Casual Communications, Serious Consequences

Today, people are encouraged to reveal all kinds of data about themselves online. Once information is shared online or on social media, it becomes part of a person’s digital footprint. Unfortunately, if this information lands in the wrong hands, it can compromise one’s personal safety, finances, or mental health. Communication in the digital world should be speedy, interesting, and fun, but it should not result in the exposure of sensitive information. People should think ahead and proceed with caution in order to protect their information and safety.

Profile Dangers

On social networking sites, people can post art, poetry, songs, photos, updates, and—most revealing of all—personal profiles. Many sites give people an introductory page on which to describe themselves and their interests. Young people must be extremely careful about what they share on this page. Full names, birth dates, names of siblings, parents’ and grandparents’ names, and home addresses—this is all information that should not end up in a profile. Giving out this information makes it easy for identity theft to occur. In addition, young people should not reveal any information about their daily routines and schedules, such as which school they attend, which school bus they take, or where they go after school. This type of information can be used to target someone for stalking, bullying, and other forms of harassment.

Personal profile information may be intended for close friends only, but even if you choose to share your profile only with friends, hackers are not deterred. They can evade privacy walls by accessing sites through back doors or using online software tools like Grabify. The more personal information you include in a profile, the more ammunition a hacker, doxxer, or identity thief has to exploit you. For instance, a hacker can contact you, claiming to be a friend of a friend, based on information you posted about yourself, including your school name, class schedule, and after-school activities. The hacker might try to gain your trust and then ask you to compare Social Security numbers or reveal other sensitive information.

Information can leak out more easily than you may think. And once this information is viewed, it can be used to piece together your life story.

Profile Tips

To create a safer social networking profile, and one that will protect your digital footprint, try the following tips:

• Use the site’s privacy settings to share information only with friends.

• Agree to be friends only with people you know personally offline. Don’t give strangers access to your profile.

• Keep your location vague.

• Choose photos selectively. Don’t post photos that show you or your friends violating school or family rules or breaking local laws.

Guarding Against Cybercrooks

Cybercrime is an umbrella term that encompasses hacking, ransomware, malware, phishing scams, and a variety of other malicious online activities. As we’ve moved further into the age of the Internet and social media, cybercrime and its associated costs have unfortunately become a significant part of daily life. And as cybercrime incidents and methods have proliferated, law enforcement and IT security professionals have had trouble keeping up. According to a 2021 report from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), cybercrime complaints increased nearly 70 percent from 2020 to 2021 and the monetary losses associated with cybercrime in the U.S. in 2021 exceeded $4.1 billion.

But the reality is that cybercriminals can often gain access to people’s personal information without the aid of phishing scams or hacking into email accounts. Social media platforms encourage users to acquire as many friends and followers as possible, making the whole social networking experience a popularity contest. People will often give access to so-called “friends” they do not know, revealing private information—including posts and photos—to total strangers. One way to avoid this is to give access only to people you know in real life. Even then, it is still advisable to limit the information you put on the site. It is best not to post anything that could ever harm or embarrass you.

In addition, never exchange passwords with a friend. Passwords should be shared only with a parent or guardian. Be helpful to friends by not posting their private information on your site, and ask them to do the same in return. With digital devices providing such a free flow of information, it is important to be respectful of others’ privacy.

A Tattered Twitter

As more digital devices are invented, everyone’s digital footprint grows larger. New worlds of communication are created. With each of these new conveniences come new responsibilities, risks, and potential digital missteps. Unfortunately, many people do not anticipate these new risks until it is too late.

A Mesa, Arizona, man believes that his tweeting during a vacation might have tipped off burglars who wanted to rob his house. Using Twitter, he gave some two thousand followers real-time updates on his road trip. When he arrived back in Mesa, his home had been burglarized. Though there was no proof that tweeting played a role in the robbery, the victim was very suspicious. He owned an online video business and only his video-editing equipment was stolen. The robbers did not make off with any other consumer electronics devices in the home.

Digital Exploitation and Sexting

© Learning ZoneXpress View Transcript Hide Transcript

Don’t forward private messages or photos, especially compromising photos of others or intimate photos of yourself. In some schools, guys collect these like they’re baseball cards. Is that what you want to be, a commodity? No matter how in love you may be, sexting is not a good idea. What if that photo gets shared, even accidentally? How will you feel? The damage caused by sexting can go beyond possible public humiliation. It can become a law-enforcement issue if either one of you is underage. The only way to make sure your photos don’t get shared is to not take them.

There is never a good reason for anyone, especially someone who cares about you, to ask you to send explicit photos of yourself online or via a cell phone. Never consider complying with such a request. Sending suggestive pictures as a joke or as a way of flirting is dangerous. The photos remain online forever, and you have no control over how they are used.

Sexting, the transmission of nude or sexually explicit photos via texting, is an abuse of digital communications. Law enforcement is cracking down heavily on the practice. Those who participate in it are actually committing a crime. People who send these photos can be charged with distributing pornography. Those who receive them can be charged with possession of pornography. If people in the photos are under eighteen years old, sexting constitutes child pornography and carries even more serious penalties.

Teenagers in several states, including New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, have been charged with serious crimes stemming from sexting. Sexting can result in a criminal record, get a person labeled as a sexual predator, and get someone expelled from college or fired from a job. In 2013, a sexting scandal at a New Jersey high school resulted in embarrassment for some students—and possible child pornography charges for others. After two female students sent explicit photos using Snapchat, the private images went public. Though Snapchat deletes photo messages after a few seconds, the recipients copied the images and shared them on Instagram. Police warned that any students who keep the photos can be charged under child pornography laws. In 2018, a fourteen-year-old girl was charged with felony dissemination of child pornography after she used Snapchat to send an explicit selfie to a boy she liked. He took a screenshot and sent it to other people without her permission. Though the charges were dropped, if convicted she faced up to seven years in jail and a $10,000 fine, and would appear on the sex offender registry for the next ten years. The other teens could have also faced criminal charges for distributing obscene material involving a minor. Anyone who uses digital communications should be concerned about sexting or any transmission of suggestive material. It violates a person’s privacy and puts people at risk.

Sexting can also be demeaning and exposes people to ridicule, harassment, and bullying. In 2008, high school senior Jessica Logan, who lived in the Cincinnati area, committed suicide after an ex-boyfriend sent a nude picture of her to his friends in seven area high schools. And in 2019, a sixteen-year-old boy named Channing Smith committed suicide after intimate messages he had exchanged with another boy were posted on Instagram. The embarrassment and hurt associated with having their intimate lives exposed online was too painful for these young people to handle.

Despite pressure from law enforcement and a growing awareness of the risks, sexting has become increasingly common among both adults and teens. According to a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics, at least 25 percent of teens have received sexually explicit messages via text, DM, Snapchat, or other apps. Even more concerning, the study suggests that nearly 10 percent of teens have had their sexts forwarded to people other than the intended recipient without their consent.

Overall, the most valuable tool in the digital world is good judgment. Managing a digital footprint takes some work and a measure of common sense. There is a great deal that can be done to shape the content of a digital footprint. Much of the information that people wish was not publicly displayed online often winds up there because they posted it themselves.