Essay Sample on Exploring Cybercrime on Social Media

Introduction

The use of social media has been on the increase in recent years and provides a productive ground for people seeking to commit cybercrimes. Committing a cybercrime is an easy target since it only requires a computer, internet connection, and criminal objective. An analysis of the use of social media reveals that there are traces of cybercrime. It occurs in the form of hacking tools and services being advertised to either be downloaded or deployed. Invitations can also be made to be a part of digital currency scams as well as the botnots for hire. It is also relevant to note that in most cases, social media cyber-crime is usually concealed and can occur in the form of malware, for instance. Committing a crime on social media is also easy since it is easy to share and pass on any kind of information, and this includes malware. Social and cyber media use has led to the organization of protests and activism that have a different forms of effect on the society and country.

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Political

The internet has been observed to play an important role in activism. There is an extension of current work on the movement civilizations that demonstrated that new media should be vital, as the older media has been to the movement society trends. The growth of the older mass media has thus stimulated the society's trends due to the aspect of "how to" of protest approaches. They have then been dispersed extensively and more efficiently through visual media. It is also relevant to note that the 'normal citizens are no longer unreceptive customers of the media. They are also learning how to have an impact on media coverage. It is also relevant to note that the internet empowers the "how to" of protest and particular methods of protesting to be dispersed more extensively as compared to the standard media. As such, there has been a high rise in political and cultural contests online. Also, there are instances online demonstrating "how to" participate in antagonistic politics, and they have a broad reach. The internet has thus enabled the smooth transfer of messages. Some of the messages passed across may be detrimental, leading to psychological maltreatment of the targets. Fighting political enemies has further been promoted by the use of the internet that also enables people to disguise themselves under a fake identity. Activists have had to study how to involve the mass media to pass their communication to wider audiences while at the same time, evading or diminishing the gate-keeping function of the mass media (Earl and Kimport 2009).

Exploration can also be conducted on the rise of universal movement practices that has been boosted by the use of the internet. The methods include civic engagement, online activism, and collective action, which have relevant transformations in protest subtleties when they can be systematized and partaken in online. There has also been an emphasis on low production and participation costs in the entrenched forms of protest that have been directed online. A reduction in the prices of production has revealed that people are encouraged to organize based on new issues. Since the internet gives people comprehensive access to the "know how" of protest, then the content of "how to" sites and those that mechanize contribution in individual approaches is not connected to a limited site of claims (Earl et al. 2010). Besides, there is no indication issued to users that the utilization of these forms to press their assertions which includes the non-political ones would be unsuitable. The initial proof of online petitioning over the cultural products shows that it is likely that some of the 'new issues' will be less political. The result is that this produces the application of established protest strategies to address matters such as whether a consequence should follow a movie (Earl and Kimport 2009).

The above analysis has shown that people have the liberty to participate in different forms of protests online, and some of them may be quite detrimental to other parties. With low costs of producing and even participating in the online protests, people are likely to alter the message to suit their needs. In some cases, this might be detrimental to the target audience. When there is such a situation, it is relevant to have some form of control of the type of protest that people engage in and the content as well (Granovetter, 2001).

Activism

The concept of activism is often comprehended to be a resistant exercise. It is battling or pushing back in contradiction of supremacy to incite transformation. As such, the recent dialogue of participating culture in the new media universe and the more extended antiquity of fan involvement in pop culture have seemed to suggest a potential conflict in the term 'fan activism.' On the other hand, more modern scholarship, especially in the media and fan trainings, has insisted on the model of involvement. Participatory culture has then been characterized as encouraging collaborative procedures that are further enabled through horizontal modes of communication (Brough and Shresthova 2011). As such, when one thinks based on this line, horizontal collaboration can promote acute engagement with popular culture since it transfers subjects from the inert consumers to dynamic contestants who make decisions that impact their fan societies. In some circumstances, the influence is in the content worlds where they are engaged (Aday et al. 2010).

