A Net founder comments on social Web

"The Internet should not be used as a scapegoat for society's ills," Vint Cerf told the BBC. Cerf, who is considered one of
the "fathers" of the Internet for the role he played during its early stages, was speaking on BBC Radio. He argued against over-regulation of the Net, after some members of Britain's Conservative Party proposed government limits on sites young people can use, including YouTube which is owned by Google, where Cerf now serves as chief Internet evangelist. Cerf's comments were specifically about Web 2.0, or the social Web. "Most of the content on the network is contributed by the users of the Internet," he said, "so what we're seeing on the Net is a reflection of the society we live in." Cerf pointed out that Google, like other search engines, can be configured to help parents limit the types of sites their kids can find.

Teen jailed for posting nude photo

A 19-year-old was sentenced to 30 days in prison for posting a nude photo of his ex-girlfriend on MySpace, the Associated Press reports. "Anthony D. Rich pleaded no contest Tuesday to child abuse and attempted child abuse. Prosecutors reduced the charges from sex crimes that could have branded Rich a sex offender for life." He was 17 when he posted the photo of the 15-year-old girl after they broke up. The AP reports that the girl consented to having her picture taken but not to having it posted.

Connected family reunions

"Do you have wi-fi?" A logical question from any teen-aged second cousin once removed. It was the type of question, anyway, that New York Times contributor Roger Mummert received at the beginning of a family gathering at his house - the "first inkling of how the vastly expanded electronic and informational needs of houseguests would flavor our time together. Soon guests were positioning themselves to get dibs on one of the three computers in our Long Island house the way they would otherwise line up to jump in the shower." In the UK and South Korea, there are probably already unwritten rules of etiquette about texting at social and family gatherings, and those sensibilities will undoubtedly develop the world over, as we adjust our human interaction to increasingly ubiquitous digital connectivity.

Euro online youth self-reliant

A survey of 27 EU member countries plus Iceland and Norway found that "European children are well aware of the potential risks of Internet and mobile phone use but are confidently embracing digital technologies, believing they are capable of handling any problem that might arise without the help of a parent," according to an article in the portal Tiscali.Europe reports. That's good and bad news, of course, indicating that on the one hand they may be less susceptible to victimization and smarter than we think but on the other hand a little over-confident. Especially amid the rise of cyberbullying on phones and the Web, this may indicate an unhealthy disinclination to tell parents and other trusted adults about bullying incidents (out of fears that Internet privileges would be taken away, as other research shows). The study also found that "ways in which the internet was used proved similar across the continent as well as age groups. Schoolwork, communicating with friends and family via instant messaging and chat, downloading music, videos, and games scored highest, the latter more popular with boys in the 12-14 category, while chatting and emailing came out top for the older girls. Hours spent online per week also increased with age."

'eBullies': Coping with cyberbullying

This is the kind of incident that adds to school absentee rates these days: In Texas, a student "posted a page that he attributed to a classmate, complete with the girl's picture and numerous photos of her alleged sex partners. Other students … were invited to view the page," the Detroit News reports. Within two days 100 students had posted comments on the page. "The boy eventually was suspended for a few days … and the victim transferred schools because she was so distraught." The victim was hesitant to tell her parents, worried she'd lose her online privileges (a fairly common reaction, research shows). The Cleveland Plain Dealer has some at-at-glance statistics on bullying, though the first one - 3 in 4 students say they've been cyberbullied - is high (the Pew Internet & American Life's latest study on this puts it at close to one-third).

Meanwhile, parents, a book by two social workers cited by the Detroit News points to "the importance of parents getting kids to feel comfortable talking about their Internet time," offering us this advice: "Start with nonforced, nonjudgmental questions about their online experiences, ideally in a casual setting, they say, such as when you're shopping for back-to-school clothes or walking the dog together. Even if the child seems bored or annoyed, he or she actually may want to talk about it. Then listen." No doubt unwritten codes of conduct are naturally developing in peer groups, in school social scenes, and all over the social Web. For students, here's a blogger on Facebook etiquette who's encouraging a discussion on her page. For educators, there's a new set of courses at BullyingCourse.com from Canadian educator Bill Belsey, creator of the award-winning Bullying.org and "the world's first Web site about cyberbullying," Cyberbullying.ca. In the US, Nancy Willard's book Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats has a section on legal considerations for schools.

