1. Introduction and Contention
The social media has become a major part of the modern civilization. It is surely a defining factor that how integrated the human social interactions have become. Despite bringing the people together and virtually shrinking or removing all the distances among the people, the social media has brought about a variety of socio-political, legal, and moral challenges in the society.

2. Functions of Social Media
a. Social interaction
b. News and information dissemination
c. Business’s promotion
d. Shaping public opinion
e. Entertainment

3. Social Media Today
a. Over 62% of adults worldwide use social media
b. Top five countries with largest portion of population online
i. UK with over 53 million (85% of population)
ii. Germany with over 67 million (82% of population)
iii. France with over 52 million (80% of population)
iv. Japan 102 million (80% of population)
v. USA with over 244 million (79% of total population)
c. facebook is the largest social network with over 1.1 billion users worldwide
d. twitter is the world’s second largest social network with over 140 million active users
e. YouTube is the world’s largest video network with over more than 800 million news users every month

4. Benefits of Social Media
a. Freedom of expression
b. Free publicity
c. Promotion of entrepreneurship
d. Free and immediate communication
e. Online education
f. Integration of societies
i. Through promotion of culture, traditions, history, heritage and so on
g. Global harmony

5. Challenges of Social Media
a. Data protection and privacy
b. Decreasing reliability
c. Wider anonymity of the users
d. Misuse by the terrorist organizations (world security challenge)
e. Psychological cost of using social media
i. Perpetuation of loneliness (a research study: “Facebook Makes Us Sadder And Less Satisfied” at university of Michigan)
ii. Adverse impacts on relationships
f. Spread of ‘hate speech’
i. E.g. blasphemous video on YouTube last year

6. Dealing with the Social Media Challenges
a. Protection of privacy
i. Through technology
ii. Through legislation (local and international laws)
b. Proper management codes in business organizations
c. Intelligence surveillance
d. Reduction in the use of social networks – targeted at individuals
e. Public awareness campaigns on social media use

7. Conclusion


Everybody is requested to comment and suggest.

Jazaak-Allah