Social Mobile Apps Issues : June 2015

Cyberscamming

10:16

Recently, more and more social media apps are available and free to download in the market. This might be a good news to the users, but at the same time, there are also a lot of fake apps that are specially designed to scam users. If users are unaware of it, cybercriminals could easily steal user's personal information or conduct other negative actions that is bad to them.

There are numerous kind of fake apps existing in the market, one of the example are Instagram Instlike app. Some of the purpose of the users playing instagram is to gain as many likes as they can so it looks like they are famous and this app is designed to boost their instagram likes and followers. However, in order to get more likes, users are require to provide their personal information and password. Cybercriminals are able to take advantage of the passwords and conduct other bad behaviors.

By Nickles

Image source from : 1) Scammer List via Flickr

2) José Moutinho via Flickr

You Could Be the Next Target!

06:00

Due to the advance of technology, people are now able to find love through their smartphones’ dating or messaging apps. By exchanging information, observing their daily activity and chit-chatting through the apps to understand each other more, so that single users are able to search for partner.

Yet, a 29 years old Malaysia female, Tan, noticed that she was being cheated RM29,000 by a man that she met in dating apps at January of 2015. In order to help the man solve his business problem, Tan had to empty her account and take loan to get him money. This proved that the social mobile apps such as Tinder, Paktor and etc., are not 100% reliable. Users have to be aware when using these kind of social apps.

By Gan Jing Hui

Image source from : By WolfS♡ul via Flickr

Outdoor Activities Have Been Substituted

05:50

During the old times, we used to spent time having fun at the playground and doing many kinds of outdoor activities together. All these places contain a lot of sweet and happy memories.

Until computer and smartphones were invented with thousands of social media and other interesting apps that can be downloaded for free, people are no longer staying on the green field. Youngsters in today's Malaysia society are attracted to social media apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp and so on. Now, they are busy taking pictures to post it on instagram, socializing on facebook, chatting with friends via Whatsapp and so on. They are no longer interested to outdoor activities. The tradition of spending time on outdoor activities are becoming lesser and lesser and we can normally experience this kind of situation from people around us.

By Nickles

Image source from : 1) Matthew Paul Argall via Flickr
2) Pabak Sarkar via Flickr

Addiction

04:03

To be honest, social media apps do bring us a lot of entertainment and convenience to our daily life. However, it creates addiction among the people throughout the whole world, including our country, Malaysia. Not only youngsters are addicted but adults are also included. No matter when and where, the moment when they wake up, during driving, having lunch or any other locations and situations, most of them are holding their phones, either scrolling through their social media apps news feed or chatting with friends using the chatting app.

By Nickles

Image source from : Flickr

Cybercrime War

03:31

Malaysia is moving up the target list of theworld’s cyber criminals, says cybersecurity company Symantec Corporation. Due to the increased of 140% mobile penetration and the easy access of mobile social apps, make mobile even more attractive for cyber attackers to targets. As most of the Malaysian are now giving out their personal information in social media such as Facebook, and many of them are now giving out their bank account through messaging apps for money transferring. While many smartphone users are willing to share information about their location, access to photos, contact lists and fitness information as an exchange free mobile apps. Also, most of the users do not read through the terms and conditions which listed before installing the apps into smartphone, causing cybercrime even easier to carry out in Malaysia.

By Gan Jing Hui

Image source from : by luc legay via Flickr

Say NO to Cyber Bully!

01:45

Cyber bully is the most dangerous kind of bullying because it can be happen in anytime and anyplace, it does not require the appearance of victims and hurt the victims with just words. Malaysia is 17th highest country that active in cyber bully. Cyber bully come with different forms, and the most obvious form of cyber bullying that happening in Malaysia is through social media.

Malaysian used to share victims pictures and information in social platform with strong wording and comments. Beside, many Malaysians are using their our mobile phone to record or taking picture of victims then share it rapidly through social mobile apps which will cause victim feel shame and uncomfortable.

- Kiki, one of the victim of cyber bully in Malaysia. In 2014 July, a video of her who flew into a rage and verbally assaulted the 68-year-old immediately became viral. Some of the facebook user even snap a picture of where she live with their mobile phone and uploaded to social media. Which cause Kiki feel stress and unsecure all the time.

