Entries Tagged 'Parenting' ↓
September 27th, 2011 | CyberBullying, Facebook, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Facebook and Spotify’s close partnership, how one mom’s Facebook update ruined her sons’ football season, and the epidemic problem of cyberbullying.
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Spotify, once the envy of all music sharing sites for its positive press coverage and close partnership with Facebook, is on the defensive after making a change that requires users to log-in to the service using Facebook. People don’t necessarily want to share what they’re listening to on Spotify, which is what they’d have to do thanks to Facebook’s new “frictionless sharing” experience. Since the announcement, Spotify founder Daniel Ek has spent much time on Twitter defending the decision, but also acknowledging the potential for further changes based on feedback.
In an op-ed for Fox News, John Quain criticizes Facebook’s recent “convoluted, confused, and cluttered update,” writing that, while Facebook is a free service, it actually requires users to give up information about themselves to make money. Quain also points out that quitting Facebook offers no guarantee of privacy.
“The problem is that even if you abandon Facebook, others could be tagging you in photos, putting personal information about you online, and sharing it all with their 500 closest friends. Potential employers — and dates — can then use that information against you without your knowledge. One example: I’ve been tagged in photos on Facebook that I can’t delete or edit, even though at least one photo isn’t even of me (now people think I was at an event I didn’t attend).”
Recently, Australian tech developer Nik Cubrilovic discovered that Facebook was tracking data about users after they had logged out of the site. According to the Wall Street Journal, “When you log in to Facebook or visit Facebook.com without logging in, the site places small files called ‘cookies’ on your computer. Some of these cookies remain on your computer even after you log out, and then whenever you visit a site that connects to Facebook – such as those with a ‘Like’ button – information from those cookies is sent back to Facebook, providing a record of where you’ve been on the Web.” The ubiquity of the “like” button on the Web means that Facebook is able to collect a considerable amount of data from users even while they’re not on the site.
In an unusual story, a Tennessee mom is the center of a high school sports controversy after a Facebook update about her sons led to the revelation of the boys’ ineligibility to play and the team’s subsequent forfeiture of three wins. According to The Tennessean, the mom made a comment about how her sons leave messy rooms after only being in town for the weekend. The problem is that the mom lives in a different county. According to the TSSAA’s bylines, the boys weren’t allowed eligibility because the family continued “to maintain a previous residence for the residential purposes of that family or any of its members.”
According to a new MTV-AP poll, 56% of teens have been the victim of some form of online bullying or harassment. Three-quarters of respondents also said that online bullying was a serious problem, demonstrating a high level of awareness about the issue. This article from the Boston Globe discusses the poll and shares some examples of online bullying.
September 20th, 2011 | CyberBullying, Facebook, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a new bullying prevention campaign, an interesting poll about teen attitudes online, a smart privacy change from Foursquare, and the hidden privacy risks of popular technology.
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Yesterday, Facebook and Time Warner launched an anti-bullying app called “Stop Bullying: Speak Up.” According to ABC News, the app “offers resources on prevention, and asks children and adults to take an online pledge to speak up if they see bullying.” Cyberbullying is a major concern for children and teens online, and has been cited as a factor in a number of high-profile teen suicides. Facebook’s position as the hub of social life for many teens makes it important for the company to spend time on anti-bullying measures.
According to a new Associated Press-MTV poll surveying 14 to 24-year-olds, 71% of respondents said they are more likely “to use slurs online or in text messages than in person” and that “only about half say they are likely to ask someone using such language online to stop.” This apparent disregard has led some experts to worry that young people are becoming desensitized to abusive language and are risking their reputations by using the language online.
Foursquare recently enacted a new privacy change that allows users to check-in to their homes on the service without exposing their exact location. According to Mashable, “applying the ‘Home’ category will keep the actual address of the venue private to just the user and his or her friends, as well as allow the user to edit the venue or delete it altogether.” This step, while long overdue, is logical and may help bring in more privacy-conscious users to the check-in service.
In a comprehensive piece for The Today Show website, Christina DesMarais talks about the privacy concerns associated with a number of popular technologies. Listing everything from cell phones to fax machines, DesMarais explains how modern technology can put your privacy at risk and the steps you should take to help mitigate the amount of information about you online.
September 13th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Student Online Reputation | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we offer advice for parents of bullies, ponder what happens to our digital profiles when we die, share the story of a fugitive busted by Facebook, and consider how a big celebrity’s Twitter complaint might hurt one’s online reputation.
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A recent study showed that 77% of kids have reported being bullied at some point. While the number of bullying victims is staggering, it begs an important question. If so many kids are being bullied, then there must be a lot of bullies, and that means that parents need to consider the unfortunate possibility that their son or daughter is the bully. This article from The Stir advises parents on ways to determine if their child is a bully and steps to take to limit bullying behavior.
This AFP article poses some interesting questions: “When you die, does your Facebook account die with you? Or that online photo album? What about your iTunes playlist, blogs or tweets?” As we live more and more of our lives online, the issue of what happens to our online content after we die has become more complex. Most websites aren’t equipped to deal with the digital death of a user, and so what happens is that an individual’s online content is trapped in a sort-of limbo. This unusual circumstance has spurred the creation of a small economy focused around digital afterlife services, that help an individual’s surviving relatives manage his or her accounts after death.
