Cybersleuthing

A person who searches the Internet for information about a company, both positive and negative, to keep abreast of public opinion. All Internet facilities are used, including the Web, newsgroups and chat rooms.

Definition of cybersleuth. PCMAG. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/cybersleuth#:~:text=(1)%20A%20person%20who%20searches,detective%20work%20using%20the%20Internet.

For the cybersleuth, I did one of my peers, Taylor. It is kind of funny because when you search her name “Taylor Shyngera” Taylor Swift comes up! Luckily Taylor gave me her middle name to try and find her on the internet. Once I plugged in her middle name more things seem to come up. I found her blog site and her Twitter. She was also tagged in a post on Facebook on Royal Drug Mart’s page where I could also find her Facebook page. This is where I found out she is from Melville and we have quite a few mutual friends. Looking at her social media I found out that she works at the Melville Heritage Museum as a manager. She also spends a lot of time with family and friends.

Through this experience, I realized how easy it was for someone to find out information about me or others. I am careful as to what I post on social media, and I do a yearly cleanup as well. Especially on Facebook, Facebook is what I use the most and what I have been using the longest. A couple years ago when I started University I went and looked at my Facebook and when I was younger I made dumb posts and deleted them. Now that I am older and more conscious of what I post I think twice before posting because one little post could destroy my reputation.

In the article Having Multiple Online Identities is More Normal than you Think, I found myself relating to it in a way that my Facebook is more family-friendly and my Instagram is where I post pictures for my friends rather than my family members. I can also say that I know a few people that have multiple accounts on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. Especially teachers I found that they have 2 different accounts, one for their personal life and another for their ‘teacher persona.’ In the article, they talk about “finstagram” which is short for fake Instagram. This is the second account people have where people post funny pictures of themselves instead of their main account where everything looks ‘perfect.’ When I was in high school I found a lot of my peers made these accounts and mostly their close friends were allowed to see it instead of everyone.

In the Ted talk How one Tween can Ruin your Life by Jon Ronson, he talks about Justine who posted a post on Twitter that was meant to be funny in her eyes and got taken through a loop. This post was seen as racist and not FUNNY. This one tweet destroyed her life. People were shaming her on Twitter and saying rude awful things. This has to make you think twice about what you post. Even though Justine wanted her tweet to be funny, people read it in a different context than what she was meaning. It is scary to see how someone’s life can turn upside down with just one tweet!