Teen's hack unlocks iPhone

It took him 500 hours, but 17-year-old George Hotz figured out how to unlock his iPhone from the AT&T networking and use it on T-Mobile. "He posted his 10-step hack on his blog Thursday, along with a video illustrating it on YouTube; by early Friday afternoon, his video had been viewed by some 130,000 people," TechNewsWorld reports. Fortunately for Apple and AT&T most people won't "try this at home." It takes a good two hours and involves soldering and software programming. The Register reports that George got a new Nissan and three more iPhones in exchange for the unlocked iPhone, but the Associated Press reports that anyone hoping to make money from unlocking iPhones could face legal trouble. "Unlocking the phone for one's own use, for instance to place calls with a different carrier, appears to be legal. But if it's done for financial gain, the legality is less certain."

For aspiring game developers

If a gamer at your house has ambitions to work in the videogame industry, the Detroit Free Press talked to one who's in it. Jeremy Lee, 27, at The Collective in Newport Beach, Calif., told the Free Press that he "knew he wanted to get into videogames as a career when he was a student at the University of Michigan." His advice to aspiring game producers: "Be persistent." And it sounds like you also really need to love gaming. "He got to his current job [directing the production of new games including "Silent Hill 5"] by taking every position associated with games he could." It's a couple of years old, but still relevant - a Fox News piece on schools offering videogame degrees.

Finnish teen fined for YouTube video

A 15-year-old student in Finland has been fined for posting a YouTube video "showing a karaoke performance of his teacher and for claiming she was a lunatic," the Associated Press reports. The video depicts his teacher singing karaoke at a party. The student said that he did it as a prank "and had not intended to insult the teacher." The video said the teacher was "a lunatic singing at the karaoke of the mental hospital." As a good a warning as any that there can be consequences from posting defaming photos and video, prank or not. It's always good to ask permission before uploading images of others. In Finland, as in most other countries, there can be legal consequences.

Social Web training future spies?

Who woulda thunk? Even the CIA is getting into social networking now (do parents need more evidence that this is not a passing fad?). The agency's "working on a social networking site so its spies can swap spycraft tips and enjoy some of that online/social fun that us civvies so love," according to Pocket-Lint.co.uk. It'll be called "A-Space" ("sadly not SpySpace," Pocket-Lint says), and "any employee of the US's 16 security agencies will be allowed to sign up and virtually network with their colleagues and counterparts." A way to attract new recruits? Maybe, but this article says "the CIA is apparently hoping that the site will help relationships between the agencies, and stop veils of secrecy from hindering work." Here's the Financial Times, which broke the story.

'Old guys' on Facebook

You might find a 17-year-old's perspective on 40+-year-olds in social-networking sites as interesting as I did, so see this CNET piece by summer intern Sabena Suri. "Before I get to why I think most of the older folks hanging out on MySpace and Facebook are creepy, here (in the spirit of open-mindedness) are a few of the more semi-legitimate reasons they might be using the sites," she writes, pointing to six, except the last one is "Being just plain creepy." Concerning those, she says most teens "learn at a young age not to add friends they don't know personally," and - though it's "sometimes hard to distinguish the creeps from the nice older folks" - the creeps often try a little too hard. Posers do stand out and look pretty "lame," Sabena says. Here also, from Newsweek, are 20- or 30-somethings on "Why I love Facebook" and "Why I hate Facebook."

Social-networking chief Cook

As far as I can tell, only one of the Top 10 social-networking sites were founded by teenagers and beta-tested in their high school, and that's the story with MyYearbook.com, which gets 3 million+ visitors a month, makes millions of dollars a year from advertising, and just received $4.1 million in venture capital. teenage entrepreneurialism seems to be more common every day, and both teenagers and parents might be interested in stories about how it happens. Seventeen-year-old Catherine Cook founded her new Jersey-based social-networking site with her older brother Dave (who's now in college; Catherine starts her freshman year shortly) because they were new at their high school, turned to the yearbook to find and meet new friends, and thought it'd be even better - much quicker and convenient - to have an online version, Catherine told CNET's Stefanie Olsen in a recent interview. Here's an earlier profile of Catherine in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Teen hackers mostly good

A lot of teens do some hacking, and - though their intentions aren't malicious, their hacks are illegal, USATODAY reports. Covering a report by psychologist Shirley McGuire at the American Psychological Association conference, the article says "a large minority of teenagers commit computer crimes such as hacking and software piracy, but it's done mostly out of curiosity and a hunger for excitement rather than wanting to cause trouble." McGuire found in a survey of some 4,800 San Diego-area high school students that 38% had copied software without permission; 18% went into someone's computer or Web site without permission, 16% have taken material from it; and 13% changed a computer system, file program or Web site without permission."

Social shopping from back-to-school retailers

To lure more young customers, retailers are trying to make online shopping a more social experience. They're creating "elaborate online worlds that may have little to do with their products [and] employing video-sharing, social networking and even virtual reality to target the teenagers who drove sites like YouTube and Facebook to popularity," the Washington Post reports. Examples: At Sears.com you can create your own avatar, or virtual self, and virtually try on Sears clothes; "Wal-Mart started a Facebook group about dorm-room style"; and J.C. Penney and American Eagle Outfitters will have new short films in their sites every week.

