Social Media: The Practices of Identity and Digital Exploitation
Social Media and Digital Exploitation
Social media platforms have become an integral part of our daily lives. We not only use them to portray our living experiences that we choose to share, but they also let us create the identity we want to share with others be it our real self, a fake persona that we desire to create, or even a fragmentation of ourselves that we crave to showcase, but we can’t in the real world, so we use social media platforms to do it. Social media makes us reflect on a variety of dimensions regarding our position both in the virtual and physical social life. Both these contributing factors make us play certain characters in the social arena. Social media has a deeper impact on us as individuals because it gives us the freedom to be our own content creator in any way, shape or form. It enables identity expression, exploration and experimentation.
Social media platforms enable us to share content, express opinions about a topic, communicate and interact with one another without any time or place limitation. Through social media people come together as a community and we are the ones to choose where we fit in and belong in the virtual world. These are the positive contributing factors of social media’s creation, however we cannot deny the negative outcomes that emerge from them. Digital exploitation on the internet and on social media platforms occur in various ways and they target the emotional, psychological and physical well-being of humans as individual entities. This is because we get to share so much of our lives online that everyone in today’s world is under watch and is accessible 24/7. Thus, this enables others to comment and share their own ideologies on others which may not always be in the other person’s best interest. This, in turn, initiates digital exploitation.
To understand what social media exploitation is, it must be defined. Social media exploitation is the manipulation of people on social media platforms that is being used to harass or use other people in any way, shape or form. The problematic aspect of technology is that it is free and accessible to anyone 24/7 from anywhere, thus this makes people more vulnerable in the virtual world. Before the emergence of technology and social media platforms, cyberbullying and social media exploitation were non-existent. However, with the rapid increase of technology and its daily usage, technology became a game changer for many people especially for those who use social media platform unethically without any boundaries whatsoever.
The Paradox of Privacy on Social Media Platforms
In media studies, it is argued that SNS and internet services “make the notions of private life and personal space no longer applicable” (Miller, 2011, as cited in Serafinelli, 2018, p. 126). What makes the internet and social media platforms contradictory are “the positions in relation to the protection of personal data online” (Serafinelli E., 2018, p. 125). According to Serafinelli (2018, p. 125) “in the digital age the concept of privacy is difficult to classify due to the overlap between online and offline.”
“At a general level, there are four categories linked to defending people from privacy violations: the freedom of personal autonomy, the right to control personal information, the right to control personal property and the right to protect personal physical space” (Mills, 2008, as cited is Serafinelli, 2018, p. 126). Moreover, “despite the legal acknowledgement that there should be a fair expectation of privacy, Mills’ (2008) understanding of today’s intrusive world suggests that privacy is no more a right, but a commodity entangled in trade relations” (Campbell & Carlson, 2002, as cited in Serafinelli, 2018, p. 26).
People who have access to the internet and share their personal information on social media platforms are self-violating their own privacy because many voluntarily provide personal data online. Nowadays, people are involved in a collective self-violation.
Because online platforms encourage online activities (e.g. liking, sharing, posting, following, etc.), people’s presence on social media has consequently become more difficult to regulate, in particular in relation to moral and ethical issues associated to the way users’ information should be processed, who should have access to data and how this access should be regulated (Tavani, 2008, as cited in Serafinelli, 2018, pp. 126–127).
Building on Nissenbaum’s (2009) idea of managing information according to different contexts “privacy is interpreted more as people’s control over personal circles of intimacy” (Serafinelli, 2009, p. 130).
As Serafinelli argues (2009, p.130) “considering that the architecture of the majority of social networking sites is structured to encourage self-disclosure, privacy and data protection remain complex issues”. Privacy online cannot be defined by one written rule, rather it it is up to the individual to draw the line of what privacy online means to him or her. What we have to understand is that what may be considered as private for someone may not suffice for another person.
Social Media and Mental Health
When the answer of the question ‘What is digital health?’ is being sought, it is possible to find the following result: People should be aware that there can be some factors in the internet environment that physically, mentally or emotionally affect health directly or indirectly. These effects include visual health, stress, introversion, and physical problems. Therefore, “social media belongs to a cyber-world that real and virtual, real and story, real and lie have intertwined with each other.” (Erdem, 2012, p 167).
