Transcript Safe Online Social Networking? Positives, Dangers, and Challenges Dr. Charles D. Knutson Brigham Young University www.charlesknutson.net © 2009 Charles D.

Safe Online Social Networking?
Positives, Dangers,
and Challenges
Dr. Charles D. Knutson
Brigham Young University
www.charlesknutson.net
© 2009 Charles D. Knutson
Social network
 Any network of individuals who interact
for any reason
 Traditional face-to-face networking
 Ward activity
 Football game
 Family reunion
 Bowling league
 Our concern is with the emergent online
variety…
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Social networking site
 Websites that host an online community
 Bring together people with common goals,
interests, concerns
 Site may represent a singular interest
 Site normally permits the formation of smaller
networking groups
Accepting friends into a closer network
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Types of social networks
 Personal networking
 Facebook, MySpace
 Professional networking
 LinkedIn
 Blogging
 Millions of individual blogs
 Online discussion boards
 Hosted on traditional sites (news, sports, etc.)
 Music sharing
 Last.fm, Playist
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Types of social networks
 Video sharing
 YouTube, Google Video
 Photo sharing
 Flickr, Picasa
 Hobby and special interest networking
 Ancestry.com, all types of hobbies
 Cyberdating
 Match, eHarmony
 We'll talk about each of these in turn
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Cyberdating
 Various types of dating sites
 Generic dating sites
 Targeted demographics
LDS Singles, Christian singles, cat lovers…
 Elicit "hook-up" sites
 Concerns…
 Content
 Privacy
 Predators
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Hobby and special interest
 Varied interests
 Genealogy, knitting, books, travel, religion,
movie lovers…
 Also illicit topics…
 Generally tame communities
 Still need to gauge the spirit of the
community and the participants
 Assess the rules of the community to see
how you feel about it
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Hobby and special interest
 Concerns
 Content is focused and concentrated
For good and for bad
 Privacy
Personal information available
 Predators
Particularly where the topics are more salacious
 Relationships with other users online have to
be managed
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Photo sharing
 Great value in sharing photos with friends
and families
 Professional photographers can show off
their work
 Most popular sites:
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Photo sharing
 Can limit access to selected people
 But anyone whose work is public can publish
to the world
 Concerns
 Content
Generally all types of material
 Privacy
Your own photos may be viewed if public
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Video sharing
 Great value in accessing videos
 Sources of content
 Professional content made available
 User generated content
 Fairly high noise level
 Most popular sites:
 But also…
Facebook,
MySpace, etc.
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Video sharing
 Concerns
 Some good content, but large quantities of
inappropriate material
 Much is not protected from accidental access
by children
 Privacy
Kids posting videos of themselves online
 Primarily content exchange, rather than
relationship building
Posted comments often crude or vulgar
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Music sharing
 Downloadable music
 Commercial
 Shared
 Streaming music
 Commercial
 Shared
 Some systems couple music sharing with
social networking features
 Meet people with similar playlists
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Music sharing - Concerns
 Concerns
 Downloadable music
 Peer-to-peer systems are problematic
Kazaa, Gnutella, LimeWire, BearShare, etc.
Content often illegal
Software often loads spyware
Can also serve up pornographic material
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Music sharing
 Concerns
 Downloadable music
 Pay-per-track systems are legal
iTunes Store, Amazon MP3, eMusic
Need to monitor purchases
Budget and content
Systems may allow access to other content
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Music sharing
 Concerns
 Streaming music
 Subscription services
Napster, Rhapsody
 Is unlimited access to music healthy?
 Regular monthly cost
 Album covers or other images
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Music sharing
 Concerns
 Streaming music
 Free systems
Playlist, iLike, iMeem
 Music may not be legal
 Music may still be downloadable
 Social networking features
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Online discussion boards
 Most informational sites
 News, sports, blogs
 Can be a healthy discourse
 Most often not…
 Concerns
 Profanity, base level of discussion
 Links to other sites
 Profile pictures of commenters
 High noise factor
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Online discussion boards
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Blogging
 "Web Log" = "Blog"
 User generated articles, stories, rants,
reports, whatever
 Every topic imaginable
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Blogging
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Twitter
 Micro-blogging
 140 characters or less
 Can follow people
 Receive their "tweets"
 Selected friends' tweets sent to phone
 Can use Twitter to update your Facebook
status
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Twitter
 Concerns
 Privacy
Do you really want the whole world to know
your whole family is out of town?
 Noise
Do you really need to read updates from that
many people in a single day?