The above body of works has then been criticized for underemphasizing structural disparities in the partisan economy of the showbiz and broadcastings industries. It has also been critiqued for understating and concealing resistance forms directed at altering the power relations more profoundly. Moreover, recent cultural studies on the concept of commodity activism have presented some fundamental understandings. An instance is where Kanye West's music video summonsing human rights abuses in the global trade was analyzed. It was also tracing the tensions of this activist position emerging from a hip-hop celebrity whose victory and creative style has involved a bling culture (Kligler-Vilenchik and Thorson 2015). As such, all these have been promoted by the use of social media.

There is a continuing relevance of the interaction between social and program media to obtain mass prominence and have an impact on public opinion. It has been depicted by contemporary instances of activism that have been organized in large part through the user-generated content platforms and social systems. The user-generated material in the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring movements offer relevant information for the national and global broadcasters. In turn, this was crucial to the reflectiveness and range of the engagements and the successive changes in the public treatise. The content generated by the Occupy movement members has frequently remixed pop culture tropes. Although the pop culture programs may not always partake a function in such mobilizations, they can assist in drawing responsiveness to the campaigns or activities and further stimulate collective identity formation around the communal social denotations (Earl and Kimport 2009). Thus, fan culture offers an antiquity of assumption and critical commitment with pop culture that could also enlighten more extensive activist policies toward increased reflectivity and combined foundation of individuality (Brough and Shresthova 2011).

Conventionally, activism is comprehended to be a planned activity to challenge the existing hegemonies and further aggravate either social or political transformation. The aspect of fan activism has, however, been mostly linked with dynamic fans who are petitioning for an outcome related to content such as a program staying on the air, or representation of sexual or racial minorities. It may also entail the promotion of social themes in the content of programs (Kelly Garrett 2006). As such, the content of these elements being lobbied may be positive or negative and bound to affect the public once they gain access to this information. The message may further be advocating for the undertaking of an adverse activity towards a particular group and may be promoted through the use of social and cyber media. For instance, the message may be targeted towards a specific group such as homosexuals. It may depict that they are attacked on specific social media platforms, an aspect that goes against the element of promoting freedom of sexual orientation (Earl et al. 2010).

Protests can also occur online, whereby the internet is employed to organize campaigns or social movements. In this case, all the elements of organizing occur virtually. The organizing centers of dispute movements or campaigns entail blogs and websites instead of churches or community centers. An instance is where the strategic voting movement emerged and was fully maintained online. Through proper expertise, capability, premonition, and design, this form of activism can be an opportunity to issue political threats (Lenhardt 2016). As such, it can be controlled by filtering and blocking other websites in an area such as Facebook and Twitter. However, this can be successful when there is a robust domestic internet and telecommunications industry for users to enjoy a wide variety of social media platforms that are managed locally (Ortiz and Ostertag 2014). Also, in this way, political threats from, for instance, foreign nations will not be accessed by domestic users.

Online activism can be quite powerful when, for instance, the government is being targeted. Activists can use social media to develop national movements for universal political modification. They can further use social media platforms to issue insulting comments and manipulate the people to revolt against the government (Earl and Kimport 2009).

Collective Action

The capability for people and groups to organize, protest, or even use other forms of collective action may be affected by the new media. An instance of collective action is the protests in Iran that were correctly and wrongly drive by the new media. Social media may reduce the costs of transactions for organizing collective action through the facilitation of communication and synchronization across the social and physical space. Besides, social media has a networked nature that may undermine categorized, top-down activities and create new types of 'flat' social engagements. Moreover, it may alter the political prospect organization by broadcasting differences among the governing elite, generating communication outlines for encounters to engage sections of the elite in new conducts or through drawing global responsiveness to local issues (Granovetter 2001). Hence, social media use, in this case, can shape the way communication between the rulers and people occur, which might not be too practical for all parties.

It is also necessary to note that social movements are usually generated and molded by small statistics of activists who are motivated and establish an instance for the wider public. Twitter and other social media platforms have been purported to play an indirect function through the communication of information to and among leaders. These elites then distributed the information more extensively among the overall population through networks, online and offline. The social movements may contain a positive or negative form of identity or data and thus shape the outcomes (Aday et al. 2010).