Entries Tagged 'CyberBullying' ↓

In today’s Quick Hits, we talk about cyberbullying prevention, a Foursquare founder’s thoughts on Facebook Places, and why a newly proposed German privacy law will be impossible to enforce.

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Eric Zorn: Teens Must Learn to be Their Own Internet Monitors

In a column for the Chicago Tribune, Eric Zorn offers parenting advice about monitoring the Internet. In addition to his advice, however, Zorn also remarks that, with so much access, “even moderately clever teens can outwit parents bent on surveillance.” To this end, Zorn writes that “teens must learn to be their own Internet monitors” and understand the importance of practicing strong and proactive online reputation management.

Foursquare Co-Founder Calls Facebook Places “Boring”

With Facebook Places set to take over the world of location-based social networking, competitors are beginning to speak out. In a recent interview with the Telegraph, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley said, ““I have now had a chance to play around with Facebook Places and it’s not that great or interesting. It’s a pretty boring service, with barely any incentives for users to keep coming back and telling their friends where they are.” If even a fraction of Facebook’s more than 500 million users try out Facebook Places, it will be a major blow to other geo-location social media services.

AOL Launches Paid Child Safety Service

AOL recently launched a new child safety service called Safe Social. Safe Social employs monitoring technology to alert parents about a child’s actions online. The effort is AOL’s first branded paid consumer service in years. According to TechCrunch, AOL is licensing technology from the company SocialShield in order to offer Safe Social to customers.

Can Schools Search Cell Phones to Stop Cyberbullying?

How far should schools be allowed to go in their efforts to fight cyberbullying? That’s the question at hand in Oak Harbor, Washington where a new anti-bullying plan would give school administrators the ability to search through students’ cellphones if they are suspected of using them to “harass others through e-mails, text messages or photos.” Administrators compare searching a cell phone to searching a school locker, but some parents believe the plan goes too far.

Germany Proposes Law that Prohibits Cybersnooping

What if hiring managers were legally prohibited from using the Internet to screen candidates? That may soon happen in Germany where “Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has drafted a new law on data privacy that, among other things, will clamp down on the information companies can legally collect on employees from social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace.” Germany is one of the most privacy-conscious countries in the world, but it seems that this law would be next to impossible to enforce.

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.