'Distributed friendship'

Ninety percent of British youth have access to a computer at home, and more than 60% of UK 13-to17-year-olds have profiles on social-networking sites, The Telegraph reports in its thorough, thoughtful article, "Can u speak teenager?" Like the New York magazine piece I linked to last week, this one reflects some interesting analysis occurring about how all this online socializing is affecting growing up now – and how it compares to the way we grew up. For example, we maybe had a few really close friends with whom we shared "everything." The average teen now has 75 friends rather than 5, London School of Economics Prof. Sonia Livingston told The Telegraph. Today's youth are connected to a whole community of peers. Closeness, intimacy, the sharing of secrets is distributed rather than individual and private. This gives new meaning to "strength in numbers." And there is a "culture of openness" now that Dr. Arthur Cassidy, a psychologist at the Belfast Institute, told The Telegraph can be "particularly therapeutic for teenage boys."

Cyberbullying findings

Cross-gender peer pressure and Web video are not a good mix, this Reuters report indicates. Cyberbullies are pressuring "friends" to strip in front of Webcams so the bullies can share the video online. A research team at the University of Toronto held focus groups with 47 students in grades 5-12 to look into online behavior like this. "The images are even more likely to be passed on if the couple breaks up," their research found. It also confirmed what other studies have that: that victims refuse to tell an adult about the abuse because they fear parents will shut down their Internet access, and because it's "pointless to tell parents" when the bully can't be identified (s/he usually can be, but kids don't know this). The full study will be released in June, Reuters says.

Multitasking's limits: Studies

It appears critical thinking is needed where multitasking's concerned. Don't just yield indiscriminately to technology's "tug," the New York Times report suggests - manage your technology! The Times says experts in multiple studies advise that we "check email messages once an hour, at most. Listening to soothing background music while studying may improve concentration. But other distractions — most songs with lyrics, instant messaging, television shows — hamper performance. Driving while talking on a cellphone, even with a hands-free headset, is a bad idea." There's still a lot we don't know, though. Because we've only had all these multitasking-enabling digital devices a short time, the research has only just begun.

A call to stop cyberbulllying

Death threats against prominent blogger Kathy Sierra have set off what looks to be an unprecedented Internet-wide protest against cyberbullying. It's a horrible way to raise awareness, but awareness has long been needed. I unconsciously previewed the news when I wrote "Predators vs. cyberbullies: A reality check" a couple of weeks ago. More recently, "when computer programmer and author Kathy Sierra began blogging about technology, she fully expected to see comments critical of her ideas. What she didn't anticipate were online posts advocating her murder or sexual assault against her," Business Week reports. Hundreds of bloggers have blogged their protests, and tech-education blogger Andy Carvin has called for this Friday to be Stop Cyberbullying Day and created not a new blog but a new social-networking site to mark the day. My thanks to friend, blogger, and tech educator Anne Bubnic for her heads-up on this.

Texting-while-driving ban?

Washington State is considering a ban on driving while texting, and "at least three other" states are too, CBS NEWS reports. Washington's House of Representatives voted yes on the ban, following, "among other things, a December pileup that shut down a Seattle highway for more than an hour. Police blame a driver who was using his BlackBerry."

1 in 6 self-injure

One in six US adolescents are inflicting injury on themselves, according to research by Stony Brook University psychology professor David Klonsky, and the number is rising. Reuters reports that his study "involved interviews with about 40 students who self-injure" and an analysis of 30 years of research on self-inflicted cutting and burning. He found the behavior is "often linked to depression but not suicide" (the latter a fairly common misconception), and it's a coping mechanism. One of his interviewees told Professor Klonsky that cutting distracted her from her emotional anguish (her brother had gone to prison and her father to serve in the US military in Iraq). Klonsky says this has become a major problem in schools in the US, Britain, and Australia. Though the behavior is usually solitary and secretive, like involvement in eating disorders, it can find the wrong kind of reinforcement online - as well as help (see "The social Web's 'Lifeline'"). Meanwhile, parents might also want to read a New York Times report on "the choking game": "Asphyxiation games have been around for many years, [but] a series of locally publicized deaths around the country over the last few years, coupled with a realization that teenagers are seeing the game on Internet sites like YouTube, and playing it in more threatening variations - more often ... alone with a rope - are sparking a vigorous and open discussion in schools and among parents' groups, summer camp administrators and doctors."

'Think Before You Post' launched

The US Justice Department, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, and Ad Council just launched a new phase of their media campaign to raise public awareness about exploitation of online teens, Government Technology magazine reports. The article cites a news study by Cox Communications showing that 61% of 13-to-17-year-olds have a personal profile on social networking sites; half of them "have posted pictures of themselves online"; 20% of them say it is "somewhat safe" or "very safe" to share personal info on a public blog or profile; and 37% say "they're not very concerned or not at all concerned about someone using personal information they've posted online in ways they haven't approved." The "Think Before You Post" videos can be viewed in the Ad Council site, and here's the National Center's press release. Here's coverage from the Muncie (Ind.) Free Press.

Online video stars

Winners of the first-annual YouTube awards included videos of "Chicago band OK Go dancing across treadmills," a Sydney man hugging strangers in the street, and "an animated video about a kiwi bird trying to fly," Reuters reports. Categories included "Most Adorable," "Best Commentary," and Most Inspirational," and "Best Comedy," and Reuters lists the winner in each.

File-sharing students' settlements

Some 18,000 file-sharers have been sued by the recording industry trade association (RIAA) so far, about 1,000 of them university students, the Associated Press reports. The RIAA offers the students settlements that can cost them as much as $3,000. It "sent letters offering discounted settlements to 400 computer users at 13 universities in late February," with 116 settlements having been reached so far. The RIAA sent another such batch of letters out this week. The letters can be scary, so it's no surprise students settle. "A letter to one Ohio University student told her that she distributed 787 audio files, putting her total minimum potential liability at more than $590,000."

From 2nd Life to Spore

You don't just create a fully developed avatar (online version of yourself) in Spore, you start from cellular-level scratch and develop yourself and your world over time in the forthcoming game that its creator - (SimCity creator and "videogame god") Will Wright – believes will help mankind. Big vision, but if it becomes the blockbuster some analysts believe it will, it just might. According to The Register, Wright sees the game as "a learning exercise." He describes Spore (expected to be out later this year) as "a 'philosophy tool' that will force people to spend extra time 'contemplating the meaning of life' or considering the complex workings of civilizations. You might, for example, be forced to manage a planet battling global warming" or deal with real life threats. The Register steps away from its usual slight cynicism to concede that "Spore does look to place higher demands on users than your typical brain-shrinking garbage such as Second Life or for that matter television." CNET and Business Week covered Wright's keynote at a recent game developers conference (note his comparison of videogames and film in CNET and the more "player-centered" aspect of games he describes in Business Week).

The social Web's 'Lifeline'

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline has 1,434 MySpace friends - and counting (1,417 at the beginning of this week). That means 1,434 MySpace users have a link on their profiles to the Lifeline. This past year, just one of those profiles referred nearly 14,000 people to the national hotline. "Our site received more than 128,000 unique visitors from MySpace in the past 12 months," the Lifeline's Christopher Gandin Le told me, referring to the Lifeline's Web site (as opposed to its MySpace page). Even though MySpace donated $36 million in Lifeline ad placements this past year, only 13,000 of those 128,000 referrals actually came from the Lifeline's own MySpace profile. "It's individuals who are exercising the power they have to help their friends and visitors," said Le, who is resource and information manager for the federally funded network with 120 call centers around the country. The support they give callers is free, confidential, and available 24/7, and they receive 1,300 calls a day nationwide (if someone doesn't answer after six rings, the call bounces to the nearest crisis center). But they don't only help people in suicidal crisis. The crisis centers get questions about depression, relationships, loneliness, substance abuse, and how to help friends and loved ones, I learned from Ginny Gohr, director of the Girls and Boys Town National Hotline, which is both local to Nebraska and the backup national hotline in the Lifeline network (its tagline: "Any problem. Any Time."). For more on this and the Lifeline's growing presence elsewhere on the social Web, please click to this week's issue of my newsletter.

'Video Game Decency Act' is back

It was "was one of a handful of pieces of proposed federal legislation that failed to get traction in Congress last year," CNET reports. Like the Truth in Video Game Rating Act, the VGDA has been reintroduced, the latter by Rep. Fred Upton (R) of Michigan. "The bill aims to criminalize any attempt to obtain a less-restrictive age-related rating on a game by failing to disclose the game's true contents to the Entertainment Software Rating Board," according to CNET.

(Probably final) COPA decision

The latest set of arguments on the Child Online Protection Act of 1998 were heard by a federal appeals court for a month last fall. The decision of a permanent injunction against the law's enforcement came down today. The Justice Department argued last fall that filtering isn't enough protection for online kids, COPA was needed. Here's a summary of Judge Lowell Reed Jr.'s opinion on filtering in the Progress & Freedom Foundation blog - basically there are lots of options, they're easy to use, easily obtainable, and they've improved a lot since '98. PFF also looks at what Judge Reed says about age verification, which is very relevant to the current public discussion about child protection in social sites (see PFF's thorough study, "Social Networking and Age Verification," 3/07). COPA, which has been called "son of CDA," was blocked almost immediately after it was signed into law. It has been to the Supreme Court twice, only to be handed back to the lower federal court in Philadelphia for further deliberation. "CDA," the Communications Decency Act of 1996, had been rejected on First Amendment grounds by a lower court and then, in 1997, by the Supreme Court. Here's the full text of the court's decision in this case, American Civil Liberties Union, et al. v. Attorney General Roberto R. Gonzales, and here's coverage of today's decision from CBS/AP and a blog post about it from my BlogSafety.com co-director, Larry Magid.

Web defamation: Students expelled

Four junior high students were expelled and 20 others suspended for creating imposter profiles about two teachers on Edmonton-based social site Nexopia, the Sherwood Park News reports. Nexopia promptly removed the profiles, according to CNEWS, which added that the four expelled students set up the impersonating profiles, then the students who were later suspended (or one to five days) posted insulting comments on the pages. A school resource officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the students apparently "were incensed that teachers appeared to be invading the youth-oriented site."

YouTube competition

First, BitTorrent (the P2P file-sharing giant that went "legitimate" over a year ago) is teaming up with Joost (which uses P2P tech to stream TV on the Web) to launch a "new Net TV service," MediaPost reports. Then NBC and News Corp. announced they were teaming up to launch a video site this summer, the Wall Street Journal reports. The BitTorrent-Joost deal could make life a little tougher for YouTube, too, because Joost recently announced a deal with Viacom, which is suing YouTube for $1 billion for copyright infringement. Stanford law Prof. Lawrence Lessig clearly explained what's going on with this lawsuit in a New York Times commentary this week, and University of Chicago law Prof. Douglas Lichtman explained in a Los Angeles Times commentary why he joined Viacom's defense team in this landmark case in copyright law. In slightly related news, the EU is considering a law that could mean "criminal sanctions, including prison time for employees," for all kinds of Internet companies, including video-sharing ones, "if their … services are ever used to carry illegally copied material such as music or film," IDG News Service reports. As for numbers: According to comScore Networks, "nearly 123 million people in the US (70% of the total US Internet audience) viewed 7.2 billion videos online in January," the latest figure available and - with the help of its acquisition, YouTube - Google was the US's No. 1 online video provider. Here are "DVGuru" blogger's reviews of 10 major video-sharing sites.

Social Web's digital divide

…is between generations. It's the one between self-exposing teens and their worried elders. New York magazine reports that "the future belongs to the uninhibited"? It could well be so, but I definitely agree with writer Emily Nussbaum that we haven't seen a generation gap like this for "perhaps 50 years…. You have to go back to the early years of rock and roll, when … everything associated with that music and its greasy, shaggy culture felt baffling and divisive." Emily quotes Lakshmi Chaudhry in The Nation as saying that, "when it is more important to be seen than to be talented [and] without any meaningful standard by which to measure our worth, we turn to the public eye for affirmation." Don't miss what she hears from New York University new media Prof. Clay Shirky about what he's learned from his students as he's watched their use of social media evolve, steeped as they are in an environment - so alien to their parents - in which everybody can have a fan base. For example, Emily tells the story of 19-year-old Columbia U. student Xiyin Tang, who "knows there's a scare factor in having such a big online viewership – you could get stalked for real, or your employer could bust you for partying. But her actual experience has been that if someone is watching, it's probably a good thing…. All sorts of opportunities – romantic, professional, creative – seem to Xiyin to be directly linked to her willingness to reveal herself a little." Also don't miss the section under "Change 2" in which 17-year-old Caitlin Oppermann offers her perspective on the "conventional wisdom about the online world, that it's a sketchy bus station packed with pedophiles," and on how self-exposing teens repair damage to their images or reputations.

Filipinos' Friendster

If anyone doubted how international social networking is, they need only look at how Friendster.com's doing in the Philippines. It dominates Internet use in that Southeast Asian country. According to the Manila Times, San Francisco-based Friendster, the No. 1 social site there, accounts for 87% of Philippine Internet traffic and has 7 million Filipino members, its largest population among 40 million members in 75 countries. Malaysia, Indonesia, the US, and Singapore are Nos. 2-5, respectively, in Friendster's Top 5 countries. The site's explanation for its popularity in the Philippines is that in its early days, Filipinos in San Francisco used the site to stay in touch with friends and relatives back home. There are plenty of young bloggers in the Philippines too – note that the country's top teen magazine, Candy, is holding the 2007 Teen Blog Awards, PEP the Philippine Entertainment Portal, reports.

ClubPenguin.com cheats

If you have a videogamer or two at your house, you've heard of "cheats." Sources of cheats to gain an advantage or pass some levels are all over the Web (see Wikipedia). Well, now there are even cheats for the ClubPenguin set (8-to-14-year-olds), CommonSenseMedia.org reports. "By downloading illicit software easily found with a simple Google search, kids are now using tricks to get gold coins instead of earning them fairly. Tips on how to steal and swindle coins can be found on blogs, message boards, and through YouTube video clips." Here's CommonSenseMedia's review, and here's earlier NFN coverage, "Social-networking training wheels."

