Issues of Cyber Stalking on Social Media: Solcial’s Role in Curbing the Menace.

In 2016, Reports published by the Data & Society Research Institute found that of all national representative samples of 3,002 American Internet users surveyed, 8% had been stalked.

Similarly, 7% out of 4,248 American adults surveyed by the Pew Research centre in 2017, self-reported as cyberstalking victims.

With the advent of social media, came the frequent cases of cyber stalking — a crime in which an individual (victim) is being stalked with their personal information that is left open to those who are able to have access to them.

These information could be anything that points back to you; a picture, a location, an e-mail instant message, messages posted to discussion groups or forums, etc.

Social media offers little levels of anonymity for their users and even the information we provide them that we think should be for them only turns out to be leaving tracks right back to us.

Cyberstalking can be relatable to a form of cyberbullying which are all classified collectively as cybercrime alongside with cybersquatting and cyber terrorism, all of which are Internet-related crimes especially prevalent on social media.

Cyber stalking could take different forms, which could be slender, defamation, false accusation, trolling and outright threats. The most common form of cyberstalking is past partners stalking their ex or current partners, especially on social media.

London crime figures show that 1400 cases of stalking had been reported in 2018. 53% out of 100 of these cyber stalkers, at some point, had previous knowledge of the victim.

The Data And Society Research Institute And Centre For Public Health Research in its findings also published that women between the ages of 18 to 24 seemed most vulnerable to cyber stalking with threat bordering on physical and sexual harassment.

The Vulnerability of the Social Media Structure As Against Cyberstalking

A cyberstalker’s mode of operation follows the way social media is designed, giving other users a good access to who the owner of an account is by just a click.

In most cases, a mere infatuation can build into a full-bodied obsession, leading to the stalker having to trail every steps and tracks their victims leave on their social media. These victims are not aware, but they are being monitored and followed silently. Then gradually, they may start noticing the signs

Cyberstalkers often start small in the early stages, they may send few strange or unpleasant messages to their victims and overtime they sustain this messages and increases its severity in terms of intimidation and threats.

Example

In August 2016, a woman, Kassandra Cruz, was sentenced to 22 months in jail for the crime of cyberstalking.

Following the build up of events, Cruz had become fixated with her victim (name withheld) on an X-rated site in 2015 and trailed her victim into her social media accounts where she continuously stalked her victim, taking on a male alias “Giovanni” to send requests to the accounts which were innocently accepted.

When Giovanni’s incessant stalkish behavior became noticable and adamant with consistent likes and comments, her victim saw through it and blocked her, but this only fuelled Cruz’s angst which led to barrage of malicious texts, phone calls, and social media posts tagging her.

The recordings which had the perpetrator fixated were that of the victims of 10 years back as an 18 years old teen, fresh out of high school and looking for ways to earn. The victim had long left that path and thought all was forgotten. However, the site hadn’t forgotten and so was her prey who was ready to haunt her with it.

Cruz used the one thing her victim had thought she had long left behind to persistently and violently harrass, torment, threaten, and blackmail her till it became unbearable.

As seen in the victim’s case above, social media hardly protects her privacy. A video clip of 10 years can still be sourced and found, your tract record on social media can still be located and tracked, and personal information about you can be collected and used to stalk and bully you.

In summary, cyberstalkers perpetrate their act by using either few or all of the means listed below

• Tracking and monitoring their victims through their social media.
• Gaining access to their victims private informations.
• Intimidating, frightening, controlling, and blackmailing of victims.

Gathering victims information in a bid to steal their identity or perpetrate real world crimes.

It all starts from the media and the weak structure of these networks only encourage more of these menace. But there’s a solution to this problem and in one word, it is “Solcial”.

Solcial’s Solution To Cyberstalking

Solcial is the future of social media, it is built on web3 with special attention to user suitability and protection.

Cyberstalking has been able to thrive on regular social media platforms due to the inability of these platforms to provide necessary protection to users especially in the area of their privacy.

Solcial doesn’t rely on gateways or servers and doesn’t also store users information which makes it difficult for cyber stalkers to operate. The private post option available on Solcial makes it possible to screen out possible cyber stalkers.

Your private information and content are adequately protected on Solcial. The Web3 social network is decentralized and prevents the same copies of content from being in existence. How?

Every content on Solcial exists as a unique entry entered on the chain with a unique ID number that is easily trackable on the Solcial network, so there can’t be a duplicate of it. Only it creator is a sole owner unless he moves it to another user who become the rightful and sole owner.

Solcial also prohibits screen shots and screen records of pictures, video, messages in order to prevent them from being used against their creators in the future.

Solcial breathes on you the safety and privacy you truly need for your original works and disbands the thoughts of the illusion of privacy and we feel on Web2 social media. It is phenomenal what decentralization can achieve!

To learn more about the future of social media “Solcial”, join its increasing network of users:

Website: https://solcial.io

Blog: http://blog.solcial.io/

Telegram: https://t.me/solcial

Discord: https://discord.gg/solcial

Twitter: https://twitter.com/solcialofficia

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/solcial

Email: hello@solcial.io