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New York's Slap to the Facebook
There are three questions that any politician attacking social networking sites, should have to answer, in order to be specific about what they want. First, what kind of contact do they think the social networking sites should prohibit between adults and minors? All politicians agree on prohibiting sexual solicitation, but that's a non-issue since that's already against the law. So are they asking the sites to block adults and minors from messaging each other at all? Or only "flirtatious" messages, or only requests to meet in person? Some of these answers are more ridiculous than others, but let them pick one. Second, if the site does try to monitor for inappropriate contact between adults and minors, is there any practical way to stop someone from falsely signing up as a minor? Third, if someone's account is cancelled for inappropriate behavior, what good does that do when they can just create another one? (Cuomo's office declined to respond to these questions, referring me only to their press releases. Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.)
Complaining about the futility of Internet regulation is about as hard as complaining about media coverage of Paris Hilton. But in this case, it's not merely that the laws wouldn't do any good, it's that I can't see how the political grandstanding could even plausibly lead up to any laws, even stupid ones.
Facebook's big concession in their settlement with Cuomo was that they would respond faster to complaints sent to abuse@facebook.com about inappropriate contact. (Previously, the AG's office had sent test complaints to the abuse@facebook.com address saying things like, "My 13 YEAR OLD received this extremely inappropriate message from a local NYC man. Please take action IMMEDIATEL!" (sic), and received no response.) But what constitutes "abuse"? Facebook's Terms of Service do not mention contact between adults and minors except to say that you may not "solicit personal information from anyone under 18" (as written, this prohibition would apply to everyone, and not just adults). Does that mean you can send flirtatious messages to an underage user as long as you don't ask for contact information (which you wouldn't need to do anyway, if it's posted on their profile and they add you to their friends list)? For that matter, does that mean if you're 18 and you ask a 17-year-old Facebook user for her phone number, you're breaking the rules? (Or, wait, this applies even if you yourself are 17 as well!) Of course there's nothing new about terms of service agreements which are vaguely written and haphazardly enforced, or playing parlor games about how the terms would be absurd if taken literally. But when a government office is threatening to bring charges and possibly push for new laws unless Facebook agrees to enforce its own Terms of Service, then it's fair game to ask exactly what rules the AG's office is asking Facebook to make people follow.
What if Facebook blocked adults from contacting minors at all? Before, I would have assumed that Facebook would respond to this suggestion by saying that it was too draconian, that nobody had ever seriously tried to outlaw all contact between minors and adults on the Internet, etc. But Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer appeared at one point to endorse this policy as reasonable, by saying that, well, they did block adults from messaging minors on the site, even though they didn't. Cuomo's letter pointed out that any Facebook user can message any other user, and they still can. (I asked Facebook if their Chief Privacy Officer was misquoted in the article, but they didn't respond.) So leaving aside the question of whether Facebook should try to stop adults from messaging minors, would it even be possible? Of course you could block registered adult users from messaging registered underage users. But since any adult who planned on doing something suspicious would probably do it from a "throwaway" account instead of their real one, the question is whether you could screen people from creating "throwaway" accounts pretending to be minors -- sort of the opposite of adult credit-card verification for porn sites. (My suggestion: Make the person answer a question like, 'The way to impress a girl in high school is with (a) looks; (b) intelligence; (c) sense of humor; or (d) "confidence"'. From listening to most adults, you'd think they have no clue about the correct answer to this, except for the ones who also add, 'What do you mean, "in high school"?')
Facebook's current screening system is that anyone who registers as a high school student (and if you're under 18, you have to register as a high school or college student -- homeschoolers and dropouts are out of luck unless they lie about their age), has to be confirmed by an existing student at that school, by sending them a friend request and having them confirm that you are friends. (Your account still works before you're confirmed, but you blocked from certain things that only high school accounts can do, such as browse for other members of that high school.) This is another recent change that Facebook made that was not listed in their settlement agreement -- previously, the Attorney General had documented that anybody under 18 could sign up and join a high school network, but now, you can't do this without getting another student to confirm you.
However, this can be circumvented as well. I'm not endorsing the following trick for any mischief-making, but I think it's sufficiently obvious that there's no reason not to point it out: (1) create a profile of a non-overweight girl and sign up as a member of a high school network, pending confirmation; (2) search for several boys in that network and send them friend requests; and (3) wait for at least one of them to confirm you back, which they will probably do, without even being sure if they actually know you or not. Voila, you've got your "high school student" account. Then you can presumably use that account as a foothold to approve other accounts, for example if you're a male and you want to create a fake high schooler profile as an actual guy, assuming you only want to pretend to be a teenager, not a female, because it's not like you're not some kind of weirdo.
