Privacy of Friendship on Social Media: Application of Honey Encryption

— In recent times, the need to make friends (online or offline) by individuals seems irresistible. However, some people use the type of friends a person keeps as a measure of the character/behavior of that person is. In recent times, there has been the use of friends-of-friends to locate and identify individuals who hitherto would not have been known. Some persons (say security agencies) use the type of friends an individual has to classify the individual into groups. Can a person have friends on social media without any user of that social media knowing? This has become the dilemma of some persons on social media platforms. This then brings to the fore the need to be able to hide friends on social media platforms. This paper proposes algorithms that when incorporated on a social media platform will keep the friends of a User secret/hidden. The algorithm makes use of honey encryption techniques to help persons keep their friends secret/hidden on social media. The usage of this algorithm ensures security and privacy for the Users