debate help topic:social networking sites should be permanently banned, i am with this topic?

[salman]

[Divya Chutani]

then firstly close your account on facebook if u have

[Stu147]

I'll suggest a couple of possible reasons for arguing that social networking websites should be banned:

Social networking sites bring privacy into the public doman. There are things about each of us that are best kept private and for good reason. We would generally reveal ourselves in the ways that we choose to those that we choose, except when it comes to the online world. It has been said that you can almost build up an entire profile of someone by their online habits. People are often naive about the dangers of identity theft, they stick to the same username from one site to the next, they post little snippets of information in various places without realising that each is like a piece of a jigsaw. If you find one common thread, such as a username, then it is relatively simple to find several pieces of one jigsaw, put them together, and you start to establish a comprehensive profile of that person. You might find out what they do for a living, the area in which they live, the names of their loved ones, their pets, their email address, their likes and dislikes, the list is endless. More and more people are becoming the victims of identity theft, if not for financial gain then for malicious purposes. Celebrities have had people pretend to be them on websites such as Twitter and Facebook, causing them a great deal of embarrassment. Everyday folk have been slandered, cyber bullied and impersonated and occasionally with tragic results.

Online social networking allows a portal into your world, and without the correct safeguards and basic common sense you can let all kinds of people in that you would never have wished to. Couple that with the fact that online social networking is most widely used by younger people and you have a great deal of risk involved. People can pretend to be anything they like in the online world, it is easy to copy a picture from a search engine, to invent a name, a personality, an entire lifestyle. Sociopaths and psychopaths are experts at this kind of psychological manipulation. Predators have a whole new way of seeking out victims amongst the naive and the vulnerable.

Putting aside the risks posed by external threats, there can be damage done simply by allowing those already in your life into your every thought and movement. Some people will post things on their status messages online that they would never generally air in public. One single questionable status can spiral into disputes, insecurity, broken relationships, broken friendships, it happens every day.

And then there is the issue of relationship break ups. It is generally agreed that the best way to get over someone is to separate from them for a time, so that you may grieve, heal and begin to find yourself again. In the online world that is becoming harder and harder. People are able to go to their ex-partner's Facebook page, see what they are doing, see who they are talking to, and it keeps the wound open. They don't heal, they become obsessed with that their ex is doing, they get cut to pieces when the ex's status goes from 'single' to 'in a relationship', they can't bring themselves to stop looking. It's like an online version of 'car crash television'. You know it will be horrible but you just can't look away. This is a problem that is more and more apparent in modern relationships where social networking is involved, and people are not healing in anywhere near the time that they once might have.

Online social networking can have great benefits amongst the wise, the experienced and the emotionally strong. However, not all of us are all of those things. We are human, we are flawed and we are vulnerable. Our privacy is our castle, it keeps us safe and secure. Online social networking is a threat to that castle.