Pinpointing IM users

You may've heard of social mapping on cellphones (pinpointing friends' physical location with GPS technology – see "Mobile socializing"). Now there's social mapping in IM. AOL's AIM instant messenger "adds a new group of AIM's buddy list windows called 'Near Me'," the Associated Press reports. This isn't GPS (global positioning system). Near Me "tracks locations by using the continuous wireless pulses emitted at Wi-Fi hot spots and by Wi-Fi home networks instead of satellite-based positioning. It's a free download, so AIM users at your house could already have it – something parents might want to check. "The application also can display a buddy's location on a map. For now, these capabilities will be available when using AIM on a computer, but not on a cellphone," the AP adds.

Predators vs. cyberbullies: Reality check

Parents who have seen "To Catch a Predator" on Dateline NBC are asking how much they should be worrying about their social-networking kids. They need to know that the Predator series is no representation of risks to youth on the social Web. It's not even presenting a credible picture of sexual predation in general, we find in an in-depth look at the social costs of producing "The Shame Game" in the Columbia Journalism Review. It shows how Dateline is fueling public fears not because it's representing reality but because it's representing reality TV. In this week's issue of my newsletter, I look at how Dateline has presented the numbers, an actual figure from state attorneys general, and the best figures we have on noncriminal risks confronting (and created by) teens on the social Web - plus one very notable figure on the positive side of social networking - that the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline gets more than 100,000 referrals a year from MySpace alone. I hope this reality check can help broaden the public discussion.

Cyberthieves: More sophisticated

It's not so much that they're getting smarter as that "tools for carrying out attacks [on family computers] are readily available and harder to purge from computers," reports Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs. Yes, a virus clicked on in an email can grab info, but it can also leave keylogger software that grabs even more. Brian led with the story of a man whose infected PC gave cyberthieves his bank account and health insurance info and social security number. But this could be anyone. This particular group of Eastern Europe-based thieves "infiltrated the new-accounts department of a major US bank, a medical patient database in Georgia, and an Alabama district attorney's office containing a database used by police departments to trace people," Brian writes. His blog post gives details. What to do? In his blog, Brian writes (tell your kids!): "Don't download files of questionable origin or click on email attachments willy-nilly.... I cannot overstate the importance of Windows users being extremely cautious about opening unexpected attachments in emails, even if they appear to come from someone you know. When in doubt, fire a quick e-mail back to the sender to ask whether they really meant to send you the attachment."

Social-networking news bits

There is so much social-networking news these days that I thought you might prefer them in a collection of little bytes:

Extended families may be interested in social networking specifically for them. Two examples written up in AppScout are Famster.com and TheFamilyPost.com, where families can share photos privately (CNET has a video about Famster).

University students may be interested in TheCollegeLife.com, an alternative to Facebook, the No. 2 social-networking site (after MySpace). According to this reporter at DePaul University's newspaper, "on a College Life profile, rather than one extended page, there is a series of tabs that each hold a different category: profile, blog, photos, favorites, event calendar and a completely new category: the wishlist."

Parents worldwide may be interested in what this mom in Oz says about teen self-exposure in blogs (she chooses not to read her daughter's): "They're doing exactly what we did at their age, even if we did it through physical space - the telephone and the diary. But what's shocking to us is the extent of self-exposure they embrace. These kids live their lives online, but to their parents it feels like public nudity." Don't miss her whole thoughtful commentary in the Sydney Morning Herald.

As for the numbers: Agence France Presse reports that "visits to social-networking websites climbed 11.5% February with big surges in popularity seen in smaller players." Traffic to MySpace, which got 80% of social-networking visits, rose 10.2% and to Facebook, 9.1%. Visits to Buzznet and iMeem (which each had less than 1% of social-networking traffic in February), more than doubled, AFP cited Hitwise as saying.

Bulk cellphone calls

Two bits of mobile social-networking news: one a service already available, the other coming to a phone near you. You've heard of bulk emails to all your friends and your kids' bulletins on MySpace – well, now there are bulk cellphone calls to all your friends at, for example, Foonz.com. People set up a free account at Foonz.com, create your contact list on the site, and use your access number to get prompted through making a group call to everyone on your contact list. Here's coverage at the Sudbury (Mass.) Town Crier. As for finding mobilely social friends, an up and coming development is the social phonebook, not only providing phone numbers but physically locating and showing where friends are at any given moment. Helsinki-based Jaiku "takes the user's contacts and adds presence, location, and availability information to the normal static listings," according to the Mobile Tech News at Brighthand.com. Super convenience, but think about all that information (about, say, a teenager) somehow getting into the wrong hands. Food for parental thought.

Viacom vs. online teens?

The New York Times says Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against Google's site YouTube.com "is the clearest sign yet of the tension between Google and major media companies." I'd say it's probably bigger than that. It's the clearest sign yet of the tension between the social, media-sharing Web and the media industry. It's a story that affects teenagers especially because they love to share media – their own homemade videos (some with background music sold by huge media companies) and everybody else's, including clips from favorite TV shows, music videos, etc. This lawsuit could change the Web's media-sharing landscape and, the San Jose Mercury News reports, "could end up rewriting one of the key laws of the Internet age: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act." A search of Google news turned up 1,200+ news articles from news outlets around the world.

Law enforcement on the social Web

These two stories illustrate how Web 2.0 has upsides and downsides for police too. It appears to be mostly upside, the way social-networking sites have become an investigative tool. The first story, from the Associated Press, is a very interesting one about how police not able to recognize credit card thieves in a Home Depot security video posted it on YouTube, "then emailed the clip's link to about 300 people and organizations. In this case, "the suspects were ultimately arrested," but - though the video generated publicity and thousands of viewings online – it was "old-fashioned police work" not YouTube that ultimately led to their arrests (the article relates another case, in London, Ontario, where YouTube figured more prominently in an arrest, and this one reported by WFSB TV in Connecticut). The other story is about how police, too, are the subject (negatively portrayed) of YouTube videos, the article continues. And bogus police profiles and pages have turned up on the Web. USATODAY reports that "at least 16 police or sheriffs' departments appeared to have profile pages on MySpace to seek investigative tips or deter predators, but USA TODAY found that at least six were fakes." As for the real ones, one is the Miami-Dade Police Department, which says that "more than 500 people have asked the department to be their friend" - in other words, to be on their MySpace friends' lists. The Department says people see it as a predator deterrent. But nothing beats helping kids develop the filter between their ears – their critical thinking. A Wyoming law enforcement officer told USATODAY that he "has seen people pose online as police officers to lure children into trusting them."

Child porn: 15-year-old charged

It's very difficult to determine how much criminal intent a minor has in cases of possession of child pornography, the Bangor (Me.) Daily News reports. Bangor police confiscated a 15-year-old boy’s home computer on Dec. 20 after finding it contained child porn. They said they collected enough computer evidence to charge him with "felony possession of sexually explicit materials." Apparently, his possession of the images was reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's CyberTipline.com, which is how Bangor police learned of case. As of this report, it's not known if the boy will be prosecuted. A lot of cases like this don't get prosecuted for reasons of "lack of criminal intent," according to a police officer on Maine's Computer Crimes Task Force policy board. Cases like this that are most likely to be prosecuted are those in which the subject has disseminated the child-porn images, he said. The Daily News also reported that," on average, police officers in Maine seize a computer every two days."

High-profile child-porn conviction

Then-teenager Justin Berry wasn't Ken Gourlay's only victim, but it was Justin who first accused him. Gourlay was convicted last Friday of enticing and molesting a minor and distributing child pornography over the Internet, among other charges, the Associated Press reports. "Gourlay was one of several men arrested on charges involving child pornography after Berry began working with the Justice Department. One of them, Gregory Mitchel, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Berry's testimony before Congress came after his case was highlighted by the New York Times" in December 2005 (see "Kids & Webcams"). The AP adds that "prosecutors say Berry, who now is an adult, was lured to Ann Arbor from California in 2002 to attend a computer camp and was molested by Gourlay."

Mini-MySpaces: New phase

We've entered the phase of the social Web in which your child can have her very own social-networking site. Teachers can have their own classroom social-networking and media-sharing sites (private or public). So can your book club. As can bullies or gangs or porn collectors, too, for that matter, as unnerving as it is to think about that (post your thoughts in the BlogSafety forum).

I've written about personal social-networking sites before, but this CBS News focus on Ning, which hosts these homemade social sites itself, really got me thinking….

Phase 1 was Friendster for social-networking and personal blogs for self-expression.

Phase 2 was MySpace combining those two (for social producing, creative networking, or just collective self-expression) - as photo- and video-hosting sites like PhotoBucket and YouTube became social sites too. Call this the social-networking stew phase.

Phase 3: niche social networking (e.g. see ZDNET on the latest, Anheuser-Busch's MingleNow.com "to elevate and enhance the image of beer").

Now - Phase 4 - mini-MySpaces, or grassroots niche or general social networking (whichever anyone prefers).

For more on the implications of all this, please click to this week's issue of my newsletter.

Narcissism due to social networking?

