the wrong way - online privacy and social networks
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| Online privacy and cyber-bullying - regulation to the rescue? |
| Can better privacy be accomplished with more regulation and if so, will it protect users against cyberbullying? |
| We tell you why regulation might achieve little if anything. |
Unfortunately, where casual, virtual or distant friendship thrives, so does casual enmity. It also creates an easy tool for those who do not want to be our friends. And the social pressure users feel to create more and more connections scatters personal information about themselves more and more indiscriminately.
The exchange of abuse between social networks is the same as individuals writing insults on the walls of public toilets. Nonetheless, the factors that limit behavior in face-to-face interaction are absent online. In turn, the status markers that we usually have do not exist. Hence, people feel freer to be more anti-social. This perceived escape from responsibility is one of the great dangers of social networking in the virtual space (Click on link - choose option Login as guest - click on this link again and you get more information - fast and easy).
And while the law does go some way to protecting internet users from abuse, it is a challenge to defend onself against cyber-harassment, cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying.
Cyberbullying is a particularly difficult type of bullying as it can follow teenagers wherever they go. As well, the anonymity that it seemingly affords the perpetrator can make it even more stressful for the victim. Unfortunately, research on cyber bullies is limited with some laudable exceptions.
Li, Quin (April 2005) Cyber-bullying in schools: Nature and extent of adolescents’ experience. Paper presented at the Annual American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference, Montreal, available online, see the link get more papers on cyber-bullies from Li,Quin at his personal webpage - check it out.
One of the trends emerging is that children will not report cyberbullying. One reason might be that they try to deal with it themselves for fear of being cut off. Many times parents will overreact and punish the victim by forbidding them to continue using things like instant messaging, blogs, or a social network.
REGULATION - PROBABLY THE WRONG WAY
2006-01 the US Congress passed a law making it a federal crime to
- annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person over the internet.
H.R.3402 Section 113 as amended reads like this:
- Whoever…utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet… without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person…who receives the communications…shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
The law sweeps in - other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet — and the most straightforward reading of that would cover Web logs and e-mail. If politicians wanted to limit the -annoy- prohibition to VoIP, they could easily have done so. But they did not.
Incidentally, about 36 US states have enacted similar legislation. However, these laws apply to over 18 year olds only and police being short-staffed are busy pursuing what they call ‘real crime’
In South Korea, the - internet real-name system-, was introduced 2007-06. It forces online portals and news websites to record the identities of people who post content and to disclose their contact details if someone wants to sue them for libel or infringement of privacy.
CONCLUSION or WHAT CAN BE DONE
So what can be done? A consortium of European researchers recently developed role-playing software called:
The software (still being fine-tuned) gets children to empathise with a victim of bullying. After watching a short animation of a child being bullied either in the playground or online, the viewer is asked to help the victim by typing advice into the computer.
And also important is that people with certain demographics including social class are attracted to certain social networks - MySpace and Facebook, for instance who goes where - check this out:
social networking sites - situational relevance,
SEE ALSO
Checklist - how to legally seek evidence of criminal activity on the Internet, chat rooms…
who has more traffic - LinkedIn, XING, Plaxo …. see the traffic chart time-series
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AERA, Annual American Educational Research Association, cyber harassment, cyber stalking and bullying, cyberbullying, cybercrime, cyber bullies, cyber bully, cyber bullying, cyber stalker, facebook, H.R.3402 Section 113, interest based advertising, LinkedIN, Li , myspace, online privacy, plaxo, plaxo pulse, privacy, privacy policy, Quin Li, regulation, target bomb adverts, The Pew Internet & American Life Project, Xing, Quin