Facebook could conceivably require real-world verification for anyone who signed up as a minor -- confirmation from their school, for example. But this would be competitive suicide for any site whose main draw is that everybody wants to go there because everybody else is already there, so they need signups to be as easy as possible. Even if Congress passed a law draconion enough that it required all social networking sites to do this, Facebook could just re-incorporate overseas (for a billion dollars, wouldn't you move to Canada, Mark?), or else a foreign competitor could take over the teen-social-networking market by offering signups without cumbersome verifications. What would Congress do then, pass a law requiring ISPs to block access to overseas social-networking sites? They couldn't even do that with child pornography.
Finally, if Facebook does cancel your account, you can always sign up for a new one instantly with a new e-mail address. Losing your Facebook account might be a harsh punishment for someone who had built up an extensive network of contacts around their profile. But I'll bet that any adult with a network of friends on Facebook, built around a profile that gives their real name and employer, is probably using a secondary profile with a lot less information on it if they're writing to 13-year-old girls. A dispensable secondary account like that can easily be replaced, so Facebook responding to abuse reports by closing people's accounts is just playing whack-a-mole. An arrest can stop someone permanently, but you can only arrest someone if they've actually broken the law, like sending an unambiguous sexual solicitation to an underage user.
So there's really nothing that Facebook or any other social-networking site could do to prevent adults from signing up as minors, to prevent adults and minors from messaging each other, or to keep abusers from creating new accounts. Occasionally, they are able to make some minor concessions that a politician can take credit for -- in July, the attorney general of Connecticut alerted Facebook to three sex offenders who had profiles on the site, which Facebook duly removed. Did the sex offenders then sign up for new profiles? Are most sex offenders on Facebook smart enough not to sign up under their real names? Story doesn't say. That's one reason I could never make it as a regular reporter, because you're not allowed to insert your own voice into the story even to point out the crashingly obvious.
But basically, the major issues that politicians keep bringing up about social networking sites, are unsolvable. For a politician, of course, this is the best of both worlds -- they can rail against social networking sites forever, knowing that the "problems" will never go away.
This is usually the point at which the writer inserts an obligatory note that the real solution is to sit down and talk to your kids. Well, yes and no. I think first you should be as informed as possible about what the various risks are, not just for online activity but for all of life's experiences, and then sit down and talk. You could even do the research together and make a Family Fun Night out of it! (Sound of teenagers groaning and fumbling for their iPods.) For openers: one study found that in one year in the U.S., "Law enforcement at all levels made an estimated 2,577 arrests for Internet sex crimes against minors", and only 39% of those were for crimes against real, identifible minors (excluding arrests for To Catch A Predator-style sting operations). On the other hand, the National Transportation Safety Board reports that every year, about 3.4 million people are injured and 41,000 are killed in auto accidents in the U.S. Even this rough comparison would seem to suggest that until you've talked to your kid about every last detail you can think of regarding car safety, that's a better use of time than talking about Facebook. Perhaps you think it's an apples-and-oranges comparison because the sex crimes statistic counts only arrests, not actual incidents. But then the question is whether a true apples-to-apples comparison has ever been done, or how you could do one. The point is that there is some objective truth about the relative risks, and if you read even just one study comparing them, you're better informed than 90% of the people out there, including most parents. You want to be the cool Mom? You don't have to let your kids do everything, just have reasons for stuff!
My promise to my own future kids is that I won't ever make the mistake of thinking that just because I paid for their room and board for a few years, that makes me better informed about the various risks factors of different activities. I will probably be better informed than my kids, for a long while anyway, but that won't be why. And I hope we can teach them so much that before long they'll be better informed than most people, including most of their friends' parents. Then my wife will teach them to be polite enough not to point this out to their friends' parents, but with half their genes coming from me I wouldn't bet on it.
I didn't realize that you could have an article that long on /.
Aside from that, what's with all the common sense about teaching children about the dangers of the Internet before allowing them to use it? That is just politically incorrect, the author can't possibly be an American! Does Homeland Security know this guy is trying to take their job from them? Absolutely criminal!
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They just want to be able to tell their moron constituents that they are "tough on child predators". Meanwhile they'd get more accomplished working with Dateline than spending years going after these social networking sites to get meaningless changes in place.
