In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about cyberbullying, the risks and rewards of teachers using social networking websites, and how Google’s South Korea office was stormed by police.
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Australian Study Shows Men More Image-Conscious Than Women Online
A study conducted in July for Carlton and United Breweries, surveyed 627 adults between the ages of 22 and 40 to determine what role social media plays in superficiality. According to the results of the study, men are more image-conscious online than women, with nearly 25% of male respondents claiming that they “actively manage their cyber profiles to project their `best self’ compared to 14% of their female counterparts.”
Teachers and Social Networking
This article in the Chicago Tribune talks about teachers on social networking websites and whether or not it is appropriate for teachers to interact with their students online. The central issue in the article is that social networking rules vary from school to school. While some teachers think that social networking is perfectly acceptable, others find it to be too dangerous and reject Facebook and Twitter out right. Given previous instances where teachers were fired over content on social networking websites, our advice to teachers would be to avoid students online and to be acutely aware of what you’re sharing online.
Questions and Answers About Cyberbullying
A second article in the Chicago Tribune addresses the equally complex issue of cyberbullying. Recently, the state of Illinois passed a law prohibiting cyberbullying via text messages, e-mail, and social networking websites. In the article, Jennifer Nielson, of the Greater Chicago chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, answers questions about cyberbullying and how the new rules will be implemented across the state.
Nick Saint: There is No Foursquare Stalker Problem
In an op-ed for Business Insider, Nick Saint argues that mainstream media outrage over “Foursquare stalkers” and the dangers of location-based social networking are overblown, and that the only way an individual would be a “stalking victim” is if they actively choose to share their information publicly on Twitter. Saint argues that without Twitter to amplify a user’s Foursquare update, there wouldn’t be a problem at all, and that because Twitter has been around for a while it’s no longer a “cool” topic for discussion.
South Korean Police Raid Google Offices
According to the Wall Street Journal, “Police raided Google Inc.’s South Korean offices Tuesday to probe potential violations of the country’s telecommunication-privacy law, in the latest move by authorities around the world to ratchet up scrutiny of the Internet search giant’s privacy practices.” The raid is centered around Google Street View, which has been the subject of international scrutiny since Google admitted to collecting Wi-Fi payload data via Street View cars several months ago.
1 comment so far ↓
I think it’s a shame teachers can’t use the typical social-networking sites like Facebook, etc., to interact with their students …. in confidence. But that’s because typical social-networking sites offer no privacy or security for their users at all!
There is a new site in the works that would serve teachers very well, however. It’s called ZeldaB. When you post something on zeldaB, the user — even a teacher — can decide how information is used; anything shared on zeldaB is invisible to everyone except those who’ve been approved. And information is encrypted using 256-bit technology. Nothing entered upon joining is shared, sold, mined or used for any other purpose other than verification.
And on zeldaB, there are layers of parental control. Parents, for example, have the power to control with whom in their community their children can communicate. Every invitation to or from a child younger than 14 years old must be approved by their zeldaB parent member. Parents have the authority to remove any friend from their child’s list at any time. Also, any change a child makes to their profile first must be approved by their zeldaB parent member. This is an extra level of security to help protect children from accidentally posting information their parent member doesn’t think should be displayed.
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