Anti-social networking: Europe

The European perspective on social networking sounds a whole like the US one, but Europe is pressing for multinational efforts to combat both adult-to-child crime and peer-to-peer bullying on the social Web. "With social networking sites exploding in growth, most young users are well aware of the risks and the seamy side of the territory," the International Herald Tribune reports. "But according to new surveys, many children and teens still cannot resist meeting strangers they have befriended online." The Herald Tribune reports that the Council of Europe, "which represents 46 countries including the United States," is pushing a global treaty that would criminalize grooming, where sometimes over long periods pedophiles manipulate children into meeting them for sex (for more on this, see "How to recognize grooming"). "The council adopted a draft convention last month and in October the treaty will be open for countries to sign." The European Union is, with about $90 million, supporting a three-year Internet-safety program with a strong focus on education about sexual grooming.

Oz parents don't want phone ban

In spite of some incidents of phone-based bullying, parents in New South Wales, Australia, don't want schools to ban cellphones, Australian IT reports. In a six-month period to April this year, NSW government schools filed more than 25 reports to police about serious incidents [of violence] filmed by [students using] video-equipped phones." Still, the education minister there said that "such cases were in the minority and that most parents wanted their children to carry phones with them for safety reasons." The government, he added, had no plans to impose such a ban.

Oz plan to 'clean up the Web'

One piece of Prime Minister John Howard's plan to "clean up the Web" for Australian families is to provide free filtering software for them to install on household computers, Australian IT reports. That'll help families with young children who use the Web only on those computers, not those who access the Web on gameplayers, phones, or other portable devices. "Of the $189 million [US $155 million], $43 million will be provided immediately to double the size of the online child sex exploitation branch of the AFP [Australian Federal Police] and establish a working group to find ways of getting around privacy laws that protect sexual predators (Howard has pledged to "upgrade the search for chat-room sex predators and cut off terror sites"). He made his clean-up pledge "on a Webcast to more than 700 churches and thousands of churchgoers around the country." Here's the New York Times on a US cleanup effort, ObscenityCrimes.org, run by Morality in Media.

NJ AG's wider social-Web effo

This is one of the more unusual stories I've seen in the news about a state attorney general dealing with teen social networking: Instead of focusing only on MySpace, as many attorneys general have done (at least on the public airwaves), New Jersey's seems to be more practical. Attorney General Anne Milgram "has asked a dozen Internet social-networking sites to find out whether convicted New Jersey sex offenders have created profiles on their sites," FoxNews.com reports . The sites are Xanga, Facebook, Community Connect, TagWorld, Bebo, MyYearbook.com, Tagged, Friendster, LiveJournal, Imeem, Hi5 and Gaia Online. The AG's office found "at least 269" sex offenders registered in New Jersey in the latest list MySpace provided attorneys general. Of the 269 … 109 are either on probation or parole," and one has been charged with a parole violation, the AG's office told Fox News. What is not known is how many other sites have the technology to detect and report registered sex offenders on their sites. General Milgram said New Jersey would help the sites in their searches.

FL: Teen sex offenders for life

The private records of juvenile court are fully public in Florida, as far as young sex offenders are concerned. "A state law that went into effect July 1 will list teens as young as 14 on the same Web site as adults who are convicted pedophiles and sexual predators. The designation will follow them and their families as they enter schools, move to new communities and eventually apply for colleges, trade schools and jobs," the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. This is a double blow for teens who commit minor offenses, because they don't have the benefit of being tried before juries in juvenile courts and the privacy that has been afforded juveniles for over 100 years is suddenly gone. The article cites the view of "some public defenders and legal experts" that being listed for life with adult sex offenders could hinder these teenagers' rehabilitation. "Public defenders plan to challenge the [Florida] law," the Sun-Sentinel adds. For more on this, see "Juvenile sex offenders & Net registries."

Cellphone socializing takes off

Mobile social networking is taking off. "Mobile user-generated content will generate revenues of over $5.7 billion in 2012, compared to $572 million this year. And of that 2012 total, 50% will be accounted for by social networking services," TechDigest.tv reports, citing Juniper Research numbers. And mobile research firm M:Metrics just released a "snapshot" of worldwide mobile social-networking: "Of note it is the US audience, which is traditionally hesitant to use the Web browser on their mobile handsets, that is the largest with 7.5 million or 3.5% of mobile subscribers accessing a social networking site with their mobile device during the month of June 2007," MobileMessaging2.com reports. Italy, the UK, Spain, Germany and France follow the US in that order." Also interesting was that US mobile social networkers are more of college age (18-24), while those in other countries were in the 13-18 age group. The most popular sites accessed by phone: MySpace and Facebook in that order, followed by YouTube in the US and Meebo in the UK. Here's CNET on the M:Metrics findings. Let's hope that, while they're social networking by phone, people are doing so safely. Check out some tips that might help parents at ConnectSafely.org. And moblogging (blogging by mobile phone) service Juicecaster has some for cellphone socializers themselves here.