Goodwill gestures to minimize risk to teens and kids are a good idea but since when is an online business responsible for other peoples children? This is really quite simple; responsibility lies with parents and legal guardians!
This is just another "think of the children" moment and will continue to inflame the debate over social networking services. There will be the chorus of "if you don't like it, don't use it" followed by "about time someone makes them clean up their act", concluded with "someone has to be held accountable".
Look people, as long as Facebook, MySpace, et. al. do not go to extraordinary lengths to screen applicants (e.g. send in a physical application form along with corroborating evidence, doing background checks), then anyone using those services takes their chances, not unlike soliciting a prostitute or buying merchandise off of eBay. If parents are so worried about their minor children using these services and falling under the thrall of malevolent lotahrios, then they need to monitor (or outright block) their children's network access and hold accountable others who might provide those services to their children.
This is like the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike to hold back the flood, while a 30-foot crack in the dam starts spraying water. It looks good on paper but any hardcore perv will find ways around things and keep right on doing what they do until they get arrested.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I mean, when I was 10 and got started on IRC (yes, I was a weaksauce 10-14 year old that spent his non-gaming time in chat rooms), I still knew that people online only knew as much as what I told them...my parents didn't even need to tell me that first name, state (not even county, just state), and sex were the only things that were ok to tell anyone...people that I got to know a bit, I could tell them my age, but again...all they had to go on was my first name and what state I lived in, so even if they were a sexual predator or whatever they couldn't exactly come knocking on my front door.
So whose fault is it, would you say? Parents, for not teaching their children these basic things about the Internet (i.e. they only know as much as you tell them) or is it the kid's fault for being a complete moron?
Living With a Nerd
there will always be the spectre of the lurking pedophile? Is this what they are trying to get at?
Study shows that bad things happen when parents neglect monitoring their (young) children's internet activities.
From what I can discern, Facebook offers users the ability of removing one's own account from all searching. You may opt to only be contacted by your friends. To everyone else, you shouldn't even exist. Therefore, if you do NOT want that "local NYC" man contacting you then do NOT make him your friend (despite the fact that he may have poked you a couple dozen times).
I would not consider it necessary for Facebook's to actively police its users. If a user is blantantly engaged in a criminal activity, contact your local law enforcement. They will PROPERLY contact Facebook, or simply find and arrest the person.
Oh and when your kids go off to college, I think the least of your worries would be their internet activities...
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Generally they are responding to a perceived level of concern from members of the public. This may come to them directly (unlikely) or through focus-groups/media reports or just hearsay from their staff.
This means they feel they should do something, just to show they're on the case and to stop any possibility that their opponents can make political capital out of it. As a consequence they have no real idea of what can be done - or even have any first-hand experience of the websites they're attacking.
The best things the site owners can do is to nod gravely, agree that there are bad people about. State that they have state-of-the-art protections in place and that they spend $Xmillion per year "protecting" people.
Until there is a reliable way of identifying the baddies just by what they type, they'll always be open to this type of criticism and can not otherwise address it.
Stay safe, act sensibly, watch your kids -they're your responsibility
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"This is like the little Dutch boy putting his finger in the dike"
;)
Now nobody will take your post seriously.
BUT
Why can't we simply monitor sexual predators better? This may sound silly, but it is an extremly well documented fact that sexual predators TYPICALLY(not always) will continue to prey after release from jail, after chemical castration, almost after anything. It is in there mind set to do this.. why not simply monitor there internet better? Require there internet traffic to block facebook/myspace. Require them to submit to use of internet blocking tech.
I fail to see how myspace/facebook can be held accountable for sicko's using there website to harm people. Its like blaiming the USPS for perverts sending little girls letters.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
The solution to social networks and spam is the same: *trust networks*.
Not identity, TRUST.
As in, you can't send me an email unless someone *I* know vouches for you. Or someone they know, etc., with degrees of separation up to my level of comfort.
I don't need to know you personally (or even know your real name) to trust you as someone who won't spam me, and I can probably trust your trusted contacts as well. With 3-4 degrees of separation, the people allowed to contact me via IM, email, telephone, etc. would likely include almost EVERYONE who would legitimately need to contact me, while including no spammers.
Sure, social engineering is always possible with such a system, but if my buddy Joe (or his buddy Frank) is an idiot and has a habit of trusting spammers, I should simply be able to mark him as "untrustworthy."
Now, how does this apply to the TERRORIST-PREDATOR-HACKER problem?
