STUDENTS PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA FRAUD: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

1.1 Introduction

Social media internet fraud takes a number of forms with perpetrators currently relying on telemarketing, emails, and presenting themselves personally to unsuspecting people met in online chat rooms or social networks. The evolution of internet marketing as well as e-commerce has increased opportunities for fraudsters. There exists a thriving economy online for these scammers, making it a necessity for international students and teachers to have skills for early detection of fraud. Unfortunately, this detection happens when it is too late. This is due to lack of proper training on safe use of the internet (Brown, 2011).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

The use of social media to communicate among different people in the contemporary world has indeed come to stay. This is because social media is a pretty nifty tool for keeping in touch to a large number of heterogeneous audiences within the shortest possible time. Platforms such as Facebook, email, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp among others offer users variety of ways in which they can remain connected at all times. However, the seemingly endless capacity for sharing, swiping, liking and retweeting has some negative consequences, not the least of which is that it opens users up as targets for online frauds. Some of the social media disadvantages are the emergence of online fraud perpetrated by some dubious characters. For instance, they “hijack” users’ accounts, identity theft; impersonate Facebook security or administrator among others. These hijacked social media accounts would then be used to send fake messages to other users, warning them that their account was about to be disabled and instructing the users to click on a link to verify their account.

The users would be directed to false Facebook pages which often ask them to enter their login info and their credit card information to secure their account. This is one of the several ploys deployed by scammers, even as the social media users continue to grow numerically. Global Internet Users (2017) reported that the number of Internet users across the globe has reached 3,739,698,500 as at March 2017. Considering this figure, online activities will certainly continue to increase dramatically and individuals will continue to use the Internet for a variety of purposes including email, chat, research, video communication, online banking, electronic commerce and online auctions. As such, careless, ignorant and unsecured online users on Facebook or emails are vulnerable to hackers and scammers who pretend to offer mostly financial assistance. These hackers and scammers are arguably believed to be smart in understanding the perceptions and expectations of online users they are targeting to defraud. Nigerians like other nationals are active users of various social media platforms. The unimaginable internet penetration has brought online activities more closely than ever to Nigerians as a result of the emergence of mobile internet services. Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) report showed that the number of internet users in Nigeria’s telecommunications networks increased to 91.6 million in June, 2017 (The Sun, 2017). This development has spurred a growing number of social media users in Nigeria. NCC noted that there is an increasing volume of information shared on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Blackberry Messenger and Instagram, to mention just a few among several social media networks through which Nigerians interact, obtain information to meet their social needs. It revealed that over 16 million Nigerians are on Facebook, the highest in Africa, making Nigerians the most active users in the continent (omojuwa.com, 2017).

This development indicates that Nigerians are obviously among the millions of global social media users prone to online fraud or scam. There are several media reports of Nigerians of all ages falling victims or perpetrators of the online scam or fraud. They wreak the live of other Nigerians and foreigners through the advance fee fraud running into millions of Naira, Dollars, Pounds Sterling and Euros (Gabriel, 2015). According to Gabriel (2015) “whether they call it 419, Obtaining By Trick, OBT or Yahoo-Yahoo, it is the same story. People are using the internet to perpetrate scams that deprive many of their hard earned money, destroy businesses and make nonsense of their lives”. Studies have revealed that many people (email and Social Media users) especially youths are victims of such frauds which in one way or the other has affected their lives (Button et al.; Ngo-Ye, 2013; Idolor, 2012; Graziolo and Jarvenpaa, 2003; Nikitkov and Bay, 2008). However, most of these studies focused on the nature of such scams, modalities, business or corporate organizations that have fallen victims but, much has not been documented on the opinions of users especially among youths who are the largest category of users of these social media platforms (Duggan, 2015).

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Students Participation in Social Media Fraud: Problem and Solution.

1.3 Statement of Problems

Social media for students have become a major part of their lives. In Nigeria higher institutions, it is very uncommon to find a student who is not engaged in one form of social media. For every class of 100 students, at least 50% is registered on more than one social media platform. This act of belonging to several social media platforms, affords the students the opportunity to receive and send information whether doctored or genuine. This platform has proven overtime to be able to help keep the students updated. For example, the classes may have Whatsapp groups for a particular level, facebook group for a particular level and so on. The platforms has been identified to provide help to the needed in difficult situations as participants take advantage of these platforms to ask for several helps depending on the kind of group they are joined to. However, in this contemporary period where technology is wrongly used and wrongly applied; social media has been also identified to be a platform where some scrupulous individual swindle people of their cash and possible on their personality. Several categories of people have been identified to be in this calamitous act and the students are not excluded. It is on this premise that this study is undertaken to examine students’ participation in social media fraud.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to examine the Problem and Solutions of Students Participation in Social Media Fraud. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To determine whether students participate in social media fraud.
2. To x-ray the various methods of social media fraud.
3. To ascertain the impact of social media fraud engagement on the academic of the students.
4. To determine the consequences of students’ participation is social media fraud.

1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Does student participate in social media fraud?
• What are the various methods of social media fraud?
• What are the consequences of students’ participation is social media fraud?
• What is the impact of social media fraud engagement on the academic of the students?

1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: There is a significant negative relationship that exists between students’ participation in social media fraud and their academics.
• H1: There is a significant positive relationship that exists between students’ participation in social media fraud and their academics.

Hypothesis Two

• H0: There is no significant students’ participation in social media fraud menace.
• H1: There is a significant students’ participation in social media fraud menace.

1.7 Significance of Study

This study is quite significant; this is because we operate in the era where information must appear on the social media before it reaches the target audience and even to a great extent believed to be true. Thus this study is a stitch in time. Also, this study will help the “victims to be” on social media make better decision as regards their online presence and the kind of information, they disseminate on the social media. Finally, this study is a contribution to academic literatures.

This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.

1.8 Scope of Study

This study is focused on examining students’ participation in social media fraud. The students chosen for this category is the students of higher learning, i.e. Universities, Polytechnics, colleges of education and Monotechnics. The study excluded the high school students. Also, the study focuses on the popular social media platforms like the facebook, Whatsapp, twitter and Instagram. However, social network forums like Nairaland, and so on are taken into consideration.

1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

1.10 Definition of Terms

Participation: The act of belonging or contributing to a particular task, activity, or group; whether passively or actively.

Social Media: These are modern media platforms used to send and receive multimedia messages across location as ease.

Student: A registered and recognize member of an academic learning. In this case, tertiary institutions.

1.11 Organization of the Study

Chapter one of the study, provides background of the study, stating the problem of the study and the research questions and hypotheses to be tested in the study. It also highlights the significance of the study and scope of the study.

Chapter two reviews related literature on the Problem and Solution of Students Participation in Social Media Fraud.

Chapter three discussed the research methods to be used in designing the study which will include research design, population, sample size and sampling technique, data collection and data analysis methods.

Chapter four presents the data gathered in frequency and percentage tables. The data will also be analyzed and research hypotheses will be tested with chi-square statistical test.

Chapter five summarizes the outcome of the study, draw conclusions based on the findings of the study and make necessary recommendations.