Euro kids unfazed by P2P risks

"Everyone's doing it," is the rationale European kids use for their P2P music-downloading, Reuters cites a "major survey" by the European Commission as finding. "Other excuses included: the download is for personal and private purposes; the Web sites presumably remunerate the artists; claims of harm inflicted on artists lack credibility; and DVDs and CDs are simply too expensive." The vast majority of the young people surveyed in 27 EU member countries, Norway and Iceland said they planned to continue downloading music through file-sharing services. The survey also found that most European teens go online several times a day and, "while Internet use is to some extent limited by parents, most own their own mobile phones, the use of which is largely unsupervised." For more on file-sharing risks, see "File-sharing realities for families."

Adding strangers as 'friends'

A new study found that Facebook users may need to take their personal privacy more seriously - also that there seems to be some confusion about who is and isn't a friend there. It doesn't appear to have been that scientific a study, but the methodology is interesting: IT security firm Sophos "created a fake Facebook profile, under the name 'Freddi Staur' ('ID Fraudster' with the letters rearranged), and randomly requested 200 members to be friends with 'Freddi'," CNET reports. "Out of those 200, 87 accepted the friend request and 82 of those gave 'Freddi' access to 'personal information' such as e-mail addresses, dates of birth, addresses and phone numbers, and school or work data. Presumably, the other five had restricted 'Freddi' to limited profile access, which many users select for bosses, parents, or people they don't know in real life." Sophos says that, although it's unlikely this behavior will result in theft, this is the kind of fuel phishers seek for their social engineering (manipulation). BTW, I admit to a bit of that friending confusion - I have a Facebook profile and get friend requests all the time from people I don't know personally, and I confess to feeling kind of mean and unfriendly if I ignore them. If an online-safety advocate feels that way….

Important patches coming

Windows users can expect a "flood" of security updates this week, reports Washington Post security writer Brian Krebs.
Microsoft plans "to push out at least nine patch bundles," seven of them plugging "some 19 different vulnerabilities." Most of the updates are to fix what Microsoft has deemed critical flaws. "Among the Microsoft products to be patched are: just about every version of Windows (including a standalone update for Windows Vista), Internet Explorer, Visual Basic, Microsoft Office, and Office for Mac." Brian links to the key security pages at Microsoft.com.

Parents of college-bound in Facebook

Parents of the college-bound are beginning to use Facebook too - to find out what their kids' roommates will be like - and schools aren't sure this is a good thing! "A growing number of schools say they're getting more requests for changes — from parents who don't like the roommates' Facebook profiles," USATODAY reports. The article says housing officials cite party photos as referenced most by complaining parents, but one Syracuse University "says race, religion and sexual orientation are the top three concerns from parents contacting officials there," and an administrator at Suffolk University in Boston said sexual orientation was the No. 1 parental concern she heard about. Most schools USATODAY contacted said they don't make changes because of these calls, and the University of Chicago said it never allows changes until the third week (at Syracuse the wait is between 8 weeks and the whole fall semester). Meanwhile, you know social networking's mainstream not only when parents are checking up on potential roommates but when Wal-Mart's advertising back-to-school products in Facebook (see Reuters on this.)

College social networking good or bad?

Is it good or bad that social-networking eases the transition from high school to college? The Washington Post looks at that question, citing "experts" as saying that, in addition to making things easier with online "introductions," over-reliance on tech "can also hamper their adjustment by making it easy for some students to hold too tight to the life and friends they've left behind." With cellphone texting, social sites, and IM, they can not only meet roommates-to-be to find out if they're bringing the microwave, they can also relax back into friendships back home, which can leave them "less emotionally available to confront new challenges, test their beliefs or engage in serious introspection - what college was once thought to be about." My guess is, they'll be challenged one way or another, but what do you think? Post your thoughts in the ConnectSafely.org forum!

