. e1169 -e1177.