In today’s world, the majority of us cannot think about not having social media as part of our daily lives. Social media platforms enable people to express, communicate and interact with each other, but it can also take believability and reliabilities away and trivialises them by objectifying. The attractiveness of the like button, the availability of sharing comments and the numerous profiles that people get to follow forces us to plan every single action that needs to be performed before we use the post button due to the feeling of always being watched by others on that social media platform. On social media, users can share their opinions, emotions and thoughts without having to impose self-censorship and because its content is created primarily by users, social media allows its users to establish contact with publicly known or unknown users, to share favoured content with other users. However, it should always be kept in mind that other users can see the information shared via social media platforms.
Social Media, Cyberbullying and Its Effects
Digital identity are attitude norms that are blended with technology. Digital identity includes displaying ethical and appropriate attitude while using electronic environments and receiving information about using electronic environments (Ozkan, 2013, p 387).
From the moment we create a social media profile, we are creating our digital identity. We are making our imprint in the virtual world with the identity we decide to create and share on each social media platform we use. “It is expected that a user with a digital identity act ethically and collaboratively when establishing interactions in virtual platforms” (Ozel & Sert, 2014, p 303). However, that is not always the case because within virtual platforms digital exploitation occurs in diverse forms over the internet and social media.
Digital ethics prohibits us as virtual users not to harm the rights and interests of others. Harming the rights and interests of other people in the virtual world like the real world is manifested as cyberbullying or defamation. However, in the virtual world online trolling cannot be easily controlled unlike the real world. First and foremost, people online can hide their identity without anyone knowing who they are and they can judge, criticise and comment how much they want. There is the block button that enables users to remove trolls that try to damage someone’s reputation, however the damage can already be done to the person before they hit the block button depending on how strong their character is. This damage can manifest itself emotionally, psychologically and physically. Below one can find a link to statistics that result in adolescents (since they are the ones that suffer from cyberbullying the most) self-harm, suicide and mental issues due to discrimination and cyberbullying.
Since the emergence of the internet and social media, bullying is not only being practiced in the real world but it has become widespread on every social media platform. This is known as cyberbullying. A person who is being bullied or victimised occurs when he or she is exposed repeatedly over time to negative actions from others (Olweus, 1993). Adolescents and young adults who experience peer victimisation reveal more symptoms of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and low self-worth compared to their non-victimised counterparts (Bellmore et al., 2004; Biggs, Nelson & Sampilo, 2010; Graham, Bellmore & Juvonen, 2007; Hawker & Boulton, 2000).
Bullying takes multiple forms. The most common forms of bullying are face-to-face like for example hitting (this occurs obviously in the real world only), verbal like for example name-calling (this occurs both in the real world and online which is more commonly known as trolling) and relational like for example exclusion and alienation (this also occurs both in the real world and online). The primary reason why individuals are usually targeted with bullying is perceived difference meaning characteristics that makes an individual stand out differently from the rest of the norm. These include physical appearance, sexuality, status, gender, race, socio-economic, status and behaviours. Below one can find a link with detailed characteristics pertaining to different types of bullying:
Cyberbullying is a form of digital exploitation because there is a line that is being breached when certain people do not follow certain ethical boundaries which are constituted by what is called digital ethics. Digital ethics prohibits us as virtual users not to harm the rights and interests of others. Examples of cyberbullying include making online threats, posting hurtful images, sending hurtful and harmful texts, etc. Moreover, cyberbullying has become more widespread in recent times because unlike the real world bullies can troll and harass their victims with much less risk of being caught due to the fact that the online world enables us to be anonymous or create fake identities which ensures that our real identity can remain hidden.
Cyberbullies have the freedom to say things, threaten and harass others where they may not have the courage to say face-to-face. Technology empowers them to feel anonymous, protected and also detached from the situation. Online targeting of cyberbullying is a never-ending stream due to the fact that internet and social media are accessible anytime.