Advertisers' social-Web headaches

It's a fascinating dilemma advertisers have these days, and it's related to a concern of parents we see turning up in the ConnectSafely.org forum time and time again: How to control standards in a medium the user controls? How can an advertiser be guaranteed its ad won't appear next to inappropriate user-generated content? "In London, with the number of Facebook users swelling, government agencies and six companies, including Vodafone, Virgin Media and First Direct, made a jumpy, temporary exodus from the site this month. The companies withdrew advertising accounts from Facebook after their brands surfaced in blind purchases alongside a page for the anti-immigrant, right-wing British National Party," the International Herald Tribune reports. Also in the UK, where junk-food ads have been banned from TV programs targeting kids 4-9 (and that will soon be extended to include ads targeting 10-15-year-olds too), Bebo and HabboHotel are drawing criticism for displaying selling candy and food ads, the Herald Tribune adds. "But the controversy in Britain has had an impact on all companies in the social networking category, many of which have been taking steps to highlight their ethical responsibilities." Here's Reuters on the UK Facebook story.

Important new study: Students on the social Web

In releasing its study "Creating & Connecting: Research & Guidelines on Online Social - and Educational - Networking," the National School Boards Association this week added some balance to the public discussion about safety on the social Web. The 10-page report is just as useful to parents as it is to educators. Conducted for the NSBA by Grunwald Associates, the study found that…

These days US 9-to-17-year-olds are spending almost as much time on the social Web (about 9 hours/week) as they are watching TV (about 10 hours/week), and for many that online activity is "highly creative."

"Overall, an astonishing 96% of students with online access report that they have ever used social-networking technologies, such as chatting, text messaging, blogging, and visiting online communities, such as Facebook, MySpace and services designed specifically for young children, such as Webkins and the chat sections of Nick.com," the NSBA reports. Interestingly, one of the most common topics of conversation in all this online communicating is education itself (about 60% of social networkers talk about this and 50% specifically about schoolwork). Grunwald surveyed, students, parents, and school district leaders for this study.

As for those creative online activities, the NSBA and Grunwald found that 32% of online students share music; 30% videos; 24% photos (22% their own photos or artwork); 12% updating/decorating their Web pages; 30% have blogs; 16% create and share virtual objects sucha as puzzles, houses, clothing, and games; 14% create new characters at least weekly; 10% contribute to online collaborative projects. The survey found that "nonconformists … are on the cutting edge of social networking, with online behaviors an skills that indicate leadership among their peers." They're "significantly heavier users of social networking sites" - 50% of them are producers and 38% are editors of online content. These students, the study found, are "significantly more likely than other students" to be "traditional influentials," "promoters," "recruiters," "organizers," and "networkers."

Fewer risks than expected
"Study: Fears over kids' online safety overblown" is the headline on ArsTechnica.com's report on the NSBA study. It "suggests strongly … that the overwhelming majority of kids have never had an unknown adult ask them for personal information." And there's a big discrepancy between students' actual experience with risk, as they reported it to the researchers, and school perceptions. More than half of US school districts (52%) say students providing personal information online has been "a significant problem," while "only 3% of students say they've ever given out their email addresses, screennames, or other personal info to strangers." The School Boards Association ends the report calling on schools to "reexamine their social-networking policies." It's important to have such policies, it says, but students may learn online safety and responsible online expression better "while they're actually using social-networking tools." [The ArsTechnica piece includes a link to the complete study in pdf format.]

Related link
PC World: "Report Refutes Claims of Social Networking Dangers"

More polite in virtual worlds?

CNET asks that question, and I think it's an interesting one - especially given a growing public discussion about cyberbullying and why some people are so nasty on the Web (see my earlier post on this). The question is: Are people more polite in online worlds and games with avatars than in, say, social-networking sites? And is it because there are avatars - visual representations of ourselves - instead of just text and the anonymity associated with it? Maybe virtual worlds (like Teen Second Life, Whyville.net, and There.com) are logical "places" to teach cybercitizenship and cyberethics, then. Parents, educators, and online-safety advocates concerned about social behavior online and cyberbullying might consider putting heads together with operators of tween and teen spaces online to consider making this a component of virtual worlds for youth. See also ZDNET's "When cyberbullying hits teens."

Friends on phones

Switching cellphone carriers can really be hard on teens' relationships these days. "What was set up as a purely business strategy [encouraging customers to talk to people in the same network] is having an unintentional social effect" for better or worse, the New York Times reports. "It is dividing the people who share informal bonds and bringing together those who have formal networks of cellphone “'friends'.” Some parents worry that cellphone friendship groups will replace real-life ones, but one sociologist who's studied this told the Times the mobile ones tend to reflect the real-life ones quite closely (probably more so than friends lists in social Web sites, I would add). So it would follow that losing some phone access to real-life friends - maybe because Mom and Dad switch carriers - would have an effect on one's in-person social life. Some numbers in the article: The age group that talks on the phone most is 18-24 (they send and receive 290 calls/month on average). The group that text messages the most is 13-to-17-year-olds (435 messages a month, on average). "By contrast, cellphone users 45 to 54 years old spoke on the phone 194 times, on average, a month and sent only 57 text messages."