First off, predators are experts at social engineering, and even full government vetting would only prevent *registered* predators from obtaining accounts, not the ones who've never been caught. We can't even get the terrorist no-fly database right, so I have ZERO confidence that social networks could ever be predator-free.
So, for your children's accounts, use the trust system to your advantage by only marking yourself and other trusted adults/groups as contacts that can either contact your kid directly or that can be used as trust verification contacts. Doesn't solve the uncle/teacher/priest problem, but should be a perfectly reasonable way to keep your kids from being contacted by people you don't know.
While it's true you're far more likely to run into trouble riding in a car than posting on facebook, the point of talking to your kids about the risks "out there" is to educate them about being safe and smart in situations where their judgment plays a big part in the risk. ie: it's not a waste of time to teach your kids to make a difference where they actually CAN. That's why driver's ed courses don't spend much time on "here's what you do if you're driving along and a meteorite crashes on you."
It's stupid to call it an educated decision to observe that your chances of getting hurt on facebook are small and so you shouldn't bother teaching your kids Internet safety. Regardless of the comparative statistics, it's the role your children's decisions play in their likelihood of getting hurt that matters here.
--- Tao
Facebook was primarily developed for College students.
It was a college rite of passage. Hey you got a [name]@[college].edu address? You can get on facebook! It allowed us to organize, link, and share information on the latest changes on our friends and where the next House-Party-To-Be-Busted would be. It was like an invasion of privacy and our "Check out me doing beer pong AND IM 19" pictures when employers began snooping around. Myspace for the masses. Facebook for the collegiate elite.
Then they opened it up. HIGH SCHOOLERS! Aw crap. Well there goes the site. But the new freshmen had fun. They could link and get in to their old circles in HS. Life settled in to the "new" site.
Then they opened it to specific "work" networks. Again the college students complained but hey now the alumni could say connected. So we let it go.
Then the worst thing of all. EVERYONE! Are you breathing? You can have a facebook account. And thus the "cool" site became the new predator site. LOCK IT DOWN! Those days of "hey i haven't seen them in over a year since that one class" disappeared. Now you have to be friends to see other profile. Believe me, we now have speakers come in and tell us that employers are trolling and so are the colleges. Facebook died a slow death. Sure we still use it and my campus (KSU) has an average daily use of 2 hours per student (someone has got to be throwing that number) but its not the same. It really is the new stalker net.
BTW. WHY are parents letting their 13 year olds on a site like this?
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
... that most children's lives would be ruined if they are allowed unsupervised, not talked about with parents, interactions with outside world and Internet in particular? Go ahead and send your 13 year old daughter in the bar with your ID and then blame the owner if she spends the night with a patron. Now read your whole spam folder and imagine what will happen to someone who lacks critical thinking and believes in claims in every message. Are you going to go after gmail, Facebook or whatever neutral service provider?
This doesn't mean you have to stand over your childrens' shoulders all the time. Just ask them how they spent their day and make it a point to discuss, not punish things you don't agree with.
I always thought of Facebook as the more higher class social network full of more mature people rather then the dross of 13 year old cam whores that infect Myspace.
Am I wrong in my assertions or is it that Facebook is just going down the tubes? I don't really use it that much so I don't know.
There are three questions that any politician attacking social networking sites, should have to answer, in order to be specific about what they want.
It might be a good idea, to let somebody, else proofread your essay before publishing, it on a site with thousands, of readers.
Comment of the year
I think parents are responsible for their kids protection, I mean, nowadays some parents expect TV and Internet to raise their children for them, and then they complain about the dangers of such things.
I mean, it's true, internet is full of dangers to kids, but those dangers can be eliminated with some adequate parenting, after all, it's easier than making the whole internet safe for children, isn't it?
Check out my blog!
The problem is, even if you are a responsible parent, the availability and accessibility of this media is growing at an exponential rate. I've got a couple of kids myself and am doing what I can. We teach our children about strangers - which includes the internet, and, on the computer my children use, I run DansGuardian giving me the ability to just block anything that's a problem.
Thing is, I take every reasonable step I can to protect my children from predators. If these, "social networking" sites aren't willing to show the same level of commitment to this that I have, then my only alternative is to block access to those sites.
but that only works at home....doesn't it? What about everywhere else they go?
So, speaking as a responsible parent, it would be nice if these "social networking" sites were also "socially responsible".
BTW - I have a MySpace page....and their spamblocking tools seem to be working.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Granted I'm a "Johnny Come Lately" to that whole thing, but I'm really not seening the "dross of 13 year olds". I see a lot of people closer to my age.
