Use of Digital Platforms to Commit Nefarious Activities Globally. A Critical Literature Review.

Purpose: Social media use among youth has been associated with influences on personal security. Factors such as victim predisposition to cyber-attacks, presence of vulnerabilities in network, lack of specific legal framework to deal with cybercrime and inadequate capacity of law enforcement to deal with online crimes has led to cases of breach to personal security. The overall objective of this study was to examine use of digital platforms to commit nefarious activities globally. Methodology: The paper used a desk study review methodology where relevant empirical literature was reviewed to identify main themes and to extract knowledge gaps. Findings: This study concluded that about 84% of youth respondents had opinion that Facebook was most insecure. Fake jobs were listed as the most prevalent crime in social media by youth respondents at 35.90% of all the social media crimes listings in this research. It was followed by online romance scams at 16.24%, hacking at 13.68%, cyber bullying at 12.82%, cyberstalking at 11.11% and identity theft at 10.28%, based on the number of times they were listed by youth respondents. The youth respondents felt that social media platform that had the highest number of crimes was Facebook at 79.49%, followed by Email at 5.98%, Instagram at 5.13% and both WhatsApp and YouTube at 4.27%. Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: This study recommended that it would be necessary for tracking of social media criminals and victims to be improved, there should be awareness creation to the youth to come out and identify possible accounts, interactions and persons likely to be suspects. Victims should not fear reporting to law enforcement agencies. Public and private sector partnerships and cooperation in tracking of suspects of social media crimes should be improved.