Group Members: Alex Shen, Justin Hsiung, Emma Struthers
Hi everyone — guess who’s back, back again (to talk about social media safety)!
The world is evolving quickly, with social media and an online presence filling our lives. This means that criminals are also turning to social media/the “interwebs” too. Most people my age and older remember the lessons drilled into us when all of this first started, of not talking to strangers online (we still did, sorry mom/dad!), and all the (traumatizing) grooming/kidnapping/pedophilia videos we watched. Nowadays, with the rise of the influencers and accountability videos, it seems everyone’s whole lives can be documented on social media. Of course there are parts of people’s lives we don’t get shown, but anything could be posted anytime.
A recent example of someone being a little too transparent on social media is the model/influencer/chef/etc. Chrissy Teigen bullying drama. Chrissy Teigen has been hailed as a feminist and as a wonderfully honest and open person online. Then, some lesser-known celebs/people pulled out the receipts of her bullying past, and her world essentially fell apart.
More examples of this kind of thing is all the “Karen” videos surfacing, of women/men (mostly white) discriminating against POC and getting caught doing it. You then see stories later of them losing their jobs.
Now, these are examples of not-controlled-by-yourself situations. A (very well-known) experience was when Kim Kardashian was robbed in her Paris hotel room. If you read in-depth articles about the situation, Kim K herself says that the perpetrators probably tracked her through social media, as she said that she had posted that she was “home alone” while her sister/friend went out.
There are some pro’s of being transparent online! If you are trying to become a successful influencer, being honest (to a certain degree) makes you more relatable to your viewers, and therefore more popular (for example, I follow Deanna on TikTok because of this). She basically blogs most of what happens to her everyday, and is open about mishaps or moments she isn’t ‘perfect’.
