Social Media: Cyber Police?

Social media has many purposes. It can disseminate newsworthy content and information at the press of a button or the tap of a screen. It can be a way to spread our networks across the globe and increase our image. Social can even be a way to start a new business and make yourself a successful entrepreneur.

But, there is one purpose that has not yet been tapped into yet with social media- surveillance of national security. The social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have come together to help "combat online propaganda for recruiting by Islamic militants." according to an article by Yahoo.com. The companies realize that the threats to our nations security are not just coming from the characteristic enemies. In this day of social media and technology, anyone can be a potential target for Isis.

The internet companies described their policies as straightforward and to the point: they ban certain types of content in accordance with their circumstances and they require a court order to remove or block anything.

This court order can be taken care of with one simple step. The social media outlets have always had this feature and it will come in handy sooner or later. The "report/spam" button on posts allows the audience or viewer to report the post as threatening, inappropriate, or vulgar.

I personally believe if we can be a force that stands for justice and freedom for all, then recognizing and doing something about cyber-terrorism can help us become a stronger nation and world. I am not saying we should put restrictions on social media, because that will only upset people and make them wish they they had not done anything to change it.

Dislike the Dislike

It has been in the works for a while now, but Facebook is finally coming out with a "dislike" button. In an article on Gizmodo, the pros and cons of the dislike button are explained and it makes me wonder what the reason was for Facebook to change their mind about adding the feature. Facebook has always said they don't want a dislike button because it promotes too much of a negative image. "You don't want to go through the process of sharing a moment that's important to you.. and then have someone down-vote it. That isn't what we're here to build in the world" said Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. I agree with Zuckerberg here because adding in that "like/dislike" element sort of copies the app, YikYak. YikYak is an app with anonymous posts and when you post something, people that see will either up-voted on it and promote that post to other users, or it can be down-voted and be less popular among the media. Facebook pretty much invented the "like" button and with it, its popularity took off. The Gizmodo article credits the changing age demographic for the acceptance of the dislike button. The majority of the traffic and audience on Facebook today are adults. The chart below is a from the article on Gizmodo. It shows a large portion of the adults online use Facebook, as opposed to the other mediums such as Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn. So even though all these old people are using Facebook, what does this have to do with the dislike button. Zuckerberg notes that times are changing for Facebook and the general audience and users of Facebook are parents and grandparents, not vulnerable teens talking about high school gossip. I would agree, more news related posts and current events is what I see on my Facebook Timeline than the social media content I find on Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram.