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Social Media Safety
Henley Middle School Crozet, Virginia
February 20, 2014
I am as worried as you are!
• First started using computers and online networks in 1982
• Owner of Internet soGware company providing public relaIons and social media for organizaIons globally.
• I am a frequent speaker on digital communicaIons, social media and public relaIons both on the speaking circuit at trade shows • Public RelaIons Society of America • InternaIonal AssociaIon Business Communicators • College lecturer on social media, public relaIons and communicaIons technologies. This used to be me; before my
children started going online.
1950’s – Internet created by DARPA 1970’s – First emails exchanged
1980’s – The WELL (first social network) 1990’s – Online Services, Message Boards 2000’s – Friendster, Six Degrees, MySpace
2010’s – More than 5,000 social media networks and applicaIons
1950 0 Facebook Users
2014 1.2 Billion Facebook Users
60 years of digital change
How do we manage change?
• A-‐ccess • D-‐igital Footprint • A-‐pps • P-‐rivacy • T-‐ips
Family Contract
• The best way for families to agree on ground rules is to create a contract that all parIes must sign. The Family Online Safety InsItute (FOSI) encourages parents and kids to have an open discussion about what these rules mean, and offers a good example of a contract.
Get Involved
You don’t need to be a super sleuth and spy on your kid’s every online move, but it is important to be aware of the kinds of sites he is frequenIng and the people he is associaIng with. You get to know the friends he’s hanging out with at school, and his online friends shouldn’t be any different. One of the contract rules should be that you have full access to his social friends and can take a look whenever you wish.
Usage Limits
• Who your child is allowed to call? • How many minutes is she allowed to use each month? • Is your child permiced to text? How many texts per day/week/month? • What apps is she allowed to download and use? • Are there apps that are strictly off-‐limits? • At what Ime each night must the smartphone be put to bed for charging? • Can the child bring the smartphone to school? Use it when with friends? • Who pays the monthly cell phone bill? • What are the consequences for violaIng the agreed upon guidelines?
Rules Be Polite: Unfortunately, many people who use Facebook, Twicer or Youtube are rude, obnoxious or just plain mean spirited to others. Be sure your tween understands that you won't tolerate rude or ugly comments, and that you will be watching what he posts.
Don't Bully: Bullies have taken to Facebook, cell phones, Twicer and other online services to bully other children. It's horrible and it shouldn't be tolerated. Let your child know that bullying others is always wrong, and that it hurts, even when it's done online. It can also get your child into a lot of trouble at school and possibly even with the law.
Don't Expose Family Problems: No family is perfect, and while it's important to work through family issues, it's not OK to expose your family challenges in a public forum. Family members deserve privacy, so your tween should understand that ranIng about Uncle Dave isn’t fair to air in public.
Be Posi>ve: If you spend any amount of Ime involved in social media you'll see that people spend a lot of their Ime online complaining. It can become contagious and can influence how you behave when you're not online. Try to get your child to see social media as a way to focus on the good.
Select Photos Carefully: One of the biggest dangers of social media is how photos can be quickly shared and possibly even used against you. Help your tween develop a strategy for selecIng photos to put online. And remind him that he shouldn't feel the need to share everything!
Know Your Limits: Social media should be a privilege and something that your child doesn't take for granted. If your child's online involvement is interfering with his life, you might want to limit his online Ime. The same applies should his grades fall, or should he withdraw from families or friends.
Centralized Family Computer
Keep the Computer in a Central LocaIon It’s much easier to keep tabs on any online acIvity when the computer is located in a high-‐traffic zone than away in a private room.
Get to know the technology
Kids have gained a mastery of technology so quickly and can easily pick up on the nuances that any new gadget has, far more easily that we can in some cases. Try to keep up and at least understand the features of the sites and applicaIons they are downloading.
General Internet Safety
Don’t share any personal idenIfying info with anyone you don’t know. Passwords should also be difficult to guess and contain a mix of numbers, lecers, and symbols. Don’t share your passwords with anyone, even boyfriends/girlfriends or best friends. Click only those links you trust; there are a lot of scams.
