Use of social networking

The use of social networking sites has become an important way of connecting with people. Now that we have advanced technologies that enables us to connect to the internet like mobile broadband, as long as we have our laptops with us, we can access social networking sites almost everywhere.

Social networking sites enable us to connect with almost everybody(who has an account on that network site), whether it is your friends, colleagues, business associates, or even people you know from overseas. As for one of the popular networking sites(especially among youngsters), Facebook, it allows us to connect to almost anyone, anywhere. You just have to post a message on your “wall” and all your “Friends” that you have added on Facebook can view it. The use of Facebook is especially efficient if you want to chat with an overseas friend, Facebook can come in especially useful.

Even some politicians use social networking sites like Facebook to garner supports of the citizens. For example, the current President of the United States, Obama, used Facebook as a tool to connect with the United States citizens. Along with his charisma, he managed to win the majority votes from the people and won the presidential elections. Some other politicians who use Facebook include George Yeo and Khaw Boon Wan.

However, Facebook can also be used by other people or organisations for the wrong purposes. For example, some protestors in the recent Egypt revolt made used of Facebook to both communicate with fellow protestors and to get people to support their protests. Some Egyptians even got some tips from Tunis protestors that onion could be used as tear bombs against the pro-government rioters. The explains how the Egyptian protestors were successful in overthrowing their ex-president, Murabak.

Facebook can also be a tool for terrorists to connect with each other and plot attacks. However, doing so on Facebook is not a very good platform for the planning of terrorist attacks. Things posted up on the internet, no matter how “secure” they are, can be seen by anyone who manages to “hack” the code to the website. Plans for a terrorist attack have to be kept secret to those within the “operation”. Therefore, if the terrorists really do their plotting on the social networking sites, it would not be very wise as undercovers could foil their plans if they manage to view the plans of the terrorists.