Cyberbullying and the Online Avengers

Some would call it fighting fire with fire, but those that cyberbully or advertise their harassment of others online are finding that they sometimes, in turn, become the victim. A recent article in the The New York Times Magazine, entitled “The Online Avengers,” talks about those who have taken it on as their personal cause to help those who have been bullied by hunting down the perpetrators online and giving them a taste of their own medicine. Just like all revenge stories, though, it is not a clear-cut path and is, instead, riddled with lots of ambiguous moral questions along the way. But, your kids need to understand that “doxxing,” the act of obtaining and posting private information about a person by scouring the Internet, is basically not illegal and if they cyberbully, they may face the wrath of those they don’t even know for their transgressions.

Where Do You Search First?

Where do you do most of your searching and where do your children search? You might say Google or Yahoo – but, where do your children search? If they are looking for the VERY latest info, they look on Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, or Snapchat or on some app that has to do with their favorite band or team or whatever. These days, Google is actually late on a lot of things because people don’t update their websites on a real-time basis. It is likely that Google is not going anywhere soon, but in our quest to have the very latest info, are we moving away from it? This is an interesting question which has implications for the issue of digital permanence.

Teens Who Click, Send and Sext

An excellent article on preventing sexting, rather than just intervening after the fact, is on the Psychology Today site. It covers the tough questions of what do you do if you find out your teen is sexting and how to protect them. Another article on the same site covers why many teens feel pressured to sext. To subscribe to get other insightful articles on similar questions, consider subscribing to the Teen Angst blog on the site.

Staying Current with Facebook

Want to stay current with the scams on Facebook? Need a source that keeps you current with exactly what your Facebook privacy settings should look like for maximum privacy? Check the site Facecrooks from time to time for up-to-date advice. "The Top Ten Facebook Scams to Avoid" is a good list to have when talking to your kids about avoiding scams, spam, and identity theft on Facebook and all over the Web.

Poll Says Parents are Concerned About How Student Info is Being Used

In a new poll from Common Sense Media, 89% of Americans, whether parents or not, are very or somewhat concerned about advertisers using kids’ personal data to market to them. Many parents are in the dark about the private information schools collect and store online, as almost 6 in 10 parents have heard little or nothing about schools letting private companies store personal data about their children. When informed that most school contracts don’t limit these companies from using the information for marketing, there is overwhelming concern from both parents and non-parents around the country. Bottom line: Do you know what data your school collects about your children, where it is stored, how it used, and who it is shared with? If you don’t know, be sure to ask.

Online Harassment and Women – It’s a Problem

Women, particularly women who have a public persona online because they are a blogger or journalist, are finding that online harassment – including threats of rape and murder - just comes with the job. Unfortunately, the police are rarely able to do much about it or even take the threat seriously. Some argue that the hostile reception women receive online is much the same as sexual harassment in the workplace. Unfortunately, though, the courts are more likely to hold that some online harassment is constitutionally protected speech.  And Congress, for good reasons, has exempted intermediaries such as Twitter from liability for the vile comments of their users.

So, where does that leave the question of online harassment? It will be interesting to see if there is any muscle behind the new laws in California that make "immediate and specific” threats of violence illegal. Until someone prosecutes those who make threats online, it is likely that this kind of commonplace harassment is going to remain “normal.” In the meantime, though, this is a good topic to discuss with any young female blogger or potential bloggers, since this kind of harassment seems par for the course.

Facebook, Sharing and the World

In a recent talk at Stanford, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, said Facebook thinks about privacy much differently than most people expect, hinting that the world believes the company is pretty much against it. (Did you know that the Grand Theft Auto video game parodied Facebook by naming its in-world social network “LifeInvader”?) That’s probably not paranoia on Zuckerberg’s part. If you follow what Facebook has done with its privacy policy, it continues to want everyone to share everything with everyone. At his talk, Zuckerberg also commented that Snapchat, where you get to specifically choose who to share with every time, was a “privacy phenomenon.” That’s probably because everyone thinks that everyone else is always worried that they are only one bad privacy setting away from showing their stuff to the rest of the world, anyway.

Sponsored Stories Ad Unit Dropped by Facebook

Facebook says it will drop its sponsored-stories ad unit in April, but the company is retaining the right to include user information in all other ads on the social network. Some users had objected to their "likes" and other data being used in ads targeting friends on the network; a 2011 class action suit regarding the ad units resulted in a $20 million settlement. This is just a good reminder that Facebook has the right to use the material you post without your permission.

Common Sense Media’s Tech Trends for 2014

Wondering what experts are saying will be the “new, new” thing in tech for kids in 2014? Take a look at 7 Surprisingly Inspiring Kids' Tech Trends for 2014from Common Sense Media. The column is quite upbeat and most families will agree that all of the doom and gloom about families and technology just doesn’t line up with the reality that most families are dealing with including the benefits kids have gained from the innovations in the tech world.

Case Could Shape Defamation by Tweet

Courtney Love is being sued for a tweet that her former attorney Rhonda Holmes had been "bought off," and the case could reshape the rules surrounding online defamation. A judge has already rejected Love's claim that tweets are inherently exaggerated and inaccurate, and hence can't be used to libel people; still, experts say, the case could give rise to new ways to post corrections or retractions for inaccurate or defamatory tweets. That may have some interesting applications for the war against cyberbullying, as well – if you really could erase or delete things online. With sites like Facebook getting 25 million requests a month these days for deletions, chances are slim to none that what you want taken down gets taken down, but what would things be like if you could take back something you posted? Of course, chances are that someone else already saw it and made some kind of permanent digital record of it. Will there be a way, in the future, to make it possible to delete and find out what has been digitally copied?