Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues of Social Media for Children

This essay delves into the complex landscape of social media's impact on children, examining a range of interconnected issues. It begins by highlighting the importance of information systems and their role in social media platforms, which are widely accessed by young users. The essay explores the ethical implications, such as privacy violations, cyberstalking, and misuse of personal data, emphasizing the vulnerability of children online and the need for parental consent and data protection. It then addresses social issues, including cyberbullying, mental health impacts, and the role of algorithms in filtering content. Legal aspects are also considered, focusing on data protection laws, human rights, and the misuse of children's information. Cultural impacts, such as self-comparison and negative self-perception, are also discussed. Finally, the essay suggests mitigation techniques, including encryption, content filtering, parental awareness programs, and regular surveys, to create a safer and more positive online environment for children. The conclusion reinforces the need for proactive measures from governments, parents, and social media platforms to protect children from the potential harms associated with social media use.

Running head: ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHILDREN
ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHILDREN
Name of the student:
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1ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHILDREN
Introduction:
Information systems are extremely important are and are being used widely in most of the
organizations in today’s world. They help in automating processes and making business
operations much faster and efficient. They are also being used in social media. These platforms
are being used and accessed by the consumers including the children. Children below the age of
14 use social media like Facebook, twitter, instagram and that in turn have adverse effects on
their way of thinking and the society (Winpenny, Marteau and Nolte 2013).
Ethical issues of information systems and its impacts on the children:
Children below the age of 14 use social sites like Facebook are victimized in a number of
ways. Firstly, they do not have the consent of their parents to open a Facebook profile and they
end up being stalked by other Facebook users (Boyd 2014). They often upload their pictures on
Facebook or other sites and those pictures are illegally downloaded and misused even without
the knowledge of the children (Laurini 2014). Children are considered vulnerable and
incompetent when it come sot usage of social media since the hackers often steal the personal
data that the children upload on the social sites and misuse such data. Hackers can even breach
the security of the home premises of the child by hacking the home network (Dijck 2013). This
way they can monitor and stalk the child a well as the other activities that happen in the
household premises, which in turn can traumatize the children upon discovery. Some of the
ethical principles that the users of information systems should be aware of are: To be respectful
towards others, treating everyone equally, keeping promise that has been made, respecting others
Respect the property of others and being honest and truthful. Some of the basic human rights that

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the children are also entitled to are recognizing the dignity of the children, which even they have
a right to have a right to have. Even they have right to liberty to live in their own way and
deserve security for anything they post on social media. It is their freedom to choose the way
they want to live and their privacy is their right. They should have freedom of thought, religion
as well as conscience. They should also have right to express their opinions (Quinn 2015). The
hackers also misuse the privacy of the information shared by the children from these mobile
devices like their smartphones or computers. Kantianism states that our ethics are defined by us
and we judge something as good or bad based on whether everyone around us are doing it. For
example if everyone started breaking promises it would by no means start meaning that breaking
promises is an ethically correct practice.
Social issues of information systems and its impacts on children:
Many children often feel like expressing their views and seek guidance about a particular
topic which they post on social media but hackers and other users often take advantage of that
and misuse the information that are provided by the children (ACM SIGCAS 2018). For
instance, recently some of the children form the junior team of NFL posted about the racism they
face in the process of team selection for the school championships (Strasburger et al. 2013).
Children often tend to be mentally traumatized or victimized by the different comments and
reactions of negative feelings and defamation that are posted on their social networking profiles.
This again is a drawback of the information system in the backend. There should be better
algorithms that the software developers should come up with that should be able to filter the
comments posted by random users on Facebook before making them actually live to the users
(Rainer et al. 2013).

3ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHILDREN
Consequentialism, which is an adverse social issue associated with information systems
states are mainly about the consequences rather than the actions themselves. For example
stealing is traditionally an ethically incorrect practice and same situation is related in this case.
The stalkers or unauthorized users can use the publically available information for harassing or
personal benefits. However, consequentialism states that it is not a bad practice, provided it is
done for the good. What “good” exactly means here is again defined by utilitarianism (another
kinds of consequentialism). Utilitarian theory states that when a large number of people can be
benefited from stealing for from any other ethically incorrect practice, then the practice is no
longer ethically incorrect. Rather it is a good deed for the society. For instance, when a country is
starving during a famine, it is not ethically incorrect to steal food from a warehouse or storeroom
full of food to distribute among the poor.
Legal issues of information systems and its impacts on children:
The young children often face legal issues related to disclosure of their personal
information that they post on the social sites and breach of their privacy. The hackers often ask
for ransom amounts of money, which is illegal. Children are unaware of the consequences of
posting information on the social networking sites and in turn makes their own pictures and other
information vulnerable to be accessed by the hackers. This in turn becomes a concern for the
parents as well and should be addressed by the UK data protection act as well as the computers
misuse act. The UK data protection act is designed for protection of personal data that the
computers or even the systems of paper filings store. The protection directive of EU was enacted
by this act. The algorithms to store data should be so designed so that more stringent data
security policies are applied on the social profiles of the teenager and many features should be
blocked that are inappropriate for the children to use on the sites. Presently the social networking

4ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHILDREN
sites are so designed such that the children have access to all the features of the social sites as the
adults (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta, 2016). It is also the fundamental human right of the
children to use the social sites the way they want provided it is under the supervision of their
parent. Any misuse of their innocent or ignorance by the hackers should be strictly dealt by the
human rights acts, which says that the offenders shall be strictly punished in case of violating the
human rights of the children. Children may also often post their own pictures in the internet of
occasions such as visiting orphanages or old age homes in order to spread a noble message to
everyone on the social media. They may share their own personal details for others to contact
them in case others want to volunteer in any social activities for which the children have been
selected as the point of contact by the schools or institutions. Hackers also often take advantage
of their innocence, steal their pictures as well as personal details, and take advantage of their
innocent. This is a strictly legally as well as ethically incorrect act and should be strictly dealt
with (Duquenoy et al. 2005).
Cultural issues of information systems and its impacts on children:
There are cultural issues that also need to be addressed. It has been reported in a recent
study that most of the children who are addicted to social media such as Facebook or snap chat
tend to be more self-conscious since they constantly keep comparing themselves to the better
lifestyles of the celebrities who also keep posting on the social networking platforms (ACM
Digital Library 2018). They tend to suffer from a negative complexity, which is unnecessary at
such a young age, and their mind seems to be filled with negative thoughts which adversely
affects the society and the culture that prevails in the homes (Ethical, legal and professional
issues in computing 2018).

5ISSUES IN SOCIAL MEDIA FOR CHILDREN
Mitigation techniques to be implemented by professionals:
These professionals should mandatorily abide by the BSC code of conduct should
implement encryption technologies in the social sites and more advanced filters in the sites so
that not all contents that are visible to the adult users should be visible to the users who are less
than 14 years of age. A rule should also be imposed regarding accessing the information on the
social sites and posting contents that should be filtered in the back end depending upon if it is
being uploaded by a child or an adult, before finally making it live on the sites (Stairs and
Reynolds 2013).
The social issues can be taken care by keeping the parents as well as the other adult users
of the social sites well informed about the negative impacts that the social media can have on
their children. The governing bodies should conduct such awareness programs and campaigns
regularly. This will help the parents know what their children actually do on the social sites and
they will consider preventing their children from using the social media in a negative way
(Mazurek and Wenstrup 2013). Regular surveys should be sent to the children regarding how
social media can be used in a positive way and for learning purposes instead of showing
advertisements on entertainment and games that children generally tend to get more attracted to.
Back end developers should be more cautious about designing these social sites.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded from the above report that even though information
systems are extremely important in today’s world there are many disadvantages for it as well.
Social media is extremely vulnerable for the children and even though they might have clear
intensions and honest reasons at times, hackers often target their innocence using the advanced

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hacking tools. This must be strictly addressed by the government and parents should be careful in
monitoring the activities of their children to ensure a safer environment for them.

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References:
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