'Dating 2.0'

While she describes dating, Web 2.0-style, Sabena Suri says she often finds herself "yearning for the past, where I imagine that courtship consisted of a guy breaking into song to woo the girl. (That's what I learned from Grease, anyway)." I imagine she's not alone in this. So the CNET summer intern is a little conflicted - even though she'd "rather have a guy pass me a nervously scribbled piece of paper in biology class than get the condensed text message version: 'hey u wna chill sat nite?'," she loves her Facebook as much as the next high school student, she says. So she offers six tips on how to navigate "Dating 2.0" - which are every bit as useful for those of us parenting these intrepid pioneers of the social Web. These are excellent tips! (Tip No. 5 gives new meaning to the phrase "public display of affection.")

US Congress: Net-safety push

We can expect to see some online-safety legislation coming out of Congress this fall, lawmakers themselves are saying. "Expect a new push … for laws aimed at keeping sexual predators off the likes of MySpace.com and elevating fines on Internet service providers that don't report child pornography," CNET reports, saying Democratic lawmakers are focusing particularly on anti-predator and -child pornography legislation. Meanwhile, Sens. Ted Stevens (R) of Alaska and Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii introduced a bill that, among other things, "calls on the Federal Trade Commission to oversee a government-directed public awareness campaign" on Internet safety, PC Magazine reports. The bill would also 1) require the Commerce Department to "review industry efforts to produce online parental control technology; report evidence of child pornography; keep tabs on data collected about Internet-related child crimes; and support the development of new Internet safety technologies"; 2) require schools that receive federal Net-connectivity funds to teach students about appropriate online behavior; 3) would triple fines for Internet service providers that fail to report evidence of child pornography.

Canadians' digital connections

They're "fast becoming a culture of technological chatterboxes," the Toronto Star reports. A recent national survey of nearly 1,100 Canadians by Angus Reid Strategies found that only 18% of people in Canada do not own a cellphone but, at the other end of the spectrum, 18% couldn't live without their mobile phone. As for email, 64% check it at least daily, and 31% "can't resist the temptation" to check email hourly. Forty percent "couldn't contemplate life without the Internet"; and 52% say Google "has made their life better"; 55% visit Web sites at least once a day; and 22% of all Canadians (and 41% of 18-to-35-year-old ones) visit social networking sites daily (25% of women "believe these networks strengthen their sense of community with others). Social-networking sites are most popular in the Atlantic provinces, the Star adds.

Hacks in social sites

What I mean is, hackers (not malicious ones) have something to say about social-networking sites. Thousands of them gathered at two conferences in Las Vegas this past week, the Associated Press reports. Here's the important part: Hackers are seeing intruders in social-networking sites who "commandeer personal Web pages and possibly inject malicious code." They look for flaws in sites' code that allows them to "inject" their own malicious code into pages. This is " a particular problem for social networking sites, where it's difficult to police the content of the millions of posts each day," according to the AP. The intruders often add links to Web pages in other sites that steal the computer "cookie" information from the computer of the social networker who clicks on the link. Particularly vulnerable are people who use older versions of Firefox, one of the AP's sources said. The source said Facebook and MySpace patch flaws they find, but there are probably hundreds of flaws like this and it's tough to keep up with what's on tens of millions of pages. So the take-away is: Everybody needs to keep their browsers up-to-date and be careful about what links they click on in profiles and blogs!

Jail time for a film clip?

Tell your kids not to mess around with digital cameras in movie theaters. A 19-year-old in the Washington, D.C., area went to see Transformers at her local movie theater with her boyfriend. She told the Washington Post she was enjoying the movie so much she thought she'd shoot a 20-second clip to show her 13-year-old brother how good it was. While she was doing so, two police officers order the couple out of the theater confiscated the digital camera, and charged the college sophomore "with a crime: illegally recording a motion picture," the Washington Post reports. She told the Post that it was her birthday and the two had borrowed the camera from a relative to "make [birthday] memories," so she happened to have the camera when they went to see the film. She "faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 when she goes to trial this month in the July 17 incident." The Post adds that copying a movie in a theater "is a felony under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, punishable by up to three years in a federal prison," and several states have anti-piracy laws in addition to the federal one.

More global-socializing numbers

Once you get past Tagged.com's and Facebook.com's amazing growth figures this past year (774% and 270%, respectively, with Bebo in third place at a respectable 172%), the worldwide membership of these sites is a little less jawdropping. But that international appeal probably explains a lot of these sites' growth. Friendster hasn't grown as much, but 88.7% of its members are in the Asia/Pacific region, as opposed to 7.7% in North America. Bebo's mostly in Europe, but Tagged's membership is more evenly spread through all regions of the world. All three are based in Northern California. All this is according to comScore's latest figures. PC World's headline is "Social networking quickly taking hold globally," and CNET ran an analysis.

