24 Sep 13 | Campaigns, Events, United Kingdom
The possible consequences of using social media should be taught to children as young as 10, although who should be responsible for doing so is still unclear. This was one conclusion from “Speak now: Regret Later?”, a Social Media Week event where as a specialist panel discussed how young people represent themselves online and what implications this may have on their future employability options.
A collaboration between Index on Censorship, The Student Journals and Youth Media Agency, the discussion was chaired by Index CEO Kirsty Hughes, with Asa Bennett, Huffington Post business reporter, Maya Wolfe-Robinson, commissioning editor on Guardian law and Comment is Free, and Siraj Datoo, co-founder of The Student Journals, making up the panel.
The majority of the audience who engaged in the discussion, all under the age of 25, felt they had evolved with the changes in social media and adapted their privacy settings and self-censored accordingly. This quickly lead the debate on the floor to progress to the question of the next generation of social media users; how should they be taught about the possible implications of what they post online and whose responsibility it should be to do this.
“Older people need to have an understanding of social media so that they can properly teach young people how to use it effectively,” commented Datoo, who admitted his own father had a Facebook account but no idea how to use it. He urged that it should be a collective engagement by all of those in contact with children to make them aware of the possible risks they take in using social media.
However, a comment from the floor argued that it should be the responsibility of parents – those buying their children the tablets, laptops and mobile phones on which they have access to social media – to educate them on how they could jeopardise future employment possibilities from what they share online.
One observation made was greeted with nods from around the room; how to use social media safely and without repercussions should be taught alongside sexual education in primary schools. Despite Facebook setting a minimum age of 13, a report by the London School of Economics found that almost half of all British children aged 9 to 12 are using social media networking sites. Many of these users do not take on board that the internet lasts forever- even some of the audience themselves were shocked to hear that Facebook and Snapchat, an app used to send images that supposedly dissolve from the screen after a set time, own and keep all photos posted or sent by their users.
“My heart bleeds for this generation growing up with their baby photos being posted online by their parents; they are born digital and the rest of their lives will be documented across social media,” said Wolfe-Robinson, with agreement from the panel that employers should take this into account in the future. “I fully support the idea for a right to be forgotten, for us not to be judged on comments we made in our youth, but I understand this is probably an unrealistic expectation.”
05 Sep 13 | Comment, News and features, United Kingdom
A troll, yesterday
Law firm Schillings has relaunched as a privacy and cyber security firm, the Lawyer reports.
Schillings, scourge of many a Fleet Street editor, clearly believes the future of libel and privacy lays online. As such, they have co-opted online security firm “Vigilante Bespoke” into “Schillings IT Security”.
Vigilante Bespoke (which wouldn’t be a bad rapper name) started in 2009 as an “ethical hacking” business, testing gaps in firms and individual’s technological security.
Now, Vigilante Bespoke founder Oliver Crofton is being cast by Schillings as the Trollhunter General. He explains on the Schillings site:
“Although the internet is seen by some as anonymous, everything we do online leaves a “digital fingerprint”, which in some instances can be traced to uncover valuable identifying information.
“During investigations we look to uncover IP addresses (these are unique codes that relate to an individual home or office internet connection), which can often lead us to the street address of the person posting the nasty comments. In some instances, website server connection logs can be analysed, which can give us the mac address (a computer’s name and location) of the computer being used to post the unsolicited content.
“Simple tools also help when tracing people online, such as indepth online searches for usernames; as these are often used across several websites and each website may vary in the amount of information available about their users.”
Apart from troll hunting, the Schillings site has lots more to say on social media: what does a company do, for example, when compromising pictures of senior figures are Instagrammed (“the Weiner Dilemma” perhaps?). How to deal with negative customer reviews on say, TripAdvisor, or how to handle an ex-employee who can’t stop ranting about your company online?
The Schillings site is, in its own way, an indicator of where the new libel and privacy battles will be fought. It’s not about newspapers any more.
(ht Leah Borromeo)
16 Aug 13 | Events
As part of Social Media Week 2013, debate the benefits and pitfalls of social media for you and your future career.
