Don’t be cowed by paranoia on social media

I like posting pictures of my family and I on social media. My Facebook and Instagram pages are constantly flooded with pictures of me, my wife and my daughter going through our life adventures.

I'm proud of my family and it's so much fun sharing our joy with family and friends. Both my wife and I are active on social media and the interaction we get with our followers is also a source of happiness.

Anyway, posting photos like this is so much a part of our modern lives now and it would feel weird not to be on social media. It has become the norm in our culture and we cannot disassociate ourselves from it.

Then an incident that brings all this into question happens. Local comedian and actor Harith Iskandar discovers that pictures of him and his son were taken from his social media pages and posted on a porn website.

Of course, he made a report to the authorities and within two days, the pictures were no longer on the said porn website. Action was taken quite swiftly to solve the problem and all turned out well in the end.

We are all constantly reminded how we put ourselves and our families at risk whenever we post pictures online because of all the data that can be obtained, not just through the images, but also from the detailed metadata.

I personally do my best to limit the metadata, or information, that is documented. I shut down location recognition, geotagging and whatever data that is recorded along with the photos taken.

But the one thing I refuse to do is to be paranoid and cease all existence on social media. Why should I, or we, be forced to not enjoy what is so much a part of life these days just because of those who like to take advantage of it?

We should work harder to expose and catch the perpetrators so as to stop crimes like these from happening. The everyday person should not be bullied into submission and feeling so scared that they hide themselves and their children.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be prudent and careful. Of course, we have to be. Take all the precautions necessary, just don't be cowed. There will always be criminals and sick people out there and we can't do much about it.

It's like how we make sure that we always lock the doors to our homes and have security. But we don't want to live in fear of robberies and other crimes because we would be denying ourselves the right to a normal and happy life.

Luckily, I have never found any of my family’s pictures used for purposes like pornography. But I have had to report and demand that a picture of my daughter which was taken without permission from Facebook and used in an advertisement be removed.

So I agree with how Harith Iskandar handled the situation. I'm sure it must have been a very distressing experience. But he turned it into something positive by highlighting the situation, making the necessary reports and refusing to be bullied into paranoia. – June 26, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.