Maybe MySpace was like that once, but I think the grown-ups are starting to discover that it's good for things like "networking" and keeping up with friends that have dispersed all over the place.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
...is the person who is convinced that he's too smart to be fooled
that is all
A goal is a dream with a deadline
We've already tried that. They just resort to toys.
Slashdots population is male, the number of females can be counted on the fingers of a clumsy lumberjack. As such it is hard for us to understand just how often females are the subject of sexual advances. I as a male can open a facebook page and never ever get an invititation for anything. A female only has to give the barest hint that she is female and BAM, she is hit upon.
Most recent example was in a MMORPG raid, I let it slip that our raid leader has a sexy voice, she does, as a motivation to get people to use voice chat. Oh boy. MISTAKE!
That was followed by a rather lengthy lecture by her and another friend on the realities of being a female in this world. I am old enough to know about cramps and lots of other stuff I think should be on a need to know basis (hint, I don't need to know) but they shocked me by just how constant and unrelenting it is. We all know about the teacher who offers better grade for eheh, homework. But as males we think that is something funny, but also rare. They both claimed that it was not, that on a night out it was not uncommon for them to be approached for sex for money. That if it becomes known in a game they are females they ALWAYS get hit upon. Sometimes perfectly nice, sometimes a bit too much and at times pure abuse but most important ALWAYS.
But there are slashdot females here, and they can no doubt better describe it, my point is that we as males cannot really judge just how much of a problem this is. Because what was also clear is that it is not the majority of men who harass, unless you yourselve are one of the people who prey on teens you just can't understand how constant the treath is.
Young girls are also vulnerable, not all, but some are in desperate need for anyone to give them attention and the predators out there are casting a wide enough net they will find some poor girl (or even boy) who is receptive. Again this is not something men can understand. If you as a teenage boy had a older female who wished to initiate you in the pleasures of love, you would have thanked god on your bair knees. You would have been a stud. When a few years ago that story broke about the highschooler and female teacher, who among us didn't think, "wish I had a teacher like that".
With social networking sites we have created spot where vulnerable people can expose themselves in an extremely direct manner to those who wish to take advantage of them, in total privacy.
Chat up a teen at my sportclub and you will get yourselve thoroughly beaten up. Do it online, and who is to know.
What I want to make clear is that it is NOT something we as males can accurately judge, if you really want to know, try finding a female in your circle of friends who has an account on such a site and ask to read the responses she gets. I read the logs she had of an old WoW session. I wouldn't say I was shocked but if you get pissed of at goldspammers, you ain't see nothing yet. She and I think other girls are there in game to play a game, not to get hit up on. It wasn't even the abuse or hatred that was shocking, but just how constant it was.
Women don't mind if you look at their tits, they take pride in them, they want to be sexy. What women object to is that men ONLY ever look at their tits. ALL men ALL the time.
Social networking sites remove even the most basic controls of civilized society, you can see this in the catch-a-predator series, perfectly normal men (hetero males are attracted to young females, it is nature, if you are not, you are gay) who know they shouldn't be doing this can't seem to resist. On the other hand we got young kids (not just girls are preyed upon) some of them vulnerable, all without any supervision of any sort. Problems are bound to occur.
Are they worse then what happened in earlier days? I remember a faint story from my childhood about a gym instructor who was let go. We got warnings about strange men hanging around the school, so it is nothing new. BUT I was also male. Those warnings didn't really apply to me, bu
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Why doesn't Edavojohn get called a frequent contributor? He's always submitting stories, then posting in the discussions.
The Internet is a whole world full of all of the good and bad that exists in the real world (and then some). Do you let your kids wander about unsupervised through the real world? Everyone would think you were insane if you did that.
Then why do so many people let their kids wonder through the Internet unsupervised? It is just stupid. The simple solution is "No computers with an Internet connection in their rooms!" The computer should be out in a visible exposed public place where they can't sneak around because they can never tell when someone might peek around the corner.
Problem solved...
Facebook was better when it was just a college networking site... Back then it required you to use the email address from your specific school. When they opened facebook up to high schools, we all knew it would just turn into yet another social networking site. I'm sure the next big thing will be some project championed by google, somehow tied into picasa... Facebook is quickly becoming cluttered with all the random junk that it used to lack, but thats what made it great.
They got greedy, and now its a piece of junk.