More Internet Safety Basics
Never share names, schools, ages, phone numbers, or addresses. Never open an email from a stranger – it may contain viruses that can harm a computer. Never send pictures to strangers or view pictures that strangers send to them. Keep passwords private (except to parents). Tell a trusted adult if something mean or creepy happens on the Internet.
Digital Footprint
Many kids don’t seem to understand the permanence of the online world.
Be sure that your child is aware that what happens in cyberspace stays in cyberspace -‐-‐ forever!
Make a firm smartphone rule that your child should never post a photo or message that she wouldn't want to have "everyone" view.
Personal Safety Risks
Age appropriate sites: Make sure the sites your children are using are age appropriate. Facebook, for example, requires users to be 13 or older in order to join. Strong passwords: Teach kids to keep their passwords private and to never share them with anyone, including significant others and best friends. Remind them passwords should be hard to guess and contains numbers, lecers and symbol. Encourage children to set a password for their cell phones as well. Be careful what you click: Teach your kids how to recognize a phishing link or email as well as to never lick on a link that looks suspicious.
Privacy Risks
Many teens are guilty of oversharing, when a person divulges excessive personal informaIon in a public forum. This oversharing can put teens, as well as their family members, at risk for their privacy being compromised. Avoid personal informaIon: Encourage children never to post full birthdates, address, phone numbers, school name, bank account informaIon or other personal details online. Google yourself: Periodically do a search online for risks to your and your children’s security. Do a search for full names in quotes. This will search for your name as a phrase. Search also for your address, phone numbers, nicknames, screen names and e-‐mail addresses.
ReputaGon Risks
Teens who post online without thinking first put themselves at risk for damaging their reputaIons and, worse, harming their chances of gerng into a good college or landing their dream job. Have access: Have access to your children’s accounts and monitor their posts. This can help prevent them from posIng something they will regret. Everyone can see: Teens are oGen unaware what they post now can come back and haunt them later. Explain to your children that they things they post online can be visible to colleges and future employers.
Home and Property Risks
PosIng too much informaIon about their home and their locaIon puts teens at risk for robbery or physical harm. PosIng locaIon: Teach your children why it’s important not to post their locaIon with posts. Away from home: Never post when you’ll be away from home. It’s an invitaIon to burglars. No face to face: Make sure your children are aware they are not permiced to meet face-‐to-‐face someone they met online.
TwiIer
• TwiGer is a microblogging site that allows users to post brief, 140-‐character messages -‐-‐ called "tweets" -‐-‐ and follow other users' acIviIes. • Why it's popular Teens like using it to share quick Idbits about their lives with friends. It's also great for keeping up with what's going on in the world -‐-‐ breaking news, celebrity gossip, etc. • What you need to know
• Public tweets are the norm for teens. Though you can choose to keep your tweets private, most teens report having public accounts (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013). Talk to your kids about what they post and how a post can spread far and fast.
• Updates appear immediately. Even though you can remove tweets, your followers can sIll read what you wrote unIl it's gone. This can get kids in trouble if they say something in the heat of the moment.
• It's a promo>onal tool for celebs. Twicer reels teens in with behind-‐the-‐scenes access to celebriIes' lives, adding a whole new dimension to celebrity worship. You may want to point out how much markeIng strategy goes into the tweets of those they admire.
• Instagram is a platorm that lets users snap, edit and share photos and 15-‐second videos -‐-‐ either publicly or with a network of followers. • Why it's popular Instagram unites the most popular features of social media sites: sharing, seeing and commenIng on photos. Instagram also lets you apply fun filters and effects to your photos, making them look high quality and arIsIc. • What you need to know
• Teens are on the lookout for "Likes." Similar to Facebook, teens may measure the "success" of their photos -‐-‐ even their self-‐worth -‐-‐ by the number of likes or comments they receive. PosIng a photo or video can be problemaIc if teens post it to validate their popularity.
• Public photos are the default. Photos and videos shared on Instagram are public and may have locaIon informaIon unless privacy serngs are adjusted. Hashtags can make photos even more visible to communiIes beyond a teen's followers.
• Mature content can slip in. The terms of service specify that users should be at least 13 years old and shouldn't post parIally nude or sexually suggesIve photos -‐-‐ but they don't address violence, swear words, or drugs.
