Do you use, or are you considering using an on-line Social Networking site like Facebook or Myspace?If not, you need read no further; if so, read on.
I understand how the world is rapidly changing and new on-line opportunities are constantly developing. Among the new developments are many on-line Social Networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and many others ( there are estimated to be 140-Wikipedia to 850- USAToday active social networking sites). Many find these interactive sites to be fun, personally satisfying, and useful in their need to communicate with a broad community. As a Library Network Administrator, I would like to offer just a couple of safety tips and general good practices while participating in on-line communities.
#1 First, remember that these Social Networking sites are all for-profit ventures and are not providing this service out of the benevolence of their heart.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/industry/2008-05-11-social-networking_N.htm
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/facebook_inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org
While having fun communicating with your friends and family, sharing thoughts, ideas, and your favorite things, it is easy to forget that you are providing these site owners with the means to make money. The unabashed purpose of these sites is to entice users to relinquish personal information that they can then turn into valuable demographic information which is offered for sale to the highest bidder. Every application that you add to your on-line profile, every gadget, every personal list of your favorite this-or-that you fill out are all designed to extrapolate information about you that can be turned into cash for them. This does not make them “bad” or “evil” or even unethical. We all regularly use many for-profit services throughout the day without complaint, knowing we are paying for a service or product, and generally know what we are getting for the cost. In Social Networking sites you are paying for the service they provide by providing them with personal information. You are the raw material provider for this rapidly growing industry. It’s OK if you want to do this, but you must be aware of what you are doing.
That brings me to Rule #1:
Never post any information in any Social Networking site that you are unwilling to give away to the world.
As unbelievable as it may sound, every word you post is demographically tracked. As an example of how a Social Networking site tracks information, here is a graph showing how many times the word “Arthritis” has been mentioned in Facebook over the last 16 months. (http://www.facebook.com/lexicon/index.php?q=arthritis).
As a side note: (Seeing that "arthritis" is being mentioned more often in recent months, one might conclude more older folks are using the service. Wouldn't you? )
This is same tracking is done on every word you type into these types of sites. Using the lexicon in the above link, you can try it for yourself.
There has been much discussion in recent months debating who actually “owns” the information you post on one of these sites. Here is a link to one problem that surfaced last summer.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328092,00.asp
Most Social Networking sites will boldly state in their “Terms of Service” (TOS) that “you maintain ownership of your personal information”, and “you can withdraw it at anytime”. This sounds great, but is practically impossible. Even if the owners of the site stop using your information, once you release the information into the public arena, you no longer control it. It can be read, copied, archived, saved, and re-posted all without your permission. Even if you “disable” your account or withdraw from a service, the information you posted does not just disappear any more than throwing things in your trash at home make it disappear. It doesn’t really go away, it just changes location. In the case of your trash you hope it makes it to the landfill and eventually decomposes; in the case of your information you can only hope it eventually works its way out of the collective internet memory.
#2 The second thing to be aware of is that Social Networking sites are more and more becoming the venue of choice for scams, identity theft, phishing, and other unethical information gathering.
Rule #2 The FIRST thing you MUST do after you sign up for a Social Networking site is to adjust the privacy settings of your profile.
All the major sites allow you to make these privacy adjustments. If you don’t understand one of the settings, set it to the most restrictive setting until you do understand it. Most sites have on-line help to assist you. Don’t rely on the “default” settings; that is, the way they are set before you touch them. They always need adjusting. Next, go back to your profile, to the place where you entered information about yourself and remove any personal information that you may use in some other security oriented way. When you create an account for other types of interactive web sites, like on-line banking or credit card companies, they ask personal questions to verify your identity (name of your High school, name of your pet, favorite color, maiden name, etc) . The answers to many of these questions can be quickly obtained by scam artists from unsecured and easily accessible on-line profiles. If you are really only going to be communicating with your “friends” you need not post any information about yourself that they already know anyway. To be safe, be conservative with your on-line information.
#3 The third safety consideration concerns children using Social Network sites.
Most sites claim that they restrict membership to people over the age of 13 or so. No sites verify a person’s age, so of course this rule is often ignored. There is good reason for not allowing children unsupervised access to these Social Networking sites, they are becoming a tool used by on-line predators.
Rule #3 Parents, know who your children are communicating with on-line.
I can not stress this enough; Safe kids have involved parents. At the very least, parents must insist that they know the child’s log on name and password so on-line activities can be periodically checked. In addition, many parents insist that their children make them a “friend” on the site so they can monitor their Child's activity from their parental account. As a parent, I know your kids will not like this intrusion into their privacy, but privacy issues have to be weighed against health and safety, and safety should always win. All your efforts will not prevent a child from making a second secret account, so be aware that this is also possible. If they are on-line a lot but you don't see much activity on their site, beware. Here are some on-line child safety tips from some other sources.
PC Magazine: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2340380,00.asp
Federal Trade Commission: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec14.shtm
Get Net wise: http://kids.getnetwise.org/
For more information, Google: social networking safety
Like many other advances in technology, on-line communities have found their way into the lives of many Americans and can be safely used with proper care and understanding. What I've presented here are only a few considerations. Use good common sense and ask questions if you don't know. Don't forget, your Public Library is a great place to get more information.
Here are a few more links of interest on this topic.
Facebook Safety statements:
http://www.facebook.com/safety/
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=6598927130
Social Networking is not just for Kids anymore:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/hotsites/2009-01-14-social-networking_N.htm
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