Is online social networking a disaster-in-waiting?

Social networking essentially operates by social capital, the person-to-person social equivalent of credit-worthiness. Social capital is acquired, both in cyberspace and real life, over a period of reliable and trustworthy conduct. Basically, social capital is accumulated trust. In cyberspace, which is notoriously difficult to police, emphasis on social capital is a reasonably effective way of keeping the peace while maintaining freedom of information. This system of online community policing is the method used on sites such as e-bay (where buyers and sellers rate one another, thereby contributing towards their social capital). It is increasing being used on many other sites, for example on you-tube, users are encouraged to report postings that potentially violate copyright laws. Because of its huge potential for minimizing cost while at the same time maximizing information dissemination, social networking is obviously here to stay. It is difficult to envisage a future for business and an increasingly internet-savvy and technology-savvy society without it.

That said, online social networking possesses massive potentials for disaster. The commonest and greatest threat is cyber crime. Identity theft and cyber espionage mean that no individual or organization serious about internet security will be comfortable with conducting sensitive business on a social networking site. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, these sites do not require a validation of identity or in fact any background check of any sort to become a member, and are therefore very easily infiltrated. Thus, in the interest of safety, it is often wise to regard as provisional (at best) the identities of people not known outside of cyberspace. Furthermore, because of the “linked” nature of these sites (i.e, one person is linked to tens, hundreds or thousands of others, with access to many of their personal details), it is extremely feasible that when the security of one member of this linked group is compromised, the rest are endangered. In addition, some of these sites possess an abundance of links to a variety of external applications (online tests, games, quizzes), many of which are created by individuals with no security check, and which demand access to personal details. The “free” nature of these applications makes them a very attractive target for an anonymous cyber criminal to attack ignorant users.

One of the hitherto attractive features of online social networking is the ease of entry and exit. The disadvantages of the ease of entry are well known. The ease of exit (which I will term “cyberfading” for the purpose of this discussion) means that at any time, a user of a networking site could delete their account, together with all of their personal details.

The utility of internet social network can be huge, much more than it already is. However, regardless of all the hype surrounding its usage, would these inherent security issues lead to its collapse in the foreseeable future?