Week 5 EOC: Challenges with modern internet

1. Identity theft

2. Catfishing

3. Privacy 

These are some of the legal challenges that we might face in this modern age where we are surrounded by technology and social media. With how advance things have come to be, it is very easy to face these problems and anyone can face them, especially if they aren't cautious. 


I can imagine that identity theft would be an issue that people would face if they are involved with any kind of social media website. As long as you have personal information and pictures on your website, anyone can easily steal that information and pose as you. They can post things on behalf of you and pretend to be you, which can really make a mess of things, and possibly cause a lot of trouble. “Kathleen Winn, director of the Community Outreach & Education Division in the Arizona Attorney General’s Office, said software that reveals a person’s location and tagging others in photos can also put friends and family at risk for identity theft. Winn recommended that people be discreet about social-media postings and to not friend strangers.” (source) This is why people on social media sites need to be very careful about their privacy setting and what they post. Some people chose not to participate in social media because of this reason.

Catfishing is another major issue with the modern internet and it has become more recognized within the recent years. Catfishing is also pretending to be someone else but the term is used for people who pretend to be someone else while trying to find “romance” online. Often times, sexual predators catfish, in order to talk to young girls or boys online. This is where it becomes an issue because these young kids who are surrounded by technology think it is okay to talk to strangers online and they think that they might be talking to someone their age but in real life they are being targeted by sexual predators. “Chris Duque, a former Police Detective who has been studying online predators for over thirty years, has created false personas to lure these types of suspects."It's easy to be duped online, very easy," Duque said. "The thing with the Internet is your five senses are somewhat limited and what you see online may not be what you're really going to get."(source)

“When it comes to technology, courts and legal scholars can run into some thorny issues. For instance, when does someone have a right to film you and put those images online? And what can you do about it once those images are up there?” (source) The question that is asked here leads to a good point. With what the technology and social media world has come to, it is difficult to protect your privacy. If you’re on websites like face book, you’re feeding people information about yourself and people can use that against you and there is no sense of privacy left. Even if you’re not on Facebook, people can take pictures and videos of you and post them all over Facebook and there is really not much that you can do about it.