People want to influence information, which can be either benevolent or malevolent. Advertising and education aim to shape human behavior, for instance, encouraging healthier lifestyles and increased food consumption. Traditional media no longer holds a monopoly on communication; instead, the internet and social media enable widespread dissemination to anyone.

1. Are social medias safe?

Social media is a goldmine for scammers and identity thieves because people add their personal information to services, which makes the work for scammers much easier. More open information sharing has enabled cybercriminals and state actors to find novel ways to pry into people's lives. For example, Social Search allows to anyone to look people from different social medias. As a result, social media services are subject to many security threats. Social media spying often precedes a cyberattack. Below, has been listed some news on various methods used for spying on social media.  

• The piece of news by Home Security Heroes on 15 worst-cases from identity thefts that rocked the USA.    
• The assumption is that in a social media, communication is rarely private. The TikTok service has been accused of spying and selling the data to the Chinese state. You can read more about the privacy and security concerns of TikTok in this Wikipedia article.
• “500 million people data leak shakes LinkedIn” CyberNews says that about 500 million LinkedIn users’ information have been sold on a common hacker forum.

Question: Are social media service safe to use? Answer: No, they are not.

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1) The ruling of IT Services on social media and instant messaging services when using equipment provided by Metropolia

Below is a list of social media applications prohibited by IT Services, which should not be downloaded onto devices provided by the university. If an application is not mentioned in the list, it can be downloaded from the official app store for personal use. Additionally, the use of Chinese and Russian software and services on university community devices is excluded without specific work-related justifications. Redirect your justification to the IT administration, which will determine whether the application can be used within the university environment. Only download approved applications from the device’s official app store, such as Google Play Store for Android phones and the App Store for iPhones.

Banned apps to use in the university’s devices.

• The use of TikTok is guided by the separate TikTok policy determined by IT Service.
• The Chinese company Tencent owns the application.

Use is allowed but requires discretion when used for work-related matters.

• Facebook Messenger
• Whatsapp
• Discord
• Vk
• Telegram 

2. Policies and principles to use social media in Metropolia University of Applied Science

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