Unethical human activity is primarily responsible for a lack of privacy and safety on the internet
I agree with the above topic that unethical human activity is primarily responsible for the lack of privacy and safety on the internet. If someone is feeling unsafe on the internet it comes down to two issues, that they are either feeling like their privacy or their safety is at risk, this is due to the unethical behaviour that has taken place.
Privacy is defined as being ‘free from public attention’. (“Definition of privacy | Dictionary.com”, n.d.) This definition backs up my point in the fact that if this said information is supposedly free from other viewings than it all comes down to a person or persons unethical behaviour which breaks down this privacy wall. It is easy to see that unethical activity has a massive impact on people’s privacy and safety on the internet. Safety is defined as being ‘protected from danger or risk.’ (“Definition of safety | Dictionary.com”, n.d.) If somebody is trying to obtain another’s private information or details than it is proven that their digital safety has been compromised. Why has this been compromised? Because of somebody’s unethical human activity. Unethical is defined as not being ‘morally correct’. (“Definition of unethical | Dictionary.com”, n.d.) This once again proves my point that if you are unable to be morally correct then you are unethical. Once again, safety and privacy come down to trust. If that trust is compromised then issues arise, and it is those people who are unethical that break this trust.
I know numerous people who have now deleted all social media platforms as they fear for their digital safety because they have either been burnt by someone’s unethical behaviour or they have heard about another person experience. Amanda has shared her personal experience on ‘Mashable’ (Bryan, 2018) about how she was enjoying her social media platforms until she was hacked one day. Amanda has now deleted all social media due to this incident and says that she ‘will not be back as it was too hard of a process to recover all of her personal details.’ Amanda had no choice but to deactivate and delete her Facebook account due to the experience that she went through. It is this kind of behaviour that proves it is the safety and privacy that is compromised when somebody becomes unethical online.
It is well known that Facebook, Instagram and other platforms like these sell and share your private information to make a gain for themselves. This is unethical and has a massive weigh in on why people are deleting their social media platforms due to feeling unsafe on the internet. When researching about why people have deleted their social media. With social media increasing in popularity it has become easier for hackers to gain access into accounts and private information. This has become a massive issue as there are now younger kids beginning to use social media platforms such as ‘Facebook’, ‘Instagram’ or ‘Tiktok’ which being of a young age it is easier to not have your accounts as secure as they should be leading to a greater increase of being able to be hacked and having their private information taken.
An article from The Guardian called ‘Somebody to talk to’ (Palmer, 2001), talks about ‘the dangers of internet chatrooms’. (Palmer, 2001) It is stressed in this article how at-risk teenagers and young people are entering these chat rooms as they think that they are harmless as there is an expectation of safety and privacy on the internet. However, this all changes very quickly when unethical behaviour is thrown into the mix. When it comes to chat rooms the unethical behaviour is often different to unethical behaviour on other sites such as in chat rooms you can easily start a conversation with any aged person and pretend to be a certain age yourself. This becomes a massive problem for the kids that are underaged on this site that believe they are talking to someone their age, but in fact, they could be talking to someone 50 years older than them. For someone to go through an experience like this at such a young age, it can easily impact them for many years to come in regards to their digital trust as their safety was breached, which leads back to the agreed topic that it is the unethical behaviour that is primarily responsible for the lack and safety on the internet.
Bryan, C. (2018). 8 people confess why they finally deleted social media. https://mashable.com/2018/02/11/reasons-to-delete-social-media/
Palmer, P. (2001). The dangers of internet chatrooms., from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/mar/20/itforschools.schools5
Definition of privacy | Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/privacy?s=t
Definition of safety | Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/safety?s=t
Definition of unethical | Dictionary.com. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/unethical?s=t