Reading Activity 0503: Dark Social

 

Dark Social

Reading ACTIVITY 0503

"Dark social is when people share content through private channels such as instant messaging programs, messaging apps, and email.

This private sharing is harder to track than content shared on public platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, so many social media marketers don’t realize how big of a slice dark social has of the social media sharing pie.

Some of the most common dark social traffic channels are:

• Messaging apps—such as WhatsApp, WeChat, and Facebook Messenger
• Email—to protect users’ privacy, referrers aren’t shared)
• Native mobile apps—Facebook, Instagram
• Secure browsing—If you click from HTTPS to HTTP the referrer won’t be passed on

In other words, dark social describes any web traffic that’s not attributed to a known source, such as a social network or a Google search. Referral traffic is usually identified by certain “tags” attached to the link whenever it’s shared."

(Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/dark-social/)

The Dark Web

"The Dark Web refers specifically to websites that exist behind multiple layers of encryption and cannot be found by using traditional search engines or visited by using traditional web browsers.

Almost all sites on the so-called Dark Web hide their identity using the Tor encryption tool. You may know Tor for its ability to hide your identity and activity. You can use Tor to spoof your location so it appears you're in a different country to where you're really located, just like when you use a VPN service.

When a website is run through Tor it has much the same effect.Indeed, it multiplies the effect. To visit a site on the Dark Web that is using Tor encryption, you have to use Tor. Just as your IP address is bounced through several layers of encryption to appear to be at another IP address on the Tor network, so is that of the website.

Put simply, there's a lot more secrecy than the already secret act of using Tor to visit a website on the open internet - for both parties.

Thus, sites on the Dark Web can be visited by anyone, but it is very difficult to work out who is behind the sites" 

The Deep Web refers to all web pages that search engines cannot find.

Thus the 'Deep Web' includes the 'Dark Web', but also includes all user databases, webmail pages, registration-required web forums, and pages behind paywalls. There are huge numbers of such pages, and most exist for mundane reasons.

For example we have a 'staging' version of this very website that is blocked from being indexed by search engines, so we can check stories before we set them live. Thus for every page publicly available on Tech Advisor (and there are literally millions), there is another on the Deep Web.

(Source: https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to/internet/dark-web-3593569/

The Dark Web is used to buy recreational drugs as well as other horrible unmentionables that involve children etc. It is also used by people in closed societies like totalitarian dictatorships to talk to the outside world.  The Deep Web is more benign, it includes the dark web, and it includes password protected spaces like bank accounts and sites that don't show up on a google search. As we learned, Dark Social is ways that people share information that cannot be tracked by companies. 

I find it hilarious that the text comes from the standpoint of how terrible it is that Dark Social exists when it is the privacy that we long for. However, is it really true? What about the Facebook scandal inwhich it was discovered they were actually taking our smart phone content including who and when we texted and called people, although they claimed they didn't have the CONTENT. I don't believe Dark Social is that dark. The Dark Web, well I had a friend who went and explored and it and said they can never unsee what they saw. I'd never heard of The Deep Web but it makes sense, I feel secure with my bank account. Never knew why, but the Deep Web is why. Also there's like ten dollars in there.