Social media skills are now required in almost any job, but what do employers really think of their employees’ online activity? Should you censor your output for the sake of your future? Paris Brown, former Kent Youth Crime Commissioner, stood down after tweets she’d written years earlier…
Join a specialist panel of media, law and freedom of expression experts to examine how what we say online can affect our futures?
#smwspeaknow
WHEN: 23 Sept, 2013, 6pm
WHERE: Centre for Creative Collaboration (16 Acton Street, London, WC1X 9NG)
TICKETS: Free, registration required. Please note this event is for 18-25 year olds.
NB Participants must be aged between 18-25 and be willing to debate and get involved with the issues discussed by our panel.
Student Journals is a website hosted and run for and by students, reporting on politics, lifestyle and culture across the UK.
Youth Media Agency is the strategic home of Youth Media in the UK; connecting and supporting over 300 Youth Media platforms including Radio, TV and Magazines, online and print.
The Centre for Creative Collaboration (C4CC) is an initiative of the University of London, supporting new types of collaboration using the principles of open innovation.
26 Jul 13 | Comment, Digital Freedom, News and features, United Kingdom, United States
If we want the web to be a positive place for young people, we need to start talking about the positive things that happen there
Texan teenager Justin Carter was released on bail on 11 July, after his $500,000 bail was paid anonymously. His family had been unable to raise that amount previously.
The young man had been in a Texan prison since February, charged with making “terroristic threats” on Facebook.
What exactly did he say?
During an argument with fellow gamers, in which doubts had been cast on his sanity, Carter posted:
“I’m f—ed in the head alright. I think I’ma shoot up a kindergarten and watch the blood of the innocent rain down and eat the beating heart of one of them.”
Not pleasant, no. Not particularly funny. But is it an actual threat? I really don’t think so.
Carter’s lawyer insists that the teen posted “LOL” and “jk” (joke) immediately afterwards to clarify that he wasn’t serious. And yet he finds himself facing a terror-related charge, with a possible sentence of 10 years ahead of him.
Why?
Americans are often wrongly accused of not getting irony, but this is one of those awful cases where the letter of the law clashes with expression that is clearly not meant to be taken literally.
Britons will be all too aware that they cannot be too complacent about these cases. People such as Paul Chambers, Azhar Ahmed, Liam Stacey and Matthew Woods have all felt the full force of the law for inappropriate, ill-advised social media messages, under laws that have been clumsily applied and don’t really allow for context – the crucial component in all free speech cases (though the Crown Prosecution Service has at least attempted to offset this problem with its new recommendations).
It’s interesting that almost all these recent cases involve young men.
The only exception I can think of is 21 year-old British woman Deyka Ayan Hassan, who was recently sentenced to 250 hours community service for a tweet in the aftermath of the murder of Lee Rigby, in which she said anyone wearing a Help For Heroes t-shirt deserved to be beheaded.
A lot of social media at the moment is based on getting a reaction; our worth is based on how many likes or comments a post gets, or responses and retweets on Twitter. The most hardened editor will sit anxiously viewing how many times an article is tweeted.
This pushes content posted in certain directions: either mind-numbingly banal but well meaning to the point where people feel bad for not responding (RT IF YOU THINK CANCER IS BAD), or snarky and borderline – or just plain – offensive (CANCER IS LOLZ).
The latter type of comment is the one that’s getting young people in trouble.
A segment of the Olympic opening ceremony in London last summer made a great deal of the amazing power of communications technology in young people’s lives, with “founder of the web” Tim Berners Lee looking on benignly as a sweet love story played out between pretty teenagers wielding smartphones.
But the way we talk about the web now does not reflect that idealism. The current debate in the UK portrays the web overwhelmingly as the habitat of trolls, predators, bullies and pornmongers. And that, plus the police are watching too, ready to arrest you for saying the wrong thing.
I can’t help feeling that all this doom-mongering could be self fulfilling. If we keep thinking of the web as the badlands, that’s how it will be, like a child beset by endless criticism and low expectations. We need to talk more about the positive side of life online – the conversations, the friendhips, the opportunities – if we’re going to get the most out of it.