Don't you get it? Politicians only want to appear like they are doing something, so they jump on the most popular bandwagon that will get them the most publicity and air time. They want to APPEAR to be doing something about something that is basically completely unenforceable.
Why not do something more substantial except drag people in front of cameras and admonish them, but offer no real solutions? Thats' because they just don't care.
How does a person with an interest in teens arrange a hookup while avoiding predators, such as law enforcement agents trolling for chumps? If this problem can be solved, so can most of the others with social networking systems.
Similarly, if you cannot have any real confidence that the person at the other end of a chat is real how do you avoid exposing yourself? You could be lured into a chat about some really great weed that you just bought only to be visited by Officer Friendly the next day.
The first thing is to assume that illegal activities are going on and that everyone isn't just all nice and innocent. You can move from there to either attempt to hinder illegal or questionable conversations and contacts (impossible) or you can choose to facilitate them between people with confirmed identities.
For example, if you meet someone in a bar who is acting like an ass you can, without knowing their name, know never to go near this person again. Their identity - the important parts of it - is known to you. Once this person makes a serious social error everyone knows not to bother with them and nothing can prevent them from being ostracized. Word will spread about this person's "identity" and errors to prevent others from having to learn the hard way.
This basic element of social interaction applies in all cases and is something humans have dealt with since the beginning of time. It is something observable in groups of animals.
Today this is not possible online. What we have are "flexible identities" which can be shed at the drop of a hat. This means it is no longer possible to recognize friends and identify persons that we would rather not have contact with. Some would say this is a benefit, especially those that are socially awkward and are excluded in real life because of their social missteps. Unfortunately, this enables people to "burn" an identity online quickly and easily and move on to a new victim with a new identity.
For example, Ted Bundy moved around a lot. He took advantage of a lack of communication between his targets and potential targets. Girls that did not recognize him as someone that recently killed were lured into close contact and got killed themselves. Ted was able to do this partly because of modern transportation systems that made evading identification much easier than it would have been 50 or 100 years before.
What we have done with online communities is to shield people from basic patterns that have evolved over thousands of years to protect them from predators. It would seem far more sensible to construct such communities in a manner so as to enhance the patterns that have evolved rather than to destroy them.
If you think these guys are trying to protect children or whatever, you're missing the point. The point of attacking Facebook and other such sites is to be seen on TV and the newspaper appearing to be concerned about "the children". This is because there are people that will vote for them based on this. Even if a politician is smart enough to know they're not accomplishing anything, they'll still do this because they want the appearance of "doing something." They're indifferent as to whether or not any substantive change actually occurs on Facebook -- in fact, they probably don't really want the problem to go away because if it did they wouldn't be able to trot the same issue out next election cycle.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
The goal of parenting is, by the time the kids are 18, they're prepared to make responsible decisions in the real world without relying on Mom & Dad. That means not just teaching them to do things or not to do things, but teaching them how to decide for themselves whether to do things or not to do things, so that when they're in a new situation, they can figure out how to handle it.
One great thing about giving your kids reasons for stuff is, it helps you (as a parent) to consciously understand what your reasons are, instead of just relying on instinct. If you have a rule that your child isn't allowed to do something, and they ask why, you should be able to give them the reasons why. If you can't, then maybe it's not such a good rule! Also, if your child can figure out ways to address these issues, you can negotiate a reasonable solution that makes both of you happy, while at the same time teaching your child valuable negotiation and reasoning skills.
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I hope they do something IMMEDIATEL!
Help Me! I'm trapped in the tubes! Oh noes! Here comes a internet!
Many people use facebook to communicate with family members. I have two step-sisters under the age of 18, and I am well over that age. We communicate via facebook because it is where they 'hang out'. As well, I communicate with my students using Facebook, and some of them are under 18. The issue is inappropriate communication, not ageism. I agree that parents and schools should teach children about online safety... I do that as part of my job... and this should be facilitated by a robust abuse mechanism that is transparent. Strangely enough, I think that online anonymity is a problem. If you are over 18 and you want to keep your anonymity, which I think you should be allowed to keep, then it is reasonable to limit your communication to under aged individuals, or at least have your account flagged as such. IMHO of course.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
Please tell me on what charge you can be brought for selling oregano to anyone, let alone a cop. If there is one it's a great way to get back at my local grocer. Thanks.
Do you have a source for this? It is useless otherwise.
Everything you put in seems open to the world, this is fine if its "what i did today" it's expected really. But when you register with your email, you _do_not_ expect that to be published, which it is(!) even if it is represented as an image. I find this quite frankly amazing.