Remember "looking out for No. 1"? The results of a just-released study on narcisissm sound a little like that phrase I heard a lot when I was just out of college (we won't say how long ago). "A new study argues that self-absorption in college students is at a new high," reports the Chicago Tribune on a study at San Diego State University. "The authors of the study - which has tracked college students' attitudes about themselves yearly since 1982 - are not talking about pathological narcissistic personality disorder; just an attitude of 'It's all about me'," the Trib says, and they say blogging and social networking are "playing a big role" in this. Tech educator Andy Carvin takes exception to this argument in his blog at PBS.org: "The vast majority of people who use social networking sites aren’t in on it to become famous and have hordes of adoring fans. Sure, some people are there for vanity or proto-celebrity purposes, but most people are there for us, not me…. They’re communities where people reinforce interpersonal relationships through sharing and creating content…. [They] want to be a part of something bigger than themselves."

Parents & kids talk Net safety

Way to go, parents – 86.4% of teens say their parents have discussed online safety with them. That's teen users of the social virtual world Habbo.com, anyway, but I suspect they're very representative of teen social-networkers in general. Habbo recently completed its Teen Online Safety Awareness Month, which it says got "over 20,000 teens taking part in safety-related activities and educational programs, including many that involved discussion time between the teens and their parents. Nearly 21,000 teens received limited edition virtual safety badges to show that they had their parents read Habbo's online safety guide. Nearly 10,000 teens visited a virtual lounge within the community with a safety theme." On the sobering side, here are other key findings:

51.7% visit chat rooms at least once every day

18.5% have "experienced chatting online with someone they found out was an adult pretending to be much younger"

57.2% have "chatted, IM’d or emailed with someone online that they have never met face to face"

26.6% have "been asked questions about their sexuality or sexual experiences while chatting online that made them feel uncomfortable"

31.7% have posted personal information online

72.5% "are aware that anyone can view personal information they post online, not just their friends."

Social norms in social sites

It's the new, Internet-enabled principle of reciprocity (see this page), going something like this: Comment on others' as you would have them comment on your profile – but don't go to theirs too much because it's invading their privacy. Yes, even though they put all that very personal info out there, social-networking social norms are beginning to indicate it's too aggressive, even a little voyeuristic, to check out people's profiles before you know them very well. The term USATODAY uses in a story about this is "Facebook stalkers" . This illustrates that social norms are beginning to develop in the social-networking space – not surprisingly, they're extensions or refinements of those in RL (real life) social lives. But it's very complicated. Here's a set of rules one Facebook user told USATODAY: "With close friends, it is always OK to comment on their profiles; they expect it and might even be upset if you don't. With distant acquaintances, it is almost never OK. It's those in the middle that are tricky; it's OK to bring up their profiles only if there is a reasonable explanation for why you were looking at it in the first place." See also this USATODAY piece with tips for online socializers on how to break up with someone in RL (real life). They include: It helps to announce the breakup online as quickly as possible (clean break), remove him/her contact data from all devices, and don't check out his or her blog.

Sex-offender law considered in NJ

The law being proposed in Connecticut (just below) would restrict social-networking teens (or send them underground), while a law under consideration in New Jersey would restrict sex offenders from the Internet. Under it, "released sex offenders caught using the Internet would face up to 18 months in jail and fines of up to $10,000. Sex offenders caught using the Internet to solicit a child would face a mandatory five years in jail," the Associated Press reports. The legislation, which will be considered soon by the state Senate, would also "require online dating sites to tell New Jersey residents whether they do background checks." The AP adds that it has already raised free-speech concerns.

Age-verification law proposed in CT

Connecticut lawmakers today (3/7) introduced legislation that would require social sites to verify users' ages and to obtain parental consent before minors could post pages, the Associated Press reports. The proposed law would fine social-networking, chat, and other such sites up to $5,000 per violation. "Sites would have to check information about parents to make sure it is legitimate. Parents would be contacted directly when necessary." The state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said 10 to 20 other states were considering legislation like this.

MySpace's chief security officer

Last year we all experienced the perfect storm of parental fear development: Social networking coming out of nowhere (for parents) + MySpace's exponential growth + a ton of negative media coverage (including "To Catch a Predator") + a mid-term election in which politicians tried to respond to public fears with the effect of further fueling them. In the middle of that storm, a new position was created at a number of social sites: chief security officer. Fox Interactive, parent of MySpace, was, I'm almost certain, the first to hire one: former federal prosecutor and Microsoft consumer-safety director, Hemanshu Nigam (Hemu for short). CSO Magazine tells that story - from why Nigam took the challenge to what he has done to secure MySpace users' experience. Parents may find it helpful to see a lot of these features and corporate practices in one place. As for what he and his staff are doing right now, here's a snapshot: The social site's "24/7 support operations team - currently about 40% of MySpace's 300-person staff - manually reviews the 7 million images and videos that are posted every day. They also run searches to try to find underage users who post information, like the name of the elementary school they attend, that indicates they are not at least 14 years old. The company says it currently shuts down about 30,000 profiles of underage users each week."

