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Attacking a person's reputation via the Internet has become a very quick and easy process through sites like Facebook and Twitter. However, the author argues (and hopes) that maybe in time, since bashing of a person's online reputation is evolving into common behavior, it wont really matter anymore - that incriminating photos on Facebook wont have that much of an impact in a few years.

A university in the U.S. has provided an online reputation management program for all its graduating seniors. Since majority of companies are performing background checks on job applicants, this will allow students to clean up their Facebook and Twitter profiles. This step made by the university seems very beneficial, since for majority of the younger generation who don't know how it is not to have the Internet, the separation between online and real-life identities is a fine line. 

A media rights watchdog has listed Australia in a report on countries that pose a threat of internet censorship.

Why does everyone get so worked up with the word "censorship"? In some cases, like with child porn, if a medium is used to violate a human right or indeed foments a crime, then there should be some sort of control. Why look at it from a b&w perspective when there are so many grey areas?

Is this really where Australia's future in censorships is heading?

Teachers are very much aware and very much worried on how social networking sites, particularly Facebook, are being used by students to "bully" and spread false allegations about them. Not only professional reputations are at stake in acts like these, but hate sites will surely affect the personal lives of teachers as well.  

Adam Wheeler was able to get into Harvard with fake documents and lying about his credentials. It is said that one of the possible reasons for the succes of his deception is not having a Facebook profile. Just proves that a non-existent online profile can do wonders to your real life reputation.  

Yelp is a website that allows users to rate, review and talk about businesses - regardless if the feedback is good or bad. Many business owners, specially small-scale operators, value the reviews they receive on this site since it's a way of building their reputation for free. Recently, Yelp has been slapped with a number of lawsuits from different business owners. They claim that when they declined to purchase advertising in the website, their ratings suddenly went down.  

Survey shows that majority of adult internet users in the US Google themselves. Just shows that more people are becoming aware of how it may be difficult to detach their online selves from their offline lives.

Australian defamation law and how it applies to the Internet

We talked a lot about enforcement last week in class. This youtube clip is a massive hit in the Netherlands since last week, two drunken police officers from the little town 'Spa' in Belgium had to lead a carnivals parade 'Laetare de Sart-Tiège' in the right direction. One of them throws up and falls on the floor while the other police officer is too drunk to walk in a straight line. How does this effect enforcements reputation in Belgium?

Unvarnished (www.getunvarnished.com) is a recently launched social networking site wherein anyone can create an online profile for a professional (think LinkedIn), and any user can post reviews (mostly negative) about you, anonymously. The website's founder says that Unvarnished gives an individual the opportunity to disprove any negative claims about him/her. However, I agree with the author of the article in believing that the site actually encourages and empowers users to have a backstabbing spree. It will be interesting to see in the next coming months if Unvarnished actually takes off.

Engaging in social media backfires for Nestle. Due to the Greenpeace protest against the company with regards to how the company uses palm oil in its products, a number of people posted their distaste on Nestle's Facebook page. Unfortunately for the company, the representative in charge of replying to comments was far from being amiable, or even courteous. Sample exchange of comments: Nestle: "You have freedom of speech and expression. Here, there are some rules we set. As in almost any other forum. It's to keep things clear." Paul Griffin: "Your page, your rules, true, and you just lost a customer, won the battle and lost the war! Happy?" Nestle: "Oh please...it's like we're censoring everything to allow positive comments." Social media has significant benefits for companies and how they market the products to consumers. However, if used wrongly, as with this case, massive PR clean-up is inevitable.

Self-googling will not sound as vain or egotistic as it may seem if it means that an individual can be aware of what information the internet holds about him or her. To me, it's a form of "damage control". 

Twitter users have been issued subpoenas from Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett due to the critical comments they've made about the politician. It's interesting how much anonymous comments can make an impact on a public figure's reputation that it forces him to take legal action.  

Twitter receives a grand jury subpoena forcing the company to reveal a user's identity. Interesting how this can be done when the stakes are high, when there is a a political subtext under it. Could this set a precedent for defamation cases?

I think the title says it all, really.

According to Peter Tippett, Vice President, Verizon, we will see far fewer cyber attacks by 2020, with the majority of them becoming targetted attacks instead. This will be aided by increased use of reputation systems and automation that will help users avoid sites and emails with malicious content.