Entries from June 2011 ↓
June 2nd, 2011 | Facebook, Internet Safety, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Internet privacy legislation, whether kids under 13 should be allowed on Facebook, and a certain piece of malware that Mac users need to watch out for.
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Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently turned some heads when he said that he wanted kids under the age of 13 to join Facebook, but he has at least one notable child safety advocate behind him. Currently the federal child protection law COPPA prohibits children under the age of 13 from joining websites like Facebook, although there are still tens of thousands of Facebook users under that age anyway. In an op-ed for the Huffington Post, Tech writer and Internet safety expert Larry Magid talks about the high number of teens already on Facebook and why it might make more sense for the company to develop special safeguards for under-13 users then to have to try and simply block them from the site entirely.
There once was a time when having a Mac computer ensured users that they wouldn’t have to worry about Internet viruses and other forms of malware. Unfortunately, with the widespread adoption of Macs, more and more Mac-specific threats are emerging and social media websites like Facebook and Twitter are the perfect vehicles to share them. This article from MSNBC describes a new Mac-focused malware attack spreading across Facebook. Quoting the article, “A video is currently working its way around Facebook claiming to have “‘really freaky’ footage of Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulting a hotel maid.” When users click the video, they are prompted to install the bogus MacDefender malware. As a rule, if you spot any messages promising lurid videos based on current events in your Facebook stream, avoid them at all costs.
In a thoughtful personal op-ed for the Huffington Post, Adam Paul writes about how he and his ex-wife decided to “unfriend” each other on Facebook following their divorce. After three years, Paul thought it might be okay to make a joke about his ex-wife. Despite the fact that they are no longer “friends” online, she still saw the message and was upset, which led to a sort of revelation. As Paul writes:
“Obviously, I should just learn to keep my mouth shut, or at least keep the ex-wife jokes to the open-mic nights (because no one will hear them there). I’m allowed to make some hay out of my pain, but it’s always best to tread lightly when including other parties. I get it. But the real lesson, I think, is this: we’re all in this brave new world together. We’ve got to behave as though everything we say and do is going to see the light of day at some point. And we’ve got to be ok with it.”
According to the National Journal, “the House Energy and Commerce Committee released an agenda Wednesday of how it plans to examine privacy issues this Congress, saying it will focus first on data security and the risk posed to consumer data from security breaches.” The report also notes that the committee recently held a hearing on the Sony Playstation Network breach, and that Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade Subcommittee Chairwoman Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., has plans to “reintroduce data breach legislation soon.”
In an op-ed for Bloomberg, FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz talks about the insidious threat of data mining and why Internet companies must take action to respect consumer privacy. In his piece, Leibowitz perfectly explains the issue at hand and what Internet businesses need to do about it:
“Every time you go online, a host of invisible data catchers, placed on your computer without your permission, follow you as you browse, reporting your stops and actions to third-party businesses unrelated to, and sometimes without the knowledge of, the owners of the sites you visit… We call on the innovators of the Internet to use their brain power to develop a Do Not Track system that protects every individual and not just those with something to sell.”
June 1st, 2011 | Facebook, Parenting | Rob Frappier
It’s becoming increasingly common for parents to secure social media accounts for their children at an early age. As Michael Fertik recently advised in a special feature for Reuters, when done with the right intent, this is an important step for parents to protect their children’s future online reputations. However, one Texas couple may be taking things a bit too far.
CNN recently profiled the pair after they created a Facebook account for their daughter. The thing is…she hasn’t been born yet. After creating the account, the pair have been playfully leaving messages pretending to be her in interactions with friends and family. So far, the unborn baby has over 260 Facebook friends, which is far more than the average number of friends most Facebook users have.
As much as the parents may be pleased with their clever account, there are risks to exposing one’s child to the Internet too much. As their daughter grows up, she may resent the baby photos and other content from her parents, especially if it interferes with her attempts to create a positive professional online presence. Likewise, sharing too much personal info online can lead to a greater risk of identity theft and other issues.
