Consumer Trust and SMS (Social Media Stalking)

Ernest Hemingway said that “the best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them” …while this may have been true in the 20^th century, Hemingway was long gone before the social media age, and sadly we as consumers have been burned by trusting ‘the digital’ too much.

Since the beginning of Instagram stories in 2017, this posed as a threat to Snap Chat as Instagram trumped the only stand out feature of the latter and used it to their advantage. Snap Chat was then forced to come up with something more innovative to gain back their market share, which led to ‘Snap Map’. This feature has enabled us to map out our friend’s locations of homes, schools, workplaces and places of leisure, which in turn has presented the danger of stalking.

In May 2017, it was discovered that Snap Chat was the most trusted social media site (http://www.businessinsider.com/the-digital-trust-report-insight-into-user-confidence-in-top-social-platforms-2017-5/?r=AU&IR=T) compared to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

However, when Snap Chat released their ‘Snap Map’ update in June 2017, this sparked an enormous amount of controversy because everyone had the capacity to track down all of their Snap Chat friends – no matter where they are in the World. While Snap Chat has described this feature as a “new way to explore the world”, I merely consider it just another concept that encourages stalker-like behaviour.

WhatsApp wasn’t far behind Snap Chat when they created their ‘live location’ where you can check where people are at any point and track their movements down to the second. Is this really necessary? Must we know where our friends are at every point in the day? No, we don’t. Despite these features having the power to ruin friendships and relationships because people love to ‘stalk’ their friends and family on social media. It has also blatantly given these apps’ the explicit power to stalk us as well.

I find it truly astonishing that since the initial outrage of the Apple ID ‘fingerprint recognition’, all of the conspiracy surrounding this issue into an invasion of our privacy, we as a globally digital society have allowed this to grow into even bigger issues and have redefined the definition of ‘stalker’ in 2018.

 

If these apps’ have allowed us to map out our friend’s movements constantly, there is no question that these brands themselves track our every move…I’m perplexed as to why people are okay with this and don’t consider this an invasion of our privacy? Or do people think that privacy is just not an option anymore when it comes to social media, so we may as well steer into it and embrace all aspects of the digital age?

Warfare in the ‘digital age’…how has social media become a weapon of destruction?

Before I begin, I want you to take a moment to think about how terrorism has been disgracefully revolutionised since the attack of 9/11, to the ISIS beheadings in the last 18 months…what differentiates these appalling attacks?

The point of difference in the last decade of terrorism, is that now terrorists have enunciated their propaganda and recruitment through social media platforms, and in doing so, they have instilled fear and horror amongst their enemies.

The Islamic State recognised the significant impact of digital media early on and they have maximised their reach to Westerners by using platforms that we use in our daily lives. Contemporary mediums are allowing them to record and post horrific content which as a result capitalises their growth and has forced the online world to react by further spreading their content – which ultimately spreads the name of ISIS wider and further.

(http://themusingsofthebigredcar.com/making-grown-up-war-v-isis-can-we-do-it/) Image 1.

(http://thegabbler.com/the-broken-seal/2014/10/03/documents-show-islamic-states-start-up-pitch/) Image 2.

The thing I find most sickening about this content, is that individuals are willingly watching and spreading it, when it really should be destroyed and never acknowledged. Instead, ISIS has gained power through our curiosity – and frankly I think this is tremendously disconcerting.

Now not only is the internet served as a platform for ISIS to publicise their atrocities with horrendous pride, it allows this group to engage with vulnerable and impressionable individuals to recruit into terror. Even though you’re most likely reading this thinking that we haven’t heard from ISIS in a while on the Internet therefore this is all irrelevant – however their mission for recruitment is still very much underway and extremely prevalent on the web.

On the contrary, the internet is also used as a tool to track down potential terrorists and their movements – however to me, the big issue is that the use of social media and the web will always be one step ahead of legalities, and this is truly frightening as we will never be able to fully combat the negative behaviour on the Internet…from 10 year olds bullying each other on Snap Chat, to the extremity of politicians firing serious and dangerous statements to one another from halfway across the world, and there’s groups like ISIS…

A large concern of mine is that we’ll never be entirely able to keep up with groups like ISIS when they are using the Internet to their advantage to spread fear and intimidate. However, this poses the question that if we completely ignore their threats and refuse to acknowledge them, will this eradicate their reign of terror? Or does the Internet possess the power to be the spark that will ignite World War III?