So, Who's to Blame?

Watching Catfish gives us a rude awakening into the world that we call social media. It’s actually very scary. From Facebook to Instagram, or even professional sites like LinkedIn, it’s now so hard to tell who or what is real or not. Not to mention dating sites like Tinder or Zoosk where you are literally depending on a person’s profile to get to know them. But what no one is really asking is why it’s so easy to “catfish” someone. In a world that swears on privacy and individualism, it seems like everything we put out there to keep ourselves safe is exactly what leads us into a kind of danger.

Social media like Facebook and Instagram have always lead us to believe that our profile is strictly confidential. Only we have access to what is ours. But the more we watch TV and see shows like Catfish, the less true that seems to be. Of course we can always place our profiles on private, but your profile picture is always available. And then, if someone’s profile is private, how are you supposed to see their pictures and truly make sure it’s them? It seems like privacy settings kind of hold you back more than they help you. But we can’t really blame the sites themselves, can we?

Some people are so oblivious as to what they are actually putting on the internet and who can see it. When you upload a picture, you can tag who is in it and where it was taken. Instagram even offers maps that actually pinpoint that location. On Facebook, you can upload your birthday, telephone number, job, school, and even list your relatives. People… just because it’s offered doesn’t mean you should fill it out. Users voluntarily put all of their (what SHOULD be considered) personal information on the internet, which is nothing but a giant database, and get surprised when they are used as a catfish account. Let’s not even mention being able to screenshot or save someone else’s picture as your own. It’s all just way too easy.

So who should we really be questioning here? The internet, for making all of this data so readily available for ANYONE in the world? Social media platforms for even offering these fields to begin with? Or users, for not taking the time to think about and consider every. Single. Thing they put out there?