Analysis of Cybercrime on Social Media Platforms and Its Challenges

Afrah Almansoori, Mohammed Alshamsi, Sherief Abdallah, Said A. Salloum

Abstract: Social media is a weapon that is capable of construction as well as destruction. The real power of the prevailing social media platforms becomes evident by witnessing the influence created by these platforms on a large scale. It plays a significant role in everyday life. The rising popularity due to its ability to make people attached with kith and kin have paved the way for the world to share photos, feelings, videos, which bears a high-security concern. However, most social media users do not know the underlying security level(s) of the respective account(s), including which features of these social media have to be considered if there is a risky situation. The police are making lots of efforts to curb cybercrime at its root and reduce the crime rate. This research aims to understand the characteristics of cybercrimes taking place in social media and identify what kind of efforts the police should take to control cybercrime. Python programming is used for the analysis, where pre-processing and then percentage analysis is performed to understand the data. It is seen that uneducated and poor people have more tendency to commit cybercrimes. Also, the ages between 20 and 25 committed more crimes. Hence, this would help the police to identify the type of people who would create more crimes. These results would help the police to narrow down their search on criminals for better surveillance. The police must focus on those with these factors while monitoring social media.