Entries Tagged 'Social Networking' ↓
August 30th, 2011 | Facebook, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Social Networking | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about Facebook’s role in relationship disputes, Sen. Ellen Corbett’s thoughts on Facebook’s new privacy controls, Flickr’s creative new privacy feature, and a curious story involving the commercial sale of mug shots from the 1950s.
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Dating in the digital age not only requires navigating the usual pitfalls of new relationships, but also the confusing ins and outs of social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. This article from the Herald Sun discusses how “Facebook Friction” is often cited as a common issue in modern relationships and various ways to deal with digital drama.
Sen. Ellen Corbett, whose controversial proposal to force social media websites into opt-in defaults was narrowly defeated earlier in the year, recently released a statement about Facebook’s recent privacy changes. According to the San Jose Mercury News, Corbett said “much more still must be done to protect children and educate adults and children about the dangers of disclosing information on the Internet,” and that “as a parent and a legislator, [she has] serious concerns about protecting children and will continue to work on this issue.”
In an effort to give users more protection over the location data in their photographs, the popular photo-sharing website Flickr recently introduced a new feature called “geofences.” With geofences, “users can draw a circle on a map to designate a geofence and then choose a geographic privacy setting for that area.” It’s a creative solution to a complex problem that many Flickr users likely were not even aware of.
The New York Times has an interesting article about a new company that sells products with reproductions of 60-year-old mugshots. Jason Schultz, a director of the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the law school of the University of California, Berkeley explains the complex issues involved with old mug shots, saying “There are ongoing questions about the privacy of people listed in court records. We think, ‘Wow it’s in the public record,’ but in reality if it’s in a file somewhere that you can’t Google, it remains private until we need it. Now that records are becoming more public, I think courts are trying to think about how to be sensitive to those interests given that they can be indexed by search engines, copied and reposted.”
August 29th, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Social Networking | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, Eric Schmidt uses interesting language to describe Google+, Dan Tynan criticizes Facebook’s new privacy settings, and ZDNet tests your ability to weed out phishing scams.
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You might think of Google+ as a social networking site, but according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, it’s an “identity system.” Schmidt made the statement while defending Google’s policy of requiring real names, which many have criticized for being overly aggressive. As BusinessInsider explains, this approach is useful for Google because having a single trusted identity “could ease their interactions offline and online,” making Internet advertising, the core of Google’s business model, more effective.
A Texas juror was sentenced to two days of community service after he pleaded guilty to contempt of court following his attempts to “friend” the defendant in the case on Facebook. The juror also attempted to talk about the case with the defendant, in clear violation of the court’s orders to not discuss the case online. This isn’t the first time that a juror has gotten in trouble for social networking, not will it be the last, as social media has become a staple of everyday life.
Could you tell the difference between a legitimate Facebook e-mail and a phishing scam? It’s not as easy as it seems. This article from ZDNet gives three examples and asks the reader to pick whether the e-mail is legit or a scam. The level of sophistication around online scams may surprise you.
Despite Facebook’s recent efforts to make privacy controls more accessible, the company is still missing the point when it comes to user privacy, according to tech journalist Dan Tynan. In his ITWorld column, Tynan singles out Facebook’s new tagging controls, which he says allow users to post negative information about a Facebook user without them knowing.
Quoting Tynan, “Using Facebook’s new “improved” privacy controls, you can tag someone else in photo and then keep them from seeing it. It’s pretty simple; just change the sharing option so they don’t see what you posted. So if you want to tag a picture of a jackass with your friend’s name on it and make it Public, everyone on Facebook will be able to see it except one – the person whose name is on it.”
Attorney Christopher Wolf, who is co-chair of the Future of Privacy Forum, recently appeared on Bloomberg Law where he questioned the efficacy of new privacy laws that promise to give consumers the power to erase their private data on demand. Wolf specifically discussed the “Do-Not-Track Kids Act of 2011,” which he said could be unwieldy and difficult for companies to enforce.
August 22nd, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Social Networking | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about a lawsuit intended to overturn a new law preventing teachers from “friending” students online and why Facebook and dating don’t always mix.
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The Missouri State Teacher’s Association has filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s new law preventing teachers from interacting with students on Facebook and other social media websites. The law, which has been described as unconstitutional by Internet law expert Daniel Solove, was created to discourage teachers and students form having inappropriate sexual relationships, but has been criticized as overly broad by teachers’ groups. The law is set to go into effect on August 28th.
