debate

The motion here today is that Social networking sites can actually cause more harm than good. We do not however deny the fact that in today’s society, these social networking sites do bring benefits to our daily life and also in the ever growing business industry. For example, it helps us connect with our loved ones who are halfway round the globe, or even a marketing platform for business developers with its vast consumer reach.

On the other hand, what we are affirming today is that despite it upsides, it can bring about MORE harm than good. It is an increasingly untenable fact, especially with the ease of access to the internet to virtually anyone, that these social media can have more negative effects than good.

This is Veronica, she will be speaking about the negative effects that it will bring to our health and financial fraud.

Secondly, Hema will elaborate further the effects on business risk and personal risk.

Thirdly, Nazrul will touch on the topic of productivity and cyber-criminal activities.

Last but not least, Joshua will briefly wrap up about this debate.

This is a 5-round debate, and we look forward to challenging our opponent in this controversial topic.

Social networking sites are websites that facilitate communication between 2 or more individuals. When we are communicating with 2 or more individuals, many fail to realise that we are essentially putting out information on ourselves out there on the World Wide Web. There are obviously a lot of privacy issues at hand when this happens. I'm certain that the opposition will argue that we have control of what we share over the internet, and we can prevent these issues from happening. Even if we are very careful on what information we share, we still cannot prevent all forms of privacy violation from happening. An article on The Guardian UK states that Facebook users are unwittingly revealing intimate secrets - including their sexual orientation, drug use or political beliefs. A research shows that just by looking at a user’s "Like" activities, they can predict information about the user. Researchers are able to predict a user's characteristics, race, religion, beliefs and political views with up to an accuracy rate of a shocking 88%.

Even if we do put in controls, data on these sites are still accessible to anyone, especially those with expertise in the IT arena. A student from the University of Georgia is suing her university of $2 million dollar over the misuse of her Facebook picture. The University have pulled out a picture of her in a bikini from her social media account for a district-wide presentation campaign raising awareness on what not to do on social media. Incidentally, this student has set her privacy settings to only allow her friends to view her pictures.

These examples here gives a fair indication of how our personal information can be accessed by almost anyone regardless of the measures that we took to protect our information. And if the opposition party would like to argue that it is the user’s decision NOT to put anything on the social sites, then I think that it would be considered as NOT USING these social media sites in any case, and as such, would be irrelevant to the topic of today.

Another issue that I would like to address today is Cyber Bullying. Cyber bullying is a very serious problem because it’s very harmful to younger generation psychologically and also physically. Most bullies don’t think about what they say or do have an enormous effect on others. A very famous case sparked the attention of many people to realize that cyber bullying does have a very negative effect. The case of Amanda Todd shocked the world as she posted a video before committing suicide. In the black & white video, Amanda tells the world her story of years of bullying.

I now would like to pass on to my fellow colleague who will go on to the second point.

Cyber Bullying
Amanda Todd http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/Girl-Commits-Suicide-After-Being-Cyber-Bullied/qIO2h9LBhUaCEB_3oQlbzg.cspx Jessica Laney http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/social-media-blamed-teen-suicide-article-1.1218550 Eden Wormer http://abcnews.go.com/US/bullied-teen-commits-suicide-posting-loves-haterz/story?id=15887174 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/11/facebook-users-reveal-intimate-secrets

http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/student-sues-school-district-for-using-her-facebook-bikini-picture-in-school-wide-presentation/

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/selfies-damage-relationships-study-article-1.1424830

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/internet-is-bad-for-kids-mental-health-237178.html

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/12/in-wake-of-teen-suicides-ask-fm-faces-a-myspace-problem/

Physical effect
Back problem.

Keep people apart, lack of human contact

Privacy risk
They can create multiple accounts – can predict information

Business risk