Porn spam declining

Spam, or junk email, is still a big problem, certainly, but the X-rated kind "has been on a steady decline and hit an all-time low in February," CNET reports, citing a report from Symantec, which sells email-security tools. It found that adult spam constituted only 3% of the spam it filtered last month. Health-care and general product ads constituted 48%, followed by emails advertising financial service (21%) and Internet service (15%).

PS3 to add Net features

The PlayStation 3 enhancements are designed to "draw gamers into Sony's cyberspace community and allow them to share entertainment content they have created, à la YouTube," the New York Times reports. Yet another example of how mobile and device-agnostic the Internet is becoming. With "the centerpiece" of PS3's new features, PlayStation Home, players will be able to create a single gamer's profile or "identity," in essence, which records their achievements in various games. This way gamers can rate or rank each other across the Net. Sounds like a cool, logical addition to the experience but, it also adds the Internet's downside: the fact that people with bad intentions have access to that information too. Then there's the downside of content now accessible through Net-connected videogame consoles and handhelds. CBS4.com Miami reports that, "even though the game systems are not marketed as computers, that's what thy are; specialized computers optimized for graphics and sound, and with the new consoles, the ability to play with other gamers anywhere in the world, via a connection to the Internet.
It's that connection, and the ingenuity of porn site operators, which have made adult images available to young eyes." See also MyFoxColorado.com on this.

DOJ wants photo-sharers' data

The Bush administration is proposing that media-sharing sites keep records on who uploads photos and videos, CNET reports. That's for "in case police determine the content is illegal and choose to investigate," the article adds. The proposal came up in a meeting the Justice Department held with Internet companies about data retention. The DOJ is pushing for it as "valuable in investigating terrorism, child pornography and other crimes," and reportedly asked the companies how much it would cost to record details on their subscribers for two years."

China cracks down on Net use

It's known as the "Great Firewall," and – unlike the age-old Great Wall – it seems to go up and down. Right now, the firewall's up. Possibly timed to the National People's Congress meeting in Beijing, China seems to be in the middle of a crackdown on Net use, Wired reports. "The Chinese government began blocking access to the popular blogging site LiveJournal on Friday, cutting off its citizens from the roughly 1.8 million blogs the service hosts. SixApart, the company behind LiveJournal, says there are 8,692 self-reported Chinese bloggers on the site, a number that's likely low since it's based on information volunteered in user profiles." It wasn't the first time for LiveJournal. "While China has reached an accord with some blog hosting companies, including Microsoft's MSN Spaces, it has a history of blocking others, including Google's Blogger.com," Wired adds. The government .
LiveJournal announced the block Monday. Ginger Tulley, director of worldwide strategy and analysis for Six Apart, says the company isn't certain when the censorship began. But the site GreatFirewallofChina.org, which tests connectivity to popular websites from within China, first spotted the block Friday. The government also has blocked any new Internet cafes from opening this year, Agence France Presse reports, adding that the number of cafes "soared 23.4% to 137 million in 2006" and China's number of Internet users is expected to surpass that of the US in two years.

Do-it-yourself SN ad sales

Our kids may soon be supplementing their allowance with ads on their profiles and blogs. For a while now, anybody who has a Web page has been able to sign up for Google AdSense and make money on ads appearing on his/her page (lots of traffic certainly helps!). The new thing is bloggers and social-networking profile owners making money on ads in their pages. Here's an early version of this trend-to-be: Italy-based social site Dada.net's partnership with Google AdSense called Friend$, according to BigMouthMedia.com (part of a mostly UK-based digital marketing agency). That's what you might call opt-in advertising on the social Web. Another approach: opt-out advertising. Ning.com, host and production-tool provider for homemade social sites, is free to people who allow it to sell ads against their social-networking sites; but if they pay $19.95 to Ning, they can either be ad-free or sell their own ads in their sites' pages (see this in the San Jose Mercury News).

Videogames at the cinema

Soon Mom and Dad may go see a film while Jr. goes to a sort of public LAN party at the same multiplex. Cinegames are already happening in Spain, where movie theater company Yelmo Cineplex spent "more than $390,000 to modify one of its small individual theaters in a high-tech video gaming hall seating about 50 people," the New York Times reports. Predictably, the busy time is weekends, with individual gamers paying a currently discounted 3 euros (about $4) to play multiplayer games (friends pay 1 euro just to watch). Yelmo is also organizing tournaments and – to fill in on weekdays - developing "an educational division that would rent out the hall to schools that could use the system for learning and testing." Yelmo's plans also include reaching out to senior citizen groups "in an attempt to attract a broader audience."