The only protection that the young have against sexual predators is themselves. This is true on the street and on the internet. Kids and teenagers who don't know which way is up, who are not aware of the existence of sick and evil individuals who want to basically rape them (if they are lucky), are at risk of being victimized by said individuals. It doesn't matter if they're wandering down the street or wandering into a chat room.
In todays world there are no children. There are only the aware and informed, and the ignorant.
When politicians start in with their histrionics, it is only a ploy to assuage the fear of ignorant and superstitious voters who demand that someone "do something" about problems that can only be solved in the home, by parents who are honest with their children. When parents try to "protect" their children from finding out about the evils of the world, in order to preserve their "innocence," they are only setting their kids up to be the next round of victims.
So the next time you read a story about some kid being enticed online, ask yourself why that kid was so ill prepared and uninformed that he or she was susceptible in the first place. You might be tempted to say that it was because they were young, that this made them inherently vulnerable. Human children in ages past were capable of hunting for food, knowing which types of plants were poisonous and which were safe to gather, and how to avoid or fend off predators. Yet now here today with modern education, not to mention modern nutrition, children and young people are somehow supposed to be completely helpless in the face of danger. I don't buy that and you shouldn't either.
If our children are helpless it is only because we infantilize them and constrain them to roles and states of being that render them helpless. Mushroom management (keep them in the dark, feed them shit, and watch them grow) might work for peons in the workplace, but it is no way to raise children.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
One of the things Bennett has always failed to understand is that just making something inconvenient will oftentimes prevent people from doing it. Yes, there is a way to get on a high school network after the "must be confirmed by an existing student" change, if you really really want to get on that network. But there are plenty of perverts who will either just give up or go find a way to get off that has a lower opportunity cost.
Check the stats - 98%+ of abuse cases are real world cases - not related to the internet. How many times have you heard a politician screaming about needing more funds for handling real world cases? The bill last year wanted to make data retention mandatory (to the tune of $400M+ annually) with some governmental financial support. However they vetoed the FBI request for a budget increase for the MEC department.
Even if the government could manage to exterminate every case of child abuse related to the internet, it wouldn't make a noticeable change in the amount of abuse going on. However, because it's a wild frontier that politicians can get publicity on, they scream about it like it's the end of the world. The internet is no different than the real world in terms of how to protect yourself. If parents take the time to teach their kids how to stay safe in the real world, then Internet safety is a footnote.
Committing hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars to 'make the internet safe' without also committing a proportionately larger amount of cash to the real world problem is almost criminal. It shows that the soundbytes are all people are interested in. Actual results are completely secondary to the volume of airtime and feelgood support politicians can generate by spouting off this crap.
>>> BTW. WHY are parents letting their 13 year olds on a site like this?
... whatever; buses aren't made to promote this sort of thing; it's just a consequence of malevolence in society; buses are comparatively safe places to be.
You make it sound like it's a hardcore porn site.
I think letting a child use a social networking site like facebook is akin to letting them ride on a bus by themselves - bear with me: Someone can say something inappropriate to your kid on a bus, show them dirty pictures, whisper in their ear,
[I wonder if facebook blocks known anonymising proxies and such to ensure a real world IP can still be traced?]
My opinion may change when my kids (I only have one right now) reach 13.
....you can shoot it, but that won't fix the leg
A goal is a dream with a deadline
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I think the poster did get exactly your point about risk assesment - don't waste your time with things that aren't likely to happen & focus on the ones that are: IE. 97% of sexual propositions to minors occur in the real world. Less than 3% occur online. Of those numbers, 75% are by other minors. We are talking about 3/4 of 1% of
propositions
happen online by an adult.Where exactly do you think we should be focusing our attention in light of that? Statistically, your local priest is more of a risk. Hell, your brother is more of a statistical risk than the internet. It's a lot harder for a child to say no to a trusted/loved person than it is to a stranger on the internet. You want to do some good? Focus where the problem actually is, not some tiny segment who's total elimination won't make a difference in the statistics of the problem. It's like opening a foodbank in Westchester county to deal with world hunger.
This is all about censorship. After all, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (especially for the internet).
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
... that politicians want to achieve anything. They only want to LOOK like they are achieving something. Whether or not they actually achieve that something never even crosses their weasely little minds.
To boldly use to and too two times and get it right too! They're not gonna believe their eyes when they see it there!