Sex offenders on MySpace: Some context

Last week Larry Magid and I co-wrote a commentary that ran in the San Jose Mercury News Sunday. Hundreds of news outlets worldwide had picked up the story that MySpace has deleted the profiles of 29,000 registered sex offenders. The news may have been shocking to a lot of parents of teen social networkers, so we felt parents deserved some perspective on this. Here's a slightly condensed version of what we wrote….

Finding and expelling sexual predators from social Web sites - something MySpace says it now does routinely - is a good thing. Other social sites are similarly cooperating with law enforcement. But this announcement from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper (see General Cooper's "Protecting Children from MySpace," a link under "What's New" on his page) was only possible because MySpace took the initiative to develop a law-enforcement tool the federal government called for in a recently passed law but failed to create: a national sex offender database that MySpace then donated to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children for broader use.

Beyond the Web. Sex offenders aren't just in social-networking sites online. They're in chatrooms and newsgroups, on discussion boards and file-sharing networks. They've been on the Internet since before there was a World Wide Web, long before social networking took off. Now social sites are helping to expose their online activities.

The numbers. Let's put the 29,000 profiles in context: More will probably be found, but there are more than 190 million profiles on MySpace at the moment. Now let's move from the Net to "real life." There are 602,000 registered sex offenders in the United States. That's just registered ones - those who've been caught and convicted. The vast majority of child molesters are not strangers whom children meet online. Very, very few are strangers in real life even: According to the California Department of Justice, “90% of child victims know their offender, with almost half of the offenders being a family member. Of sexual assaults against people age 12 and up, approximately 80% of the victims know the offender."

Actual cases. Last spring I was looking for a solid figure for sexual exploitation of minors in social-networking sites after hearing Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's reference to "the towering danger of sexual predators" (see "Predators vs. cyberbullies"). General Cooper's office told me there were approximately 100 known cases in MySpace in 2005, but that number was based not on government statistics but a Lexis-Nexis search of news reports. That's 100 cases too many, but an extremely small proportion of the 12 million teens who use such sites, and it pales compared to the number of kids molested by acquaintances and family members.

No kidnappings. In all those cases, a teenager willingly got together with someone he or she met online and, contrary to what many people think, the kids often knew what they were getting into and, in every known case, went to meet the offenders themselves. This doesn't excuse these crimes in any way, but parents need to understand how this victimization works and what signs to look for….

Who's actually victimized. At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, David Finkelhor, director of the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center, gave a profile of what he described as a fairly typical victim of online predation: "Jenna" was 13 and "from a divorced family, frequented sex-oriented chatrooms, had the screenname 'Evilgirl.' There she met a guy who, after a number of conversations admitted he was 45. He flattered her, sent her gifts, jewelry. They talked about intimate things. And eventually he drove across several states to meet her for sex on several occasions in motel rooms. When he was arrested, in her company, she was reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement authorities" (see the full story). "Jenna" is not a typical teen or social networker; she's a typical victim of online predation, a high-risk teen offline, representing somewhere between 2% and 5% of online teens, Dr. Finkelhor indicated in a recent briefing on Capitol Hill.

Social networking's very individual. Whether it's a positive or negative experience depends on who uses it. The vast majority of our online kids are for the most part using social sites to socialize with their friends at school. Some are decorating their pages and learning graphic design, writing software code, playing with digital photos, producing and editing video, and so on, all in a very collective way. Unfortunately, some teens are seeking the wrong kind of validation online for destructive behaviors such as eating disorders, cutting, and substance abuse. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline told us over a year ago that MySpace was its No. 1 source of referrals, so teens are also getting help in MySpace for depression, domestic violence, loneliness, and substance abuse, as well as suicidal thinking, through the work of 120 crisis centers nationwide whose work the Lifeline coordinates.

Cyberbullying affects a lot more teens. So far two nationwide surveys in the US have found that about one-third of online teens in this country have been victimized by cyberbullying (one in Canada put the figure at about two-thirds for Canadian kids!). That's at least 8 million young people in the US (this too in "Predators vs. cyberbullies"). This peer harassment needs to be addressed, which will certainly happen at home and in school, as we teach our kids to be good friends and "citizens" online as well as off.

So let's keep these scary predator announcements in perspective. We want parents to have the facts so they can remain calm. When parents (and officials) overreact and start banning things, kids just go underground - as they have since the beginning of time. Only now they can do so online too - on hundreds of social networking sites, in IM, on phones and all sorts of other devices and at proliferating connection points in parks, libraries, cafes, and at friends' houses.

