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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.
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.
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
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.
I'm still trying to figure out Dateline isn't violating the law. If they are deputized, then I would think that there would be serious problems with entrapment. If they are not deputized, then they are offering sex with minors to adults. As I understand it, that would be illegal, just the same as selling oregano to an undercover cop, or offering prostitution services, even if you have no intent of going through with it.
The novel was also based on the historical episode of how a country isolated itself from the rest of the world and treated it's people (i.e. Nazi Germany). Yes it's fiction. But it's very REAL fiction in many respects. That's probably why it is considered a classic, and read in countries all over the world.
Gen-X is the generation at fault here. They were a wonderful generation right up to the point where they began breeding. Exceptions abound, I know. I have good Gen-X friends who are great parents, and I know some Gen-X folks who are terrible.
A few years ago I did some personal research on this "phenomenon". Based on what I can gather, it happened around the late 70s and during the 80s. They had a great time, a great life. Other than the 1979 oil crisis, the Vietnam situation, Korean conflict, and the Gulf battles, that generation never really knew what it was like to live life "tough". Sure, the US had a major economic recession, the 1987 market crash was rough, but it wasn't devastating like the 1929 crash. During the 60s and 70s, their parents, the baby boomers, gave them everything. They did *not* seem to abuse this, however, so don't misunderstand.
Another fact is they were also the generation that largely grew up in split families, so they didn't have that "single family" focus (I'm not advocating the psychology behind it, just pointing it out). I think this lead them to be more absolved of responsibility. They were also the generation behind the creation of today's technology. This lead them to be more automated and less directly-connected to things. A baby boomer would never dream of telecommuting, but for a Gen-X'er, it's an obvious option.
So, my (very) brief thesis concludes with: Gen-X doesn't know how to handle the responsibility of parenting and having to stick with something to the end. They've largely been in a disposable society and almost always had something they can replace midway through, or buy a new one, or pass off to someone else ("hey mom, baby-sit for me, will ya?"). Now, they have to live life "tough", despite that they are only spawning one or two children each.
But yes, parents are raising stupid kids, the "Gen-Y" (aka "Who cares?" and "bubblegum pop") crowd. Gen-Y has grown up entirely immersed in technology from day zero; which is kinda cool, actually! They have already been mimicking some of Gen-X's laissez fare attitudes and poor track record.
One thing skewing this now, is that Gen-X is breeding later than the boomers (age range 29-33 for the first child, versus 22-25 for boomers). This is stretching the generational ranges quite a bit. We'll be seeing "sub-generations" in another 10 years, probably. I don't know what effect this will have, but it will certainly be interesting. Especially since Gen-Y is already starting to breed the next generation, and today's Kindergarten students are the first wave.
I'm hopeful for our future, but Gen-X did a major disservice.
(disclosure: i am age 30, born in 1977, during the official generational "gap" between Gen-X and Gen-Y.)