By Gan Jing Hui

Image source from: 1. bad-cyberbully by J_O_I_D via Flickr

2. Kiki Minta Maaf Live di Era via Youtube

I Know Where You Are

09:04

Facebook, Instagram, and Swarm, these social media apps are very popular among the youngsters and adults in Malaysia. I'm pretty sure that most of the people have downloaded these apps on their phones. But do they know that these kind of apps are actually putting them on risk? The fact that, these apps can actually track the user's location without their concern.

For example, Swarm has a “Neighborhood Sharing” feature that can automatic track the user's location if they have turned it on even though they don't check-in. Other users can simply view it by tapping the teardrop icon under their profile image. What if the user has turned on the feature but they didn't realise it? It could lead to serious consequences.

By Nickles

Image source from : 1) Jason Howie via Flickr
2) Bernard Goldbach via Flickr

Teenagers obsessed with WeChat

08:25

Mobile messaging is the latest trend to connect with each other through mobile phone. One of the most frequent app used by Malaysian teenagers is WeChat. This is proven by GlobalWebIndex (GDI) that WeChat was most popular among 16 to 34-year-olds which dominated more than 80% of the user base in Malaysia.

Teenagers don't want to use the same messaging platform as their parents, who would typically be using Facebook because they wan more privacy. In the other hand, this will worry their parent as they afraid of their children mingle with wrong friend that would cause damage to their children attitude and behaviour. Besides, excessive used of mobile messaging will caused a failure to express feeling during face to face communication among teenager.

WeChat Ambassadors:

Lisa Surihani (left) and Shaheizy Sam (right)

Picture:

SinChen.Lin - Flickr
Alvaro Ibanez - Flickr
Cheon Fong Liew - Flickr

by Kok Wei Yang

A Place to Fluant Wealth - Instagram

14:11

People are now more likely to compare their lifestyle among each other through the social media. In order to gain more “like” than others, Malaysian Instagram users are now starting to flaunt and show off their wealth.

Rich Kids' Famous Hash Tag

Pictures of luxury cars, expensive watches, big pool parties, limited edition sport shoes and holiday destinations are being posted in their Instagram account with a hash tag of “#richkidsofmalaysia”.

The Instagram page that dedicated to the lavish lifestyle of Malaysian. They will also differentiate whether are those Instagram users really a wealthy person or just some fake photos. They claimed that money make them feel happy and they avoid to see poor kids in Instagram.

This might cause some of the Instagram user quiting because of lack of confidence in front of the "rich kids".

By Shaun

Image source from : Instagram

Dating Apps Fever!

22:54

Are more Malaysians using dating apps to find love? Recently, dating apps is frequently downloaded by bachelor smartphone user because smartphone enable us to connect to everyone from any where, any time. Hence, with this dating apps user are able to connect with their love one to meet up and keep in touch easily and of course to find their another half easily compare with the traditional way.

Pros and Cons

The dating apps allow user to meet friends that having the same interest, which is a good platform for user to search for their life mate. However, the information in dating apps is not 100% reliable, there is a risk of using those apps. Hacker can simply hack the apps to find information or purposely giving out false information to attract victims.

>> One of the famous dating apps in Malaysia.

<< IPhone user's dating apps.

By Shaun

Image source from : IPhone App Store

How Much of Your Privacy Still Under Your Control?

09:39

79% of malaysia mobile user use smartphones for social media. However, how many smartphone user are really concern about their own privacy when using social mobile apps?

Snapchat

1.

Many of the teenagers are using snapchat to send improper images or videos to their friends. This might be a serious problem even though snapchat will auto-delete moments after the time range, but a third parties apps are still able to save your moments without you knowing it! Snapchat apology to its users because of the third party issues.

Facebook

The privacy policy of Facebook is yet to be perfect. Weeks ago, Harith Iskander notice that his son's photos appear on porn site. Third parties can simply download or screen shoot photos from thier Facebook or mobile apps without owner's premission.

By Gan Jing Hui

Image source from : 1. Snapchat
2. Facebook