Cyberbullying and Privacy Issues in Social Media

Social media have exploded in influence in the past decade, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, along with weblogs and wikimedia. They reflect the dream of close and immediate contact with individuals worldwide, a form of personal broadcasting. These media have also served to collect massive amounts of personally identifiable information from citizens and consumers, often including information that has locational data.

This presentation provides a discussion of privacy-related issues involving social media and demonstrates specific approaches for privacy protection online.

Cyberbullying has become a widespread social problem as well as an immediate concern for academic institutions that want to integrate social media into classroom delivery systems. Privacy concerns are tightly coupled with cyberbullying, as the strategies through which cyberbullies can be identified often require close surveillance. This presentation projects future legislative trends as well as corporate approaches toward these issues.