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Essay: Social Networks
Lucila Eccheri
Lucila Eccheri
4°B
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Social networks are online sites which have
the purpose of helping build social relations between
people. Although there is a great variety of social
networks on the Internet nowadays (such as
Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin), they have two main
shared characteristics: first, all users have a profile
page in which they are able to publish text, images
and videos. Second, users are able to add friends so
that they can access their information. Most of the
sites have certain regulations for adding friends.
Sometimes, they may be about a specific subject, such as music, fashion or business.1
The history of social networks started when, during the 70’s, it was thought that
connect computers should create a forum. Mullets were developed during the late 70’s and
early 80’s, but they were difficult to use. BBS was the first form of social network which gained
popularity; it allowed users to download files and games and post messages. It was accessed
via modem, which caused it to be mostly local. The early technology restricted flexibility and
users’ relationship, but the network was popular until the 90’s and it became worldwide
during the Internet revolution. During the 80’s, CompuSere (a business-oriented network for
mainframes, which possessed discussion forums), AOL (that allowed to create member
profiles) developed, followed by Amazon and Yahoo during the middle 90’s.
During the Internet boom, several social networks were created. The first ones were
mainly for teenagers, such as Classmates.com and SixDegrees.com. There were also social
networks for specific niches, such as AsianAvenue.com and MiGente.com. In the last decade,
social networks that have continued to be popular today appeared, such as LinkedIn (for
business people) and Friendster, which was popular despite its technology and management
failures. It was almost replaced by MySpace in 2003. Nowadays, Facebook and Twitter can be
considered the leaders in social networking. The possible reasons for Facebook’s huge success
may be its ease of use, the multitude of features, the possibility of openness for users and the
creation of the Facebook Platform, which allows users to create their own applications. Google
has also created its own social network, called Google Plus, recently. Nowadays, 75% of young
adults and 65% of teenagers have an account in at least one social network.2
Respecting software, social networks use open-source software. Regarding operating
systems, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace use Linux, while Facebook uses Linux-based F5-Big IP.
Regarding, Web servers, almost all social networks choose apache. They add Sun’s MySQL
database management system to organize chat and status updates. Although the use of opensource software does not mean that it is available for users, this has been changing recently.
For example, their applications programming interfaces (API) are available for users, which
means they are free to create their own applications.
1
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/information/how-onlinesocial-networks-work7.htm
2
http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking/
Lucila Eccheri
4°B
Major social networks can have difficulties to handle demands. As the former Twitter
architect Blaine Cook has explained, “Languages don’t scale, architectures do”. This means that
the ability of a whole system to maintain a network with millions of users is more important
that its speed. When demands cannot be controlled, the networks are likely to go through a
period of downtime. In order to solve this problem, they use an open-source program called
Mechamed. Mechamed servers and clients work together to set a global cache, which
increases the networks’ speed. Some networks have modified Mechamed in order to adjust it
to their particular requirements. For example, Facebook has reprogrammed both Linux and
Mechamed so that they can handle 200,000 UDP requests per seconds.
Respecting hardware, the quality and quantity varies for each network. For example,
Facebook uses 30,000 servers which have two or more high-speed 64-bit Intel Nehalem
processors with 4 or 8 cores. Each has a RAM memory of 256 GBS to 512 GBS. To connect all
this, Force10 Network’s E-Series switches which work at 5TB per second (with multiple gigabit
and 10-gigabit Ethernet connections). The users’ data is kept on vendor’s storage servers
measured in terabytes and petabytes. Social networks in general keep their servers in data
centers co-located with most important NAPs (Network Access Points).3
Social are having a huge social impact worldwide, which has both advantages and
disadvantages. Regarding the advantages, first, they allow people to express themselves. They
can update posts, upload photos and videos and discuss. Second, as they have equality of
access, they connect people. They can just meet users of their real-life social circle or people
from other countries. This way, social networks present cultural diversity. Third, enterprises
can benefit economically from their use. Fourth, they are easy to use and the system is
reliable. The social networks which keep the downtime length records are Twitter and
LinkedIn, but these records were reached years ago and service has improved significantly
nowadays.
Regarding the disadvantages, first, they are likely to generate addiction. Users become
dependent on them and get trapped in a virtual world. They are detached from reality. If, for
example, an enterprise creates a Facebook group for their employees, they may get distracted
from working, resulting in a loss of productivity. In addition, the possibility of accessing social
networks through smartphones has incremented their use. The solution for this problem is to
control the amount of time spent in social networks and be sure to create equilibrium
between the time spent in the virtual world and the real world. Second, the main disadvantage
is the enormous levels of insecurity they can produce if they are not used in a correct way. In
the first place, there is anonymity. This is dangerous especially when users befriends people
they do not know in real life. It is impossible to know if the person behind the screen is who he
actually claims to be. There are two possible solutions for this: not befriending people they do
not personally know (Facebook has regulations about this subject, for example) or, if they
want to be friends with them, control which information they reveal. Moreover, some users
may see the benefit of anonymity as a possibility to stalk or bully others. In the second place,
the security of the account must be protected. Hackers are potential to use social networks in
order to steal other people’s personal information. There are several methods hackers
commonly use: for example, pretending to be a site administrator and ask for a user’s
password. The solution for this problem is to have a strong password and keep it secret from
everyone who asks for it, independently from who they are (friends or strangers). Users should
always be aware that there are hackers on the Internet. In the third place, there is a lack of
privacy. As soon as a user befriends another one, the second one can have full access to their
profile and the information or posts they show. Actually, even if a user is not another one’s
3
http://www.itworld.com/software/91803/how-social-networking-works
Lucila Eccheri
4°B
friend he can still have access to some of their information. This information could be used in
any way, for example, for hacking. Even if a friend was not going to use what a user has in his
profile in a harmful way, he may just not want to share everything. The percentage of hack
cases in social networks has risen to 19%4. The solution that social networks offer for this is the
possibility of configurating your level of privacy and the amount of information people can see.
All networks have rules about these subjects, also.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/RwOy2gVz9Z0/UI_TedEwXDI/AAAAAAAADPA/yCmLR
q-ICA8/s1600/Ethical-Hacking-What%E2%80%99s-soethical-about-it.jpg
Bibliography:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/social-networking/information/how-onlinesocial-networks-work7.htm
http://www.itworld.com/software/91803/how-social-networking-works
http://www.digitaltrends.com/features/the-history-of-social-networking/
http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/17/social-networks-see-steep-rise-in-hacking-attacks/
Relation with the social an ethical impact is missing. You
only mention social an cultural diversity but you aren´t
eplaining why
4
http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/17/social-networks-see-steep-rise-in-hacking-attacks/