This article from The Campbell Reporter discusses how young teens are embracing “the raunchy, rude lingo of cyberspace” and what teachers are doing to help students exercise more responsibility online. Quoting the article, “Educators increasingly are joining in to challenge the crude culture of social networks, which they fear unleashes cyberbullying and sexting, heightens the social drama of puberty and teaches the wrong values.” Citing a number of examples from the San Francisco Bay Area, the article shares how digital literacy and education programs, along with anti-bullying legislation, have been proposed to help kids stay safe on the Web.
People might say and do stupid things on Facebook, but when they’re using Facebook to leave a comment on a website, they smarten up. According to Jimmy Orr at the Los Angeles Times, whose paper has been using Facebook comments and traditional anonymous comments side-by-side, the difference in the quality of discourse from Facebook commenters was “stunning.” Orr owes the improved comments to the fact that Facebook requires users to provide their real name. When individuals know that their real name and reputation is tied to their comments, they are more careful and less combative online.
Huffington Post advice columnist Michael Cohen answers three questions about the often confusing intersection of Facebook and relationships. For the most part, Cohen’s advice is to keep Facebook out of relationships, especially when dating, so as not to show off your entire life before you can even get to know your would-be date.
This interesting article from TIME explores how parents help their kids access Internet websites by lying about their age. Because of the federal law COPPA, children under the age of 13 aren’t allowed to access certain websites. However, some parents believe that there is value in giving their kids access to social networking websites like Facebook and Google+. The TIME piece discusses how Google’s efforts to keep a 10-year-old from accessing his Google+ profile led to his father setting up the boy’s account in his name.
August 12th, 2011 | Online Reputation Management, Privacy, Quick Hits, Social Networking | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about LinkedIn’s privacy problem and a Canadian politician’s porn problem, as well as some tips on how to protect your privacy and security on social networking websites.
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Two months ago, LinkedIn began something called Social Ads, in which the website used user information as part of in-site advertising. LinkedIn has since received considerable negative press over the feature, particularly with regard to the fact that users were opted in to the program by default. In response, LinkedIn has tweaked Social Ads to not feature a user’s picture. The company also released a statement apologizing for the faux-pas and pointing out that it could have made the change more visible at the time.
A political candidate in Canada was recently embarrassed to discover that someone had posted links to pornographic websites on his Facebook profile. The candidate, who admits to not being computer savvy, is unsure how the links ended up on his profile, but acknowledged the possibility that it could be a political opponent.
Yesterday, MSNBC tech reporter Rosa Golijan hosted a live Q&A dealing with online privacy and security issues. The Q&A discussed how to keep safe on social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. The entire Q&A is still accessible at MSNBC and features a lot of interesting information.
August 10th, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Legal Issues, Online Reputation Management, Parenting, Privacy, Quick Hits, Social Networking | Rob Frappier
In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about the New York Police Department’s plans to use social media to catch criminals and the epic fight between Facebook and Google+.
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In an effort to capitalize on the number of criminals who boast about their crimes online, the NYPD has announced the formation of new units that will “mine social media, looking for info about troublesome house parties, gang showdowns and other potential mayhem,” according to the New York Daily News (via Mashable). This is not the first time that a law enforcement agency has used social media in its crime fighting efforts, as numerous local, state, and federal outfits have also turned to social media to help identify criminals.
In a note at its Facebook Safety page, Facebook announced several changes to how users report offensive content on the site. In a series of screenshots, Facebook shows how it has improved the reporting function so that users can better specify their issue, request to have a photo taken down, connect with a “trusted friend” for assistance, or block a bully. The changes are specifically geared at helping young Facebook users deal with online harassment and cyberbullying.
This week, numerous reports declared that factions of the hacking group Anonymous were planning to hack Facebook later this year. Now, several of the loosely-knit group’s more prominent voices have declared that the Facebook operation is the work of only a few members and is not supported by Anonymous as a whole. According to ZDNet, the Twitter account for AnonOps wrote in a message, “#OpFacebook is being organised by some Anons. This does not necessarily mean that all of #Anonymous agrees with it.” The apparent lack of support for the campaign is a good indication that it will not have a strong impact on Facebook’s operations.
It is no secret that Europe and the United States of America have widely divergent views on personal privacy policies, but this article by Suzenne Daley in the New York Times shows just how much European governments are doing to give people a “right to be forgotten.” It would seem that European citizens agree, as well. According to the Times, “Three out of four [European Union citizens] said they were worried about how Internet companies used their information and wanted the right to delete personal data at any time. Ninety percent wanted the European Union to take action on the right to be forgotten.”
Since Google rolled out its Google+ social network earlier this summer, nearly every story on the service has focused on whether it will be able to compete with Facebook. Taking that question to a whole new level, SingleGrain devised a special infographic pitting Google+ against Facebook. The infographic, shared via The Atlantic, details the rapid rise of Google+ in comparison to the sheer size of Facebook.
