Social media scam is now a common thing and most people are aware of its existence. It takes many forms and can sometimes be difficult to recognize. One thing is sure, social media scam is on the rise as Google Insights will give the graph on the right for ‘social scam’.

This is how social media scam will grow in the future

Since it is such an important phenomenon, I thought of going deeper into the subject and see if the traditional definition of scam fits with the different kind of scam that is performed on social networks.

What is social media scam?

The Free Dictionary defines scam as a fraudulent business scheme; a swindle. Therefore, a fraudulent business scheme that is performed on social media would be called social media scam. Let’s now find out about the definition of advertising. According to The Free Dictionary, advertising is “The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business, as by paid announcements in the print, broadcast, or electronic media”. The keyword here is ‘paid announcements’. On TV, advertisement regulations stipulate that there should be clear indication of whether the shown content is informational or promotional. These regulations origin from studies that have shown that advertising can have perverse effects on people and especially children and that guidelines should be followed when ads are produced and broadcasted.

My point with all this is that the definition of social media scam should be broadened to include disguised or camouflaged advertising. Unfortunately, the same type of regulations that are effective for traditional media like TV aren’t imposed onsocial media, which are heavily used as a platform for camouflaged advertising. This is precisely why the FTC is going to fine bloggers who advertise without disclosing payments information

The future of social media regulations

If we compare social media with traditional media, then the picture is not going to look good for legislation. Prof. Herman and Chomsky have worked extensively on the concept of ‘manufacturing consent‘ where they stipulates that mass media creates a content that converges towards certain ideas that are biased towards the benefits of the American elite. Now, the biggest democracy on the planet wasn’t able to elect a government that was going to regulate mass media to offer a more neutral content.

Since social media offers the same kind of power to the elite, it is most likely that the same thing is going to happen to social media. Of course, any one could go there and open a blog, a Facebook account, a Twitter account and promote what ever he feels like promoting. But the truth is that his voice is never going to be heard if he doesn’t dispose of resources comparable to big media to promote content.

Since government cannot be relied upon to regulate social media, it is up to users to regulate it. And this can be done in one way only: increased awareness and involvement of all users. In the same same way where click rings and retweet rings are pushing for their interests on social media, other groups should gather on social media and use network effect to push for their own voice. This involvement will lead to a more useful social media than what we are witnessing right now.