Snapchat
• Snapchat is a messaging app that lets users put a Ime limit on the pictures and videos they send before they disappear. • Why it's popular Snapchat's creators intended the app's fleeIng images to be a way for teens to share fun, light moments without the risk of having them go public. And that's what most teens use it for: sending goofy or embarrassing photos to one another. Snapchats also seem to send and load much "faster" than email or text. • What you need to know
• Many schools have yet to block it, which is one reason why teens like it so much (Pew Internet & American Life Project, 2013).
• It's a myth that Snapchats go away forever. Data is data: Whenever an image is sent, it never truly goes away. (For example, the person on the receiving end can take a screenshot of the image before it disappears.) Snapchats can even be recovered.
• It can make inappropriate texts seem OK. The seemingly risk-‐free messaging might encourage users to share pictures containing inappropriate content.
Vine
• Vine is a social media app that lets users post and watch looping six-‐second video clips. This Twicer-‐owned service has developed a unique community of people who post videos that are oGen creaIve and funny -‐-‐ and someImes thought-‐provoking.
• Why it's popular Videos run the gamut from stop-‐moIon clips of puzzles doing and undoing themselves to six-‐second skits showing how a teen wakes up on a school day vs. a day during summer. Teens usually use Vine to create and share silly videos of themselves and/or their friends and family.
• What you need to know • It's full of inappropriate videos. In three minutes of random searching, we came across a clip full of full-‐
frontal male nudity, a woman in a fishnet shirt with her breasts exposed, and people blowing marijuana smoke into each other's mouths. There's a lot of funny, clever expression on Vine, but much of it isn't appropriate for kids.
• There are significant privacy concerns. The videos you post, the accounts you follow, and the comments you make on videos are all public by default. But you can adjust your serngs to protect your posts; only followers will see them, and you have to approve new followers.
• Parents can be star performers (without knowing). If your teens film you being goofy or silly, you may want to talk about whether they plan to share it.
Kik
• Kik Messenger is an app-‐based alternaIve to standard texIng that kids use for social networking. It's free to use but has lots of ads. • Why it's popular It's fast and has no message limits, character limits, or fees if you just use the basic features, making it decidedly more fun in many ways than SMS texIng. • What you need to know
• It's too easy to "copy all." Kik's ability to link to other Kik-‐enabled apps within itself is a way to drive "app adopIon" (purchases) from its users for developers. The app also encourages new registrants to invite everyone in their phone's address book to join Kik, since users can only message those who also have the app.
• There's some stranger danger. An app named OinkText, linked to Kik, allows communicaIon with strangers who share their Kik usernames to find people to chat with. There's also a Kik community blog where users can submit photos of themselves and screenshots of messages (someImes displaying users' full names) to contests.
• It uses real names. Teens' usernames idenIfy them on Kik, so they shouldn't use their full real name as their username.
Wanelo
• Wanelo (Want, Need, Love) combines shopping, fashion blogging and social networking all in one. It's very popular among teens, allowing them to discover, share and buy products they like.
• Why it's popular Teens keep up with the latest styles by browsing Wanelo's "trending" feed, which aggregates the items that are most popular across the site. They can also culIvate their own style through the "My Feed" funcIon, which displays content from the users, brands and stores they follow.
• What you need to know • If you like it, you can buy it. Users can purchase almost anything they see on Wanelo by clicking through to products' original sites. As one user tweeted, "#Wanelo you can have all of my money! #obsessed."
• Brand names are prominent. Upon registering, users are required to follow at least three "stores" (for example, Forever21 or Marc Jacobs) and at least three "people" (many are other everyday people in Wanelo's network, but there are also publicaIons like Seventeen magazine).
• There's plenty of mature clothing. You may not love what kids find and put on their wish lists. Wanelo could lead to even more arguments over what your teen can and can't wear.
Pheed
• Pheed is best described as a hybrid of Facebook, Instagram, Twicer and YouTube -‐-‐ except that you can require others to pay a premium to access your personal channel.
• Why it's popular Pheed's mulImedia "all in one" offering seems to be capturing teens' acenIon the most. Some teens also like the fact that they have more control over ownership and copyright, since Pheed allows its users to watermark their original content.