"That's one reason I could never make it as a regular reporter, because you're not allowed to insert your own voice into the story even to point out the crashingly obvious."
That's only a recent phenomenon. The truth is, reporters have a long history of finding facts, then drawing conclusions based on those facts - even in regular stories, not just editorials. Ever since the Regan years though, journalism has been under attack, and accused of being biased (which of course was true - bias toward the truth, as they saw it, and biased to the facts as they can be proved and disproved).
In the pursuit of "objectivity" journalists have lost all of the creditability they once had. Journalism should have a bias toward reality, and should be able to call torture, torture. But in the name of quieting critics (many of whom have been organized to achieve exactly what they have achieved), and in the name of objectivity, often giving voice to the side that says torture isn't torture. There is no place for the view that torture works, and that global warming isn't real. These are factually incorrect positions, opinions that deserve no platform, and journalists should just say so.
Everyone is entitle to their own opinion, and to their world view - they are not entitled to their own facts - or to a validating platform. At some point, a fact is known enough that it doesn't require a source to cite (at least not every time it's mentioned). It would be impossible to cite it, every time you say that torture doesn't work for example. It is simply so. Journalists should say so. Bloggers do exactly that. They are journalists in the finest tradition. They will will save that medium.
http://www.unfocus.com/
You forget why politicians do these things. They know darn well what they say is impractical and couldn't work but they want to be seen as "doing something". Also if you say something about a well known group, company or web site then you can get some free news coverage and your name and face all over the web and TV.
Rather than come up with some long ranting reply how about justing watching this episode of South Park.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Abduction_Is_Not_Funny
"During My Service In The United States Congress, I Took The Initiative In Creating The Internet." -Al Gore
I say focus where the focus is likely to improve things the most. Of course it makes no sense for kids to be all prepared to deal with predators online while being completely naive about the real world. What I am saying is that online, kids have a degree of control that they don't have in the real world. ie: online, kids actually have a more direct hand in their own safety than they do IRL. So I say by all means, teach them to use the power they have.
It's not like we'd be teaching them how to safely do something they never do. Kids DO go online. It's not a waste of time to teach them how to do it in a safety-conscious way.
--- Tao
I vote we band together and build a clone of these social networking sites and refuse to bow down to pressure from governments/(anti)?social groups
What's the worst they can do? Make noise and free advertising?
"Your kids, your responsibility - You don't want to take care of them, use a condom!"
Businesses are responsible for children during election cycles, when politicians are bored, and when they have money which can be paid in "remedies"
It has been the mantra of the 90s and beyond (probably earlier) that GOVERNMENT is the solution to all woes, whether real or imaginary. How many stories do we read about how new laws, programs, and taxes, are created "for the children"? How similar programs are made because its not your fault, you should not have to take all that responsibility?
The real problem is that people realized they could practically vote themselves OTHER people's money. The problem was, in doing so they gave up their ability to be responsible and regularly lose rights many of us hold dear. Worse, too many people no longer care, provided someone is giving them something. I wonder what its going to take to take someone's freedom of speech? I bet the price is lower than many think
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Must be election time again. A bunch of wortheless ' feel good ' posturing. " i care about the kiddies "
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wonder why people are moving towards facebook from myspace? Could it be it's "too popular", too much advertising, too many spammers, not as much privacy?
Buh? Er... I'm female and I don't get hit on all the time despite playing games, reading slashdot etc. I don't live my life in fear of being attacked although, when an attack does happen near my home I'm cautious when out and about. SmallFurryCreature must know a fairly small sub-set of women if they ALL feel like that. And while I also shouldn't generalise, often the women who do have issues with this sort of behaviour have encouraged it even unconsciously. I was in a guild (on an old, now defunct game) with another female player with the player name 'PinkKitty'. All her chat and visual set up was as flirtatious as possible - and then she was all upset when guys flirted back. Although at the time I was also a young single woman, my character was, while still clearly female, not nauseatingly girlie. Bingo! No unwanted attention. If you go through your gaming life (or your real one, for that matter) going "Oooh! Help me, I'm a clueless GIRL!" you're going to get unwanted attention. Apart from the occasional moron, if you go through life with the attitude of "Yeah I'm a girl. So what?" no-one is going to hassle you. Of course, I how have the ultimate solution to the few eejits who hassle me: Eejit: UR a girl? R U hot? Got a picture? Me: Last time I checked I was. I guess my husband must think I'm hot, as I don't know how I'd have ended up with 3 kids otherwise. Eejit: *gone*