Arizona police arrested a man wanted in Oregon for negligent child support after they were tipped off to his location by someone who saw the fugitive “check-in” to a restaurant on Facebook. This is not the first story of a criminal getting caught because of Facebook. Recently, an Italian mobster was arrested after investigators tracked him down via his girlfriend’s Facebook photos.
If someone calls you out for doing a bad job on Twitter, it might not look to good to your boss. But when that person is Hollywood actor Alex Baldwin, it’s especially bad. Baldwin recently took to Twitter to criticize a Starbucks employee that he thought had an attitude problem. One can argue that Baldwin’s complaint should be taken with a grain of salt (“You know how those prima donna celebrities are.”) but this story demonstrates how important it is for businesses and their employees to always be thinking about how their actions can lead to a negative online reputation.
September 8th, 2011 | Careers, Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Research, Student Online Reputation | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a new Microsoft study, a huge privacy breach involving 20,000 hospital patients, and one Applebee’s worker’s stand for self-expression online.
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A new Microsoft study shows that “before posting personal information online, more than half of U.S. teens and parents don’t truly consider the potential consequences of their actions.” The study also showed that while teens recognize “the importance of limiting what they share online,” they still reveal more personal data than their parents and that 6 in 10 teens admit to having “friends” online that they have never met in real life. This data reveals the importance of online reputation management and digital citizenship – two important issues that Microsoft is addressing through a new white paper called “Fostering Digital Citizenship” and a Teen Reputation Guide.
The New York Times reports that “a medical privacy breach at Stanford University’s hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., led to the public posting of medical records for 20,000 emergency room patients, including names and diagnosis codes, on a commercial Web site for nearly a year.” This isn’t the first time that medical data has been exposed online. The Times writes that “records compiled by the Department of Health and Human Services reveal that personal medical data for more than 11 million people has been improperly exposed during the last two years alone.”
An Applebee’s worker claims that his job has been threatened by his refusal to sign an agreement from his employer that restricts his right to post negative content about Applebee’s online. The man, who has had no problems with the company in the past, says that he is concerned the agreement would stifle his freedom of expression. The Applebee’s story comes at an interesting time. The National Labor Relations Board recently issued a report outlining when companies can and can’t fire employees for their online profiles and a judge ruled that several non-profit employees were unjustly fired for their Facebook comments.
The Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) requires companies to block children under the age of 13 from accessing their websites. But this is often easier said than done, especially if you’re Facebook, the world’s largest social networking website. This article from ZDNet discusses how Facebook approaches the problem and why the website claims that “it is difficult is to implement age restrictions on the Internet and that there is no single solution to ensuring younger children don’t circumvent a system or lie about their age.”
New York Times tech reporter Jenna Wortham writes about a new mobile app called Blendr, which combines social networking with location check-in technology to help users “find someone to meet nearby, right now.” The app includes some privacy restrictions, including the ability to narrowly tailor what type of person can access one’s profile, but it is still likely something that a privacy-conscious individual would be leery to use. Nevertheless, the creator of Blendr’s previous mobile app Grindr (which offers a similar service for the gay community) has been very successful with 2.6 million users, proving the viability of the concept.
September 6th, 2011 | Facebook, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Quick Hits, Student Online Reputation, Twitter | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about an unusual criminal case in Mexico, a recently discovered Facebook flaw, one dad’s beef with Facebook, and some advice for college students on online reputation management.
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Two people in Mexico are facing up to 30 years in prison for allegedly causing a panic with their Twitter updates. The Huffington Post reports that the individuals tweeted updates about an alleged attack at a local school where gunmen were kidnapping children. The reports turned out to be untrue, but the panic caused by the messages supposedly led to 28 car accidents and the collapse of the emergency response telephone system. The defendants in the case say that they weren’t tweeting maliciously, but were merely passing on information that they had heard. Numerous civil rights groups have petitioned for the pair to face lesser charges.
A flaw in Facebook allows page administrators to remove the original creator of the page. ZDNet explains that, while it is the original creator who assigns the administrators, new admins shouldn’t be able to remove the original creator according to Facebook’s written policy. This flaw poses a security risk, because “if [an admin] account gets hijacked by someone else, in addition to their account, your Facebook Page could be taken over as well.”
A dad in Northern Ireland is suing Facebook after discovering sexually provocative pictures of his 12-year-old daughter on the site. The dad argues that Facebook isn’t doing enough to enforce its own policy of restricting children 13 and under from accessing the site. Of course, it’s nothing new for under-13 kids to join Facebook, either with or without permission. In May, a Facebook spokesperson said that the site bans 20,000 underage Faceook accounts everyday.
This article in the Toronto Sun explains why students need to be extra careful about protecting their online reputations. Quoting the article, “It used to be that a university student could go out to a wild party, drink their face off, pull some embarrassing stunts before stumbling home and the only record would be a conversation among friends later. Not that we’re condoning the behaviour, but at least it only existed over a 24-hour period. These days, it’s all archived. And the people paying attention could be the ones writing your future paycheque.”