Related links

As of this writing, there were more than 600 links in Google News to coverage in multiple countries of the North Carolina attorney general's announcement. That was just the start. The story has continued to unfold, so here's a sampler of coverage:

"Multi-front predator battle" - The Washington Post goes in-depth on the different aspects of this effort, including 10 states' new legislation requiring sex offenders to register their email addresses and what's involved at MySpace to catch offenders on the site.

Parental-permission piece dropped. North Carolina state legislators deleted from a proposed bill a requirement that the state's teens "get their parents' permission before signing up for social-networking sites like MySpace, saying it raised constitutional questions that couldn't be addressed," the Charlotte Observer reports.

Closer look at parental verification. Here's an audio discussion (podcast) on "The Pitfalls of Age Verification" by tech-public-policy experts Tim Lee, Braden Cox, and Adam Thierer. Cox and Thierer testified before the NC legislature on this subject. Here, too, is Advertising Age on this subject.

A twist in the UK. "Convicted sex offenders should not be prevented from using social networking sites such as MySpace, Scotland Yard said yesterday," The Times Online reported. The UK police agency's spokesperson said, “Just because you’re a convicted offender doesn’t mean you’re still offending,” a spokeswoman said. “Why would we pursue them in this way? These are people who have served their time.”

China's take. "MySpace weeds out 29,000 sex offender profiles," Chinese news agency Xinhua reported.

Canadian view. "MySpace kicks out sex offenders - but not in Canada" at Canada.com

MySpace's view. "MySpace defends efforts to vet sex offenders" in InformationWeek

AG looks at Facebook. An anonymous person who said he or she was "a concerned parent" contacted the New York Times about a fake teen profile he (we'll make it "he" to simplify) created apparently to check into the predator risk on Facebook, the Times reports. The Times put this account into an article that led with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's announcement that "investigators in his state were looking into three or more' cases of convicted sex offenders who had registered on Facebook." The Times added that "Mr. Blumenthal said he was taking a particular interest in Facebook because his children use the service."

Facebook & ID theft

This is something for social networkers to be on the alert about: computer security and social engineering on social-networking sites (social engineering is what phishers and identity thieves use to trick people into making themselves and their devices vulnerable to hacks and ID theft). The latest warning signal concerns Facebook, which recently announced it's becoming a social-networking platform for all kinds of online services and widgets. "While thousands of applications being developed by third parties for Facebook users are enriching the social network's functionality, the Facebook Platform provides a perfect channel for distributing malicious software," CNET reports. To be fair, experts quoted in the article are talking more about the potential than actual attacks. And, "while Facebook third-party developers do not necessarily have access to Facebook members' personal details, whether users agree to install an application is ultimately a caveat emptor scenario" - meaning read the fine print before you agree to install stuff, people!

Online-safety hotline for Oz

The US has its CyberTipline.com, Canada its Cybertip.ca, and Britain its hotline at the Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre. "Within weeks" Australians too "will have access to a national online child protection hotline," as well a free filtering software, Australian IT reports. The Communications Ministry put the emphasis on the education part of the $99 million (US) program, saying parents will be able to call the hotline or visit the Web site "to get individual advice about online safety." There are hotlines in many other countries, but they focus largely on reporting child pornography. The Australian government is aiming to launch the hotline "in time for national child protection week, which begins September 7."

Disney's ClubPenguin now

Penguins at your house might not notice, but ClubPenguin's moving into the Disney igloo. "Disney said it would pay $350 million in cash for the website aimed at 6-to-14-year-old kids. As much as $350 million more will be added if the Canadian company's founders reach profit targets through 2009," the Los Angeles Times reports. Here's the Associated Press on this development.

'Mean streets' of cyberspace

Most people online are "kind and supportive" and respectful community members, but there are some really nasty corners of the social Web, and Janet Kornblum zooms in on the why in a USATODAY article. She quotes Silicon Valley tech forecaster Paul Saffo as saying there are two ways to stand out among the online masses - to be really clever or really mean - and it's a lot easier, unfortunately, to be mean. Maybe it'll eventually help when people get it that " Anonymity on the Internet is relative…. People who use pseudonyms while posting on websites actually may be trackable through their Internet Protocol address, a unique designation that allows computers to communicate with others on the Internet. Still, most sites won't try to track someone unless there's a legal reason, such as a subpoena." Some of Janet's sources suggest that people need to start thinking about a code of online conduct, some say nothing can be done because human behavior won't change, and other say bloggers and profile owners just have to ignore the nastiness because it's a part of the participatory Web. What do you think? We'd love to see your thoughts at BlogSafety.com.