Week 4 - Privacy Management on Social Media Sites

We are living in the world where most of our private life's details are becoming more public than ever. The people have been arguing that the privacy-is-dead nowadays. Instead of blaming themselves, the public blames the social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and My Space as one of the reason for this deteriorating situation. However, how far is the truth? Is Facebook and Twitter should be blame for it? Or is it the attitude or the ethics of the Netizen that should be examined instead? For me, "If there is no wind, there is no wave". So I believe everyone does have some hand in these current issues that have crash our privacy life in this virtual world.


Based on the article, Privacy Management on Social Media Sites by Mary Madden, it clearly shown that people around the age of 19 - 29 are the one who largely active in using the Social Media sites. This conclusion came be made as they are the group who are usually concern in pruning their friends list as well as having concern about the privacy of their virtual profile, which mean they have lots of friend and been using it frequently. Compared to other age level, which are already stable and know what to look when accepting a friend request, the age level of 19 - 29 can be considered as a stage where one searching for their identity by accepting a lot of friends request before cutting it down to their personal preferences. Apart from that, they also tend to regret some of their posts or comments which indicate that they usually did not thinking it through when posting something and did not realise that some of the post might implicate their life. Then again, as they grew older, they become wiser regarding to their post and comment on the social media site. On top of that, the research also claimed that women are the one who are more conscious on the important of privacy in social media sites compared to male. This is quite a relieve, since women have begun to understand the important of concealing their privacy life in order to keep themselves safe.


In Islam, privacy is given a high importance to the fundamental of human right. It does not only hold the regard of our own privacy but also the privacy of others. For example in the surah An-Nur, verse 27, Allah S.W.T command us to 'Do not enter any houses except your own homes unless you are sure of their occupants' consent', This show how importance privacy is in Islam. Allah S.W.T commands us not to disrupt others' privacy and we must certain that none of our action brings harms or problems to others. However, we can see nowadays, that privacy is no longer being practise and secret are being spread all over the social media sites, either with consent or not, it is a different story. Sometimes the secret itself is not even their own, and thus lead to miscommunication and fall out in relationship. What's more, we openly converse about other people mistake/ even though we did not have any right. We also sometime, ignorantly, telling others about our aib, and we even enjoy doing it. Thus, that's why we can see so many social illness happen nowadays because people no longer feel aib' from the sin that they had done. Rasulullah S.A.W (p.b.u.h) said that:


كل أمتي معافاة إلا المجاهرين. وإن من الإجهار أن يعمل العبد بالليل عملا، ثم يصبح قد ستره ربه، فيقول : يا فلان ! قد عملت
 (Izzah ,2011 )  البارحة كذا وكذا. وقد بات يستره ربه. فيبيت يستره ربه، ويصبح يكشف ستر الله عنه

"All of my people are given forgiveness by Allah S.W.T, except the people who are Mujahirah. Mujahirah, are people that did a practice (that dishonor) in the evening, then morning in a state at the time Allah S.W.T had closed her shame, she instead says: "O so and so, I've done it all last night and this act. 'While Allah S.W.T has sealed her shame at night, he revealed his aib for what Allah S.W.T has closed for him." (Hadith from Bukhari and Muslim)


The hadith clearly told us that we have to protect our dignity by concealing our aib. The people who are openly declare their aib is those who displeased Allah S.W.T Thus we must not reveal the private part of our life or people around us. That is why we have to use the social media sites accordingly to Islam teaching in order to make sure that we will not harm our life as well as our relationship with other people around us. I believe if everyone is using the social media sites ethically, none of the social illness cause by the social media sites such as suicide, flaming and etc will ever happen again. Wallahualam.
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Source:
Madden. M, (2012) Privacy Management on Social Media Sites, retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media/Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Privacy_management_on_social_media_sites_022412.pdf



Izzah, (2011) Jangan Buka Aib Orang, Jangan buka Aib sendiri , retrieved from http://izzahazfar.blogspot.com/2011/12/jangan-buka-aib-orang-jangan-buka-aib.html