The Digital Age of Vulnerability: Social Media and The Impact on Mental Health
We can define the generation pertaining to the 21st century — the millennials as the digital age of vulnerability. Children born from the year 2000 onwards grew up with technology. Technology and social media play a huge role in children’s lives especially when they hit their early teens and start using social media platforms on a daily basis to share pictures, videos, comment, like, interact and communicate with other people online. The earlier a child is introduced to using social media platforms, the greater the impact it has on his/her overall mental health.
Social media’s access becomes part of digital exploitation when it is used to harm others — cyberbullying. This mostly occurs amongst adolescents and young adults especially when it comes to females. While teenage boys tend to express their emotional side with aggression in a physical manner, teenage girls on the other hand do it verbally and relationally by excluding others, talking behind their backs and sharing hurtful comments. What social media does is increase this opportunity for more harmful interactions to occur.
Social media usage is growing at a remarkable rate predominantly among young adults, surprisingly in spite of having greater interconnectivity, the present young generation is lonelier than other groups and even loneliest ever (Pittman & Reich 2016). The increased usage of social media by the younger generation raises alarms regarding its adverse effects. Negative aspects include depression, online harassment, cyber-bulling, sexting, fatigue, stress, emotional suppression and lack of concentration.
Social Media and Online Sexual Abuse
Online abuse is another form of digital exploitation. Since anyone and everyone has free access to the internet, the online world has become a benefit for people who identify themselves as cyberbullies, cybercriminals and online predators. One of the most harmful aspects that the internet is used for is child exploitation. This mostly has to do with males and perversion. They try to abuse children’s innocence for their own sexual desires or otherwise there are men which try to play with girls’ minds (which are still relatively young mostly in their early teens). These kind of men tend to use social media platforms in order to seek teenage girls, manipulate with their minds and for example make them send nude photos of themselves, may be pressured for cybersex or make these girls meet them in a place where they are then sexually violated or raped.
Social Media and Digital Business Exploitation
Digital exploitation occurs also within the online business domain where they use social media platforms and websites as their online market platforms for advertisements. Over time businesses realised that they could use social media to their own advantage. Businesses first started using the sites for marketing techniques by placing ads on the websites to attract buyers. After they realised the success of the marketing technique, they concluded that they could set up pages on these sites to produce sales. The rapid increase in sales that occurred online astonished companies, therefore, they continued their advancements by creating even more customer services on websites like for example by creating instant feedback to help their consumers. Online businesses believed that this would make their consumers return in order to buy more items from their companies. However, nowadays, advertisements have become so widespread without any control whatsoever that businesses due to their excessive access on websites and social media platforms have become part of the digital exploitation domain.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were created for social communication and interaction but in recent times advertisements are dominating everywhere on every social media platform, on Messenger, on e-mails and on websites. SNS (social networking sites) were created as a friendly domain for people to interact with each other but market forces took over and today all we can see is digital exploitation that is occurring all over the internet and across social media platforms. The simple reason this has occurred is due to the fact that we as content creators post photos, videos, etc. This content creation by users has attracted marketers all over the globe by using data patterns and algorithms. This is how social media stopped being a platform that was created only for people to communicate and interact with one another into a huge marketing tool for obtaining target-specific goals. Most of the content that is being circulated is set to benefit their agenda but it has become an overload of digital exploitation. It can be said that there is an appreciation that marketing is all about spreading commercial awareness and promoting sale targets which helps us customers. On the other hand, there is less appreciation when it comes to our newsfeeds being littered with fake ads, offensive posts and fake news.
From the data that emerges from this research we can conclude that digital exploitation occurs in various forms all over the internet on websites especially on social media platforms. The following are the forms that pertain to digital exploitation: cyberbullying, cyberstalking, child exploitation, hacking, online fraud and negative use of advertisement overload. Digital exploitation is unavoidable to due the fact that the internet is freely accessible to everyone, however regulations pertaining to digital exploitation are set by ethical boundaries. What we need to keep in mind when it comes to digital exploitation is that the only ones that can defend ourselves are us as individuals by teaching ourselves (and parents should be the ones responsible for their children) how to use the accessible tools on SNS that can enable us to make our social media platforms as secure as possible in any way we deem fit.
Article References:
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