Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality are huge issues of new media today. These issues are usually interconnected with social networking sites than any other forms of new media. As such, Myspace and Facebook are targeted social networks with privacy and confidentiality concerns. People usually disclose and expose unnecessary information to the general public that of which can backfire against them. Because individuals have been carelessly revealing such information as their phone numbers, addresses, sibling names, birthdays, and many more, this revelation may lead to identity theft and harm the individual or their loved ones. Also, the exposure of certain information may lead to stalking, sexual harassment, and other types of potential attacks that can invade their privacy. Because new media is taking our identities and privacy to a new level, the community must be aware of the privacy settings and options that are available for them in order to manage their profile so that it remains exclusive only to their friends, families, and the people they know. There are other options to block others from seeing anything from your profile as well (including profile pictures) and the disabling of messaging and commenting on your profile page. In this way, information remains secured and confidential, and privacy is kept safe.