Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits

In today’s Quick Hits, we touch on new research related to child safety online. We also explore the issue of “sexting” and whether one organization’s proposals will be successful in curbing it among students.

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Facebook’s Location-Based Features Coming Soon

Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed to London press that Facebook is coming out with location-based features in the near future. Rumors of Facebook’s location-based features have been swirling since March, but the project was sidelined to deal with changes to Facebook’s privacy settings (and the subsequent problems that those changes caused). There is still no word on exactly how location-based Facebook features would work, but it’s likely that Facebook will mirror the “check-in” functionality of smaller location-based networking websites like Gowalla and Foursquare.

McAfee Survey Shows Teens Exhibit Risky Behavior Online

A recent McAfee survey, The Secret Online Lives of Teens, reveals that while teens are expert web surfers, they still routinely engage in dangerous and potentially reputation-damaging behavior online. One statistic from the study reveals that “69 percent of teens freely divulged their physical location.” The survey also touched on cyberbullying, showing that “one in three teens knew someone who has had hurtful information posted about them online.”

Report: 6 in 10 Kids Have Had “Negative Online Experiences”

In addition to the McAfee survey, the recently released Norton Online Family Report also revealed a number of eye-opening statistics about kids and teens online. The report shows that “more than six in 10 kids have had what they consider negative online experiences.” The “negative online experiences” in question include receiving a friend request from a stranger on a social networking site, downloading a virus to the family computer, and seeing violent or pornographic images online.

There was an upside to the research, however. According to the report, “87% of kids said they would seek adult support if threatened with physical harm, 84% would tell an adult if they were being blackmailed or threatened online and 71% would report something suspicious or inappropriate.”

NYC Department of Education Proposes Ban on Sexting

Sexting, using digital technology to send and share explicit sexual photographs, is a major problem among teens. It is also a problem for schools who don’t know how to monitor it and prosecutors whose only legal remedy is to arrests kids for child pornography. Could a blanket ban on sexting help keep students safe?

According to the Huffington Post, that’s what the New York City Department of Education is proposing with the added caveat that students could be punished for sexting done outside of school hours. Naturally, this proposal has raised questions about how much power school officials should have over a student’s life outside of the classroom.

LAPD Using Social Media to Find Los Angeles Looters

As we predicted last week Friday, the Los Angeles Police Department has begun wading through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to identify individuals responsible for rioting in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA Championship victory. Over the last several years, social media technology has become an increasingly critical tool for law enforcement officials in their fight against crime.

FTC Rep Says U.S. Privacy Laws Aren’t Working

Speaking on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, Kathryn Ratte recently went on record saying that existing U.S. privacy laws aren’t working as they should and that there’s “too much burden on the consumers” to understand privacy policies that vary widely from one company to the next. Ratte’s comments come in anticipation of a long-awaited report detailing recommendations to Congress on improvements to our current privacy laws.