Social Networking Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Social Networking - Essay Example Not everyone in this kind of social community would be a good member and follow the ethical rules of the online community. And as the interaction is not physical in nature but virtual, people start making negative use of this fact and break the moral and ethical values and boundaries of the social networking community and society as a general. Brief Definition and Description of Social Networking Social interaction taking place over the internet is called social networking and the platforms that support this activity are the social networking websites. These websites’ main purpose is to create an online community consisting of internet users who are free from the issues of distance, time and cultural differences and interact with each other and share all kinds of information from personal experiences to general opinions. Through these websites, users usually establish an online connection with known persons like their family members, friends, office colleagues and many more. B ut they may also get connected to unknown persons who may be different from them in terms of race, religion, nationality and the like but became friends due to common interest. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 304). Currently there are many websites catering the purpose of social networking. One such website is called Facebook.com and it is the website which has been ranked first as the total minutes per month spent by users on this website exceeds 14 billion. There are other popular websites also such as: MySpace.com, LinkedIn.com and Twitter, each one catering the interests of users in their own particular ways. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 305). General Ethical Issues Social networking gives rise to the following ethical issues: 1. Cyberbullying: Social networking websites allow cyberbullying to occur in the easiest manner. This kind of activity is usually done by females who are students in their mid- teens. Cyberbullying is an harassment in which a person or a group mentally tortures other persons o r groups, and humiliates them or threatens them by putting online any private or embarrassing or threatening information that may harm them. Statistics show that the major negative effect of cyberbullying is that the victim may commit suicide as it may give him severe mental torture. 2. Cyberstalking: This activity is the adult version of cyberbullying in which similar activities of sending threatening emails, stalking each others information and then misusing it online. Research reveals that there are 50 to 500 requests per day for help from victims of cyberstalking. 3. Uploading of Inappropriate Material: Videos and images that depict violence or vulgarity are not permitted by many social networking websites through their policies. The terms and policies of the website also state that any user violating the policies and terms would get his account deleted or deactivated by the website owner. But still these policies are not enough to stop people from uploading such content as webs ites do not have enough resources to monitor the millions of activities of millions of users. Uploading of such content harm the persons who are subject of the content. (Reynolds, 2009, p. 310-313). Business and Social Networking Apart from social interaction and playing games, social networking is also one of the cheapest ways to advertise oneself and his business and all the services and products it offers at a very low cost or totally free. When companies saw the widespread use of social networking websites, it attracted them and they thought of improving their productivity and communication among workers through the use of social net