'Web 2.0 on the go'

Cellphone bloggers and social networkers (as opposed to Web-based ones) are more likely to upload pictures and videos because they have the camera right in their hands, the BBC reports. Web-based socializers use text more because the keyboard's at their fingertips. The BBC cites the view of a mobile-social-networking executive that mobile socializing is more about people's lifestyles and Web socializing more about opinion, politics, etc., but I think he's thinking about adult Web 2.0 users more than teenaged ones. The next big thing, a BBC source says, is using phones not to access social sites like Bebo and virtual worlds like Second Life, but as bridges to connect virtual world and real one. For example, the avatar of a friend of yours in Second Life calls you on your cellphone from "in-world" (because you're not in-world at the moment), and when you pick up, you see the picture of her avatar on your phone screen (so you know where she's calling from). Check out this thoughtful article.

Safety for teen gadget-resellers

Their ranks are growing – teenagers selling their electronic gadgets on eBay, craigslist, or MySpace because they need the money to get the latest model, the New York Times reports. "Part of the reason is that households with teenagers typically have 35 consumer electronic products, on average, compared with 24 products at homes with no teenagers." Parents need to know there are safety and privacy issues involved, including the fact that "teenagers may be interacting with strangers in these transactions," the Times points out. For example, if a kid doesn't want to pay to ship an item, s/he may make arrangement to meet a seller in person. Parents may want to review ads before placement too, since teens may unthinkingly include a phone number or address in a craigslist ad.

Eating disorders & the social Web

Hannah (not her real name), a 4th-year student at Hampshire College, recently posted in our BlogSafety.com forum about social-networking sufferers of eating disorders (EDs). She'd been surfing the social sites, concerned about a long-time friend of hers, "Cora," who had "relapsed" (started extreme dieting again). Part of her was hoping she wouldn't find Cora in one of the ED "support" communities. She didn't, but…

"I was looking around on Xanga and came across a bunch of girls who support each other in starving themselves to become thinner," she wrote, referring to "pro-ana" (for anorexia), "pro-mia" (for bulimia) communities on the Web. "One of my friends has been battling with this for years now - since she was the same age as [the girls in Xanga] and has serious health consequences. These girls are in a dangerous situation and are causing serious harm to themselves. Is there any place that could help or anything that someone could do? I don't know who these girls are, but I'm worried about their health."

An estimated .5-1% of adolescent and adult women are anorexic and 1-2% are bulimic, Newsweek reports, and they have been seeking and receiving support on the Web (to both continue and stop EDs' self-destructive behavior) since long before social networking came along. But – as with all types of interest communities - on Web 2.0, the networking and validation-seeking is both more convenient and more exposed. This is both bad and good, respectively. Please click to this week's issue of my newsletter for an explanation - and an interview with Hannah that brings new meaning to the term "online safety."

Gates family's 'screen limits'

Just a fun little parenting tidbit from a famous family: Bill and Melinda Gates's oldest child, who's 10, only just became "a hard-core Internet and computer user" when she started attending a school "where the students use tablet computers for almost everything," Reuters reports. Suddenly she was an avid gamer who could spend hours a day playing Viva Pinata on the Xbox 360. The Microsoft founder said his 10-year-old daughter, his oldest child, was not a hard-core Internet and computer user until this year, when she started at a school where the students use tablet computers for almost everything. So her parents set a limit: "45 minutes a day of total screen time for games and an hour a day on weekends," plus whatever time is needed on the PC for homework.

Oz state bans YouTube in schools

YouTube will be banned from Victoria's 1,600 public schools "in a bid to clamp down on cyberbullying," Australia's The Age reports. The ban followed "public outrage after a group of schoolboys filmed themselves sexually abusing and degrading a teenage girl and uploaded the video onto YouTube," according to Agence France Press. According to The Age, a teachers union official, Mary Bluett, said the ban will have little effect – that cyberbullying occurs via cellphones more than Web sites, and most schools have clear policies on mobile phone use. She added that it's more important to educate people about the effects of bullying than "trying to police the action." Victoria's Principals Association President Fred Ackerman welcomed the ban, The Age reports, but agreed that it "could only be a small part of the solution to the problem of cyberbullying."

Indie TV beyond YouTube

If your kids love watching online videos, they probably already know this: There are a lot of places to go besides YouTube, Wall Street Journal tech writer Walt Mossberg points out. Some of them are full-length and/or multi-part shows and stories on sites such as Blip.tv (with its news series from Iraq, "Alive in Baghdad," and "Cube News 1" about an office cubicle worker's life) and Network2.tv. These indie programs are often available on multiple sites, including YouTube, and have their own Web sites too. Details at the Journal.