• What you need to know • It's hot! According to Forbes, Pheed has swiGly become the No. 1 free social app in the App Store, thanks in large part to teens. Time will tell whether arIsts and celebriIes will jump on the bandwagon and start using Pheed to promote themselves and charge their fans to view what they post.
• Users can make money. Users can charge others a subscripIon fee to access their content, ranging from $1.99 to $34.99 per view, or the same price range per month. Note that a cut of all proceeds goes to Pheed.
• Privacy updates are in the works. Kids should be aware that their posts are currently public by default and therefore searchable online.
Privacy
Check that your privacy serngs for the Internet and Facebook are set to the strictest levels. Depending on which browser you are using, you can adjust the serngs directly from the opIons tab and adjust levels around cookies, third party sites and more. This not only protects the computer user, but also the computer from the threat of viruses. Cel phones also have “roaming” and “GPS” tracking serngs that are both beneficial but can also have negaIve impact. Come up with a policy that works for family for privacy serngs. Ensure Facebook Privacy serngs are not set to public, which is the default when you create a new account.
Privacy
Show your child how to set up the privacy features offered by social networking apps. Make sure that these serngs protect your child from allowing strangers access to their profiles. Since danger online occurs more commonly at the hands of friends than of enemies, it is also criIcal to teach your child how to "block" comments and contacts by peers who have a history of engaging in cruel online behavior.
Privacy Filtering SoMware
There are soGware suites you can purchase to monitor your child’s Internet usage; many even enable you to view the exact keys that were typed, Ime spent online and all computer acIvity in general. Popular programs such as Net Nanny and PureSight PC let you monitor social media sites, block chats, filter content and much more. You can even monitor your child’s cell phone with a soGware program like My Mobile Watchdog.
Tips
• Have a contract with your kids for appropriate use of social media and smartphones. Include rules such as never sharing your password or personal informaIon with anyone and always logging out of your accounts. • Make sure your computer is in an accessible area. • Don’t just be a friend or follower; know the logins for all of your child’s accounts. • Block sites that kids shouldn’t be on and set privacy controls on their social media accounts. • Report threats to the school and police and keep copies and evidence of any cyber bullying. • Monitor their usage with them and discuss what you find.
Tips
• Keep their personal informa>on private. On many social media sites, the user has the opIon to display their hometown, school, phone number, and even where they are currently located. Exposing all this informaIon could be dangerous for a child. Make sure your child isn't posIng detailed informaIon like this online.
• Monitor their ac>vity. You too can join these social media sites and be one of your child's followers online. This can give you the opportunity to see what they are posIng, and what others are saying to them.
• Encourage your child to talk to you about any comments or messages that make them uncomfortable. Come up with an "acIon plan" with them. This is a discussion about what you and the child should so if anything goes a bit too far.
• Remind them of how important it is for them to maintain a decent reputa>on. What they post online can be seen by millions, and some people will pass judgement on what they see. Make sure the children know that they can delete posIngs from their page, but even then, there are sIll people that saw the post while it was sIll up. The best thing to do is to keep all posts clean.
Website Resources
• Children’s Online Privacy: A Resource Guide for Parents by Privacy Rights Clearinghouse • FTC’s Guidance on Privacy • Common Sense Media offers Tips for ProtecIng Personal Privacy Online. • Facebook for parents by Common Sense Media teaches parents about the popular social networking site.
• Parent’s Guide to ProtecIng Kids’ Privacy Online offered by Common Sense Media. • ReputaIon.com’s ReputaIon Watch offers informaIon about privacy and your reputaIon. • Safety Web offers helpful and free online parenIng resources and arIcles related to privacy and security online.
• AOL offers safetyclicks, a resource dedicated to privacy and safety issues for online families. • Tips for Parents: Who’s That Girl? Image and Social Media, Girl Scout InsItute. • Facts about Children’s Online Privacy ProtecIon Act from the FTC. • Google’s Tips for Online Safety including a video presented by Common Sense Media and Google.
Website Resources
• ChildNet InternaIonal • Facebook Family Safety Center • Twicer Safety Tips for Parents • US Government Site on Kids and Socializing Online • ParenIng.com's 7 Social Media Safety Tips for Kids