 Content
Spammers and pornographers using Twitter to
promote their content
Can block any followers you want
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Twitter
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Professional networking
 Very valuable service
 LinkedIn
 Think of your Rolodex, but online
 Your old work buddy moves, you don't lose
track of him
 Very little downside
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Personal social networking
 More than 300 social networking sites of
this type
 Membership in personal social
networking sites is approaching 1 billion
people
 Facebook, MySpace
About 250 million users each
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Personal social networking
 Most popular sites
 Facebook – 250 million
 MySpace – 250 million
 Habbo – 120 million
 Friendster – 90 million
 hi5 – 80 million
 Tagged – 80 million
 Orkut – 70 million
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Personal social networking
 Two broad types:
1. Provide interactions for people who already
know each other
Not cool to approach strangers
 Facebook, LinkedIn
2. Help people to meet who don't already
know each other
Encouraged to meet new "friends"
 MySpace, most other sites
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Personal social networking
 Positive value is huge…
 Sharing family photos, news, and other
information with a trusted network of friends
Some of whom are remote
 Reconnecting with long lost friends
Two of my favorite missionary companions with
very generic names, made contact in the last 3
months via Facebook!
 After almost 30 years
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Personal social networking
 Downside is significant
 Meeting "friends" that you don't know in real
life is obviously problematic
 Reconnecting with long lost friends
That were maybe best left in the lost past
 Privacy concerns are always significant
 Predator issues
Especially for the youth
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Personal social networking
 Addiction concerns
 Content
Despite terms and conditions, there is a large
amount of pornography or other inappropriate
material on most social networking sites
 Obsessing and time wasting
Youth especially suffer from social networking
withdrawal
Digital equivalent of hanging out at the mall
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Personal social networking
 "During the 2006 power outage in L.A.,
MySpace was down for about twelve hours. It
was a dark, dark time in more ways than one.
However, the outage has helped me to
identify my addiction to MySpace. While it
was out, I kept checking to try and log in until
finally I got in there, and I breathed a sigh of
relief. I read my boring e-mails and felt at
ease."
– Jassa, 17, from "Generation MySpace" by Candice M.
Kelsey
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Personal social networking
 Sites have their own personalities and
value systems
 You can learn by checking them out
 Read their policies and Online Safety
pages
 Two examples…
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Personal social networking
Tagged.com – "Online Safety"
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Personal social networking
Orkut.com – "Advice for Parents"
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Personal social networking
 How does the site make you feel
spiritually?
 What sorts of things are they promoting
on the front page?
 Some examples…
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Personal social networking
 "Facebook helps you connect and share with
the people in your life"
 "Find your friends and meet new people" –
Tagged
 "orkut is an online community designed to make
your social life more active and stimulating.
orkut's social network can help you maintain
existing relationships with pictures and
messages, and establish new ones by reaching
out to people you've never met before."
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Personal social networking
 "Meet people from all around the world" –
hi5
 "Friendster is focused on helping people
stay in touch with friends and discover
new people and things that are important
to them."
 "Connect with friends and meet new
people. Hang out, throw parties, join
groups, post in forums."– Habbo
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Personal social networking
 Do they promote profiles of some of their
users?
 What are these users portraying?
 Generally, promoting user profiles gives a
sort of "meat market" feel to the site
 Often immodesty or other teaser content in
these user profiles
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User profiles
 Most social networking sites include:
 Personal information – "Profile"
 Friends
 Blogs
 Chat, messages, and email
 Discussion groups
 Pictures and images
 Streaming video
 Streaming music
 Message boards
 Combines all other social networks
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Some statistics
 More than 10% of teenagers have posted a nude or
seminude picture of themselves or others online
 2% of parents surveyed said that about their teens
 At least a quarter of the young people polled had
posted something they later regretted
 22 percent saying they check their sites more than 10
times a day
 4% of parents surveyed said that about their teens
 54 percent of teens demonstrate risky behavior online
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Social network guidelines
 Be very selective when it comes to being
involved in a social network
 My take is that Facebook is by far the most
tame, and the safest
 Still doesn't make it the right choice for you
and your family
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Social network guidelines
 Profiles
 Do not provide full information
Birth year, SSN, or other identifying information
 Keep all profiles private always!
Unless you're a public figure and the profile is a
public face for your admiring fans
 Remember that anything you post is
essentially permanent
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Social networking guidelines
 Parents
 Monitor where your kids are and what they
are doing
 Determine age specific guidelines for your
household
Still doesn't assume unfettered access!
 If your kids are on a social network…
Join the network and add them as a friend
 All other parental guidelines for technology
access apply…
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Questions?
 Internet Safety Podcast
 www.internetsafetypodcast.com
 Internet Safety Wiki
 wiki.internetsafetypodcast.com
Dr. Charles Knutson
[email protected]
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