The Role Of Social Media In Curbing Cyber Crimes Among Students Of Institute Of Management And Technology

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Social media has become part of our lives. It has become an indispensable tool in human usage, repeatedly proving their usefulness and effectiveness, and this will no doubt continue to increase in the near future.

Being a part of our lives, social media also poses some dangers, or at least contributes to the dissemination of these dangers. What are the dangers of social media use? Crime is a primary danger, and it is committed on social media so frequently that one may suggest that it has been especially created for this purpose.

The spread of crime on the social media has raised many issues, including questioning over its effectiveness, which, nevertheless, has not diminished its social utility (Kawasaki & Fitzpatrick, 2014). Modern society has become a major consumer of the social media. It has; therefore, become reasonable to fight crime on the social media using the social media. It is not only reasonable, but it has also become a necessity. For this reason, law enforcement agencies, including the police, have developed a variety of techniques and methods designed to prevent online crime.

In the western world, where social media use has reached a peak and online crime has attained the same status as crimes committed in real life, law enforcement agencies, in tandem with various analysts, have gathered invaluable experience in preventing, deterring and fighting online crime (Golbeck & Klavans, 2015).

Social media is affecting cultural, economic and social life of the people, and it has become an essential part of everyone’s life. Social media networking is a platform that enables users to participate and share multimedia content, for example, text, audio, video, images, graphs and animations through a medium of a website or an application. These contents are cloud-based big data contents and can be viewed in the form of volume, variety, velocity, veracity, volatility, quality, discovery and dogmatism. According toKawasaki & Fitzpatrick, (2014), in March 2019 the number of Internet users reached 4 168 461 500, i.e., 50.08 % penetration of world population. According to Golbeck & Klavans, (2015), in 2019 there are 2.77 billion social media networking users worldwide, i.e., 35.9 % of global social media networking penetration and it is expected that in 2021 this number will reach 3.02 billion. These users are of different age group, different cultures, different religions, different social attitude, behaviors, and they use different devices to connect to the social media sites. Keeping in view the popularity of these networking sites, users of all kinds are attracted to these social media sites to meet friends and family, to share their daily routine with the loved ones and find new acquaintances. These social networking sites are attracting users from all walks of life and keeping these users data in the cloud. The way we started living in the online world today is changing the way regarding our privacy and security. Today’s big challenge is related to an increase in volume, velocity, variety and veracity of data in social media networking, and this leads to creating several concerned, including privacy and security; on the other hand, it also proves as a tool to prevent and investigate crime, if intelligently and smartly handled. The current era is the era of information and information is everywhere and today there are several ways people are communicating and sharing information through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media tools, through blogs, content sharing, for example, images and videos, as well as through mobile messaging.

One of the fastest emerging epidemics worldwide is Cybercrime (CC) as technological trend advances, so also the rate of CC increases. The world would have been a better place with ample opportunities due to an ever increase rate in technology and ICT related developments. However CC or Cyber related Crimes are equally on the raise with much severe effect on the community at various levels at large. Students at almost all academic levels are in one way or the other involved in CC. The 21st Century generation therefore most take insightful and purposeful decision so as to combat these menace called CC. These prevailing epidemics have left no level or race unaffected. As at 2003, the United States and South-Korea have the highestcyber-attacks of 35.4% and 12.8% respectively, according to McCants, (2015). With the population of Nigeria placed at 180 million from the last census carried out in 2006/2015, a recent statistics revealed that about 28.9% have access to the internet (Casey, 2011). It was also proven that 39.6% African users of internet are actually Nigerians, hence, the high increase in the rate of internet crime in Nigeria. Presently, cybercrimes are performed by people of all ages ranging from young to old, but in most instances the youth; more especially in higher institution. Cybercrime is defined as type of crime committed by criminals who make use of a computer devices as tools and the internet as a connection in order to reach a variety of objectives, as illegal downloading of music, files and videos, etc. (McCants, 2015). Cyber-crime evolves from the wrong application such as abuse of internet services and so on.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The contribution of internet to the development of the nation has been marred by the evolution of a new wave of crime. The internet has also become an environment where the most lucrative and safest crimes thrive. There are indications that social media fraud is rising. For example, a 2005 YouGov poll of UK Internet users found that 1 in 20 had lost money in online scams. Also a 2001 survey revealed that 52 per cent of companies interviewed said internet fraud posed real problems for them (Wall, 2007). These are clear indications that social media fraud is on the increase and as such, it is beginning to gain recognition at the global level and there is dearth of study in the area of this burgeoning criminal act in Nigeria.

Technology has integrated nations and the world has become a global village. The economy of most nations in the world is accessible through the aid of electronic via the internet. Since the electronic market is opened to everybody (which includes eavesdroppers and criminals), false pretence find a fertile ground in this situation. Vladimir (2005), said the internet is a global network which unites millions of computer located in different countries and open broad opportunities to obtain and exchange information but it is now being used for criminal purposes due to economic factors. Nigeria, a third world country is faced with so many economic challenges such as unemployment amongst others, which are capable of making this crime thrive. Apart from the economy factor been a possible cause of social media fraud in Nigeria, there might be other causes for the continued rise in social media fraud activity.

In Nigeria, perpetrators of this crime who are commonly referred to as “yahoo yahoo boys” take advantage of e-commerce system available on the internet to defraud victims who are mostly foreigners thousands and sometimes millions of dollars. They fraudulently represent themselves as having particular goods to sell or that they are involved in a loan scheme project. They may even pose to have financial institution where money can be loaned out to prospective investors. In this regard, persons and organization are duped or have fallen victims. However, these are not the only techniques used by these social media fraudsters, there could be others which the research intends to unravel.

Attempt to address social media fraud by various governments and international organizations have not been successful owing to the fact that the identities of the perpetrators of social media fraud remain ambiguous and inadequate. A study by Zero Tolerance (2006), indicates that social media fraudsters are usually within the age bracket of 18 to 30 years and they indulge in the crime in order to survive and have a taste of good life. Noting these observations, there is need to identify more attributes/characteristics these social media fraudsters possess and what are other causes since it have been acknowledged that a good taste of life is a major factor.

Consequently, many countries have intensified efforts in curbing the excesses of social media fraudsters. Nevertheless, efforts have been made by the Federal Government of Nigeria to curb the menace of the crime too. For instance, according to Awe (2009), the government of President Olusegun Obansanjo in 2003 set up a working group known as the Nigeria Social media fraud Working Group (NCWG) to address this phenomenon since the loss suffered by both consumers and investors creates serious credibility and image problem to the country. Similarly, according to Abdulhamidet al, (2011), in Nigeria, a bill title “Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure bill” is presently been prepared to deal specifically with the menace of social media fraud. The Economic and Other Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) have also played vital roles in curbing this menace. To support their efforts, Microsoft and other internet related organizations like PARADIGM Initiative Nigeria, Background Check International (BCI) and the Internet safety, Security and Privacy Initiative for Nigeria (ISSPIN) have also assisted to curb the maladies (Awe, 2009). In spite of all these efforts, social media fraud in Nigeria is still on the increase. The situation raises a question on the type of social media fraud that is on the increase and remedy to solve the menace.