Even if you share videos or photos of your child privately, there is always a risk that you will lose control of the content. For instance, in a recent post at Offbeat Mama, one woman described how a video of her daughter ended up becoming a viral smash online, even leading to an offer to appear on the Today Show. The woman shared the video on Facebook privately, but it was reposted by one of her friends to another website where it picked up steam, eventually accumulating over 50,000 views.
Ultimately, clamor for the video died down, but the mom still learned a valuable lesson. As she writes in her post,
“The lesson I’ve learned from all this is how quickly we can lose control over what we put on the web — we were lucky. In general, the comments people made about the video were harmless. One person said Lucy looked fat and lazy. Delete! I can imagine that it could have been a lot worse and if it had been, I would have been extremely upset that all of this happened without my ‘consent.’”
All parents want to show off their kids, particularly with family and friends, and social media has made it easy. But, it’s also important for parents to remember that the pictures and videos they share online become a permanent part of their child’s online reputation. They’re your children, but they’re also people. Before posting anything online, consider how it might affect them later in their life.
If you’re still wondering whether or not your child should use social media, or what steps you should take to help your child with reputation management, check out these articles from the Reputation.com Resource Center: Should Your Child Have 500 “Friends” Before Starting Kindergarten?, Is it Safe to Post Photos of Your Child Online?.
[Image via Flickr User "Woodley Wonderworks" Used Under a Creative Commons Attribution License]
June 1st, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Facebook’s extraordinary growth, how to fight back against any online attackers, and why the social networking privacy bill SB242 didn’t pass in the California Senate.
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Facebook is on the cusp of crossing yet another Internet milestone: 700 million users. According to the Facebook statistics blog SocialBakers, Facebook will reach the impressive number thanks to “fast adoption rates in places like Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, the Philippines and Mexico.” Amazingly, Facebook crossed the 600 million user mark in January of this year, meaning that the site has added 100 million users in only six months time.
In their recurring Netiquette column for CNN, Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz offer advice on how to respond to Internet criticism and online “haters.” In the article, the duo quote psychiatrist and author Elias Aboujaoude, M.D., who wisely reminds readers that, “any information attached to our name, whether it’s accurate information we supply ourselves without thinking or mean-spirited and inaccurate statements made about us by haters, is going to stay online forever.” Responding criticism online is an important part of online reputation management, but often it’s about picking your battles. Proactive personal branding is often a better option that delivers long-lasting results.
An op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle calls out the eight State Senators that didn’t vote on Sen. Ellen Corbett’s hotly-debated Internet privacy bill, SB242. The bill, which would require social media companies to change their privacy policies drastically, recently failed on the Senate floor after coming up five votes short. The bill will be on the agenda again soon, and if it’s going to pass, these eight senators will likely play an important role.
According to the Register, “the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is to be awarded $500,000 in a class action settlement over Google’s Buzz social network. EPIC brought the original complaint against Buzz to the US Federal Trade Commission in 2010, but failed to win settlement funds dished out by Google in March this year to a variety of privacy outfits.” EPIC brought the complaint against Google after the company’s Buzz roll-out was marked by privacy issues and widespread complaints from users.
In a column for ITWorld, Dan Tynan writes about the unfortunate young woman caught up in the strange drama surrounding Rep. Anthony Weiner and the lewd Twitter image that many alleged he sent to her. Tynan writes that, since the story broke, the woman has suffered a complete invasion of her privacy. As she says in a statement of her own, “The last 36 hours have been the most confusing, anxiety-ridden hours of my life. I’ve watched in sheer disbelief as my name, age, location, links to any social networking site I’ve ever used, my old phone numbers and pictures have been passed along from stranger to stranger.”
Tynan, somewhat fatalistically, writes that the same thing that happened to this young woman could happen to anyone, saying “she’s just a student who was on the wrong end of an Internet prank turned nasty.It happened to her. Just like one day it could happen to you.” Of course, that’s why we advise people to take steps to protect their sensitive information online before they get sucked into any digital drama.
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