Group items tagged

A really interesting article on the use of social networking platforms during and after protests in Kyrgyzstan. Twitter, Facebook and local forum, Diesel are important sites for citizens to report, share information and discuss issues in a relatively impartial environment as the media has increasingly come under the power of the President. In April protests took place in the captial Bishkek against President Bakiyev. The social networking sites allowed poeple to hear what was going on. It also facilitated groups forming to attempt curbing the violence that was taking place. The downside to this form of communication in this situation was the inflammatory comments that was essentially fear - mongering were posted. Some were found to be untrue, and some believe that it was the Russians attempting to influence the situation in Kyrgyzstan.

In the aftermath of the recent death of 18-year-old Nona Belomesoff, following a "Facebook meeting" comes an outcry from parent and teacher groups to prevent teens from accessing Facebook at school. According to Laurel Papworth, banning access is not the answer. Education is.

This article discusses how banning Facebook is not the answer for prevention of tragedies of deaths like Sydney teen who had met a "friend" on Facebook. Though it may seem commonly obvious, I do not believe simply warning and educating children/teenagers about the potential dangers of social networking and strangers is enough; but perhaps going a step further and accepting that meeting "friends" through social networks has become a social norm. Therefore conversations amongst children/teenagers/friends/parents alike must be initiated so that there is some sort of support system to ensure safety. As the online social networks expand the definition of "friends", one must consider the social construction of how people now view the world based on these norms.

Rather than suggesting that social networking sites should be "banned" to protect the safety of children, people should ensure they understand how to be safe online.  This also includes understanding the changes to a sites privacy policies and the impacts these changes can have to your privacy settings.

Social networks become the prime target for cybercrime, according to a Cisco report. Malicious code is masked as an online game on a social networking site, that once clicked, infects the user's computer without them knowing

There has been some controversy about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's comments in an online chat from 2006 that surfaced recently. He told a friend that Facebook users were dumb for trusting him and submitting private, personal information on his then-fledgling website. An initiative by four young programmers to counteract the negative effects that Facebook has had on privacy and the ability of users to control the data they put online is Diaspora. It is a decentralised, open source social network that wants to compete with centralised social networks that allow "spying for free". It will be interesting to see whether the initiative really takes off as a viable alternative to Facebook.

Short blog post about the loss of privacy that social networks entail. It especially looks at the emergence of foursquare and the foursquare/twitter mashup pleaserobme.com 

Interesting article on The Guardian on how the main British parties use social media. The article, though, treats social media as a fad that may eventually dissolve. The question, though, remains: do political parties know how to use social media?

The research found that posting material about political or social issues on the Web and using social networking sites politically are forms of online engagement that are dominated by the young-especially the youngest adults.

Looks at a new social networking site for children aged 6-10. It's heavily monitored and controlled by parents for the sake of online safety, but the concern is that young children can just as easily sign up to other social networking sites that aren't so restrictive.

Interesting research: Eight out of 10 employees claim that being trusted to manage their own time and the internet as they wish is more important than pay.

The founder and Chief Executive of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced at a recent conference that Facebook's Open Graph project will soon enable an even greater degree of personalisation as people surf the net. I think this probably has implications for user experience, in terms of viewing popular sites through the prism of social networking - and it gives sites more authority to store data about individuals. Because Facebook seems to be so pervasive nowadays, it seems like we won't have much say in the matter...

Allison, that's a great point, I've tried to quit using the site but I stop when I realise that I won't know about upcoming social events - unfortunately its the primary means of communication used by some friends!

Yes and I think Facebook take full advantage! A lot of my friends have been posting notes on FB about changing privacy settings now that the new features have come in. So, people are trying to resist but in a more subtle way than dropping out of FB altogether.

I wasn't previously a plan of Craigslist per se, however, as I'm so excited about the possibilities of peer to peer open source social networking (JoinDiaspora.com) it seems the time to reflect on the addition of a social layer of governance to the internet (Lessig in Code2.0 re identity layer), or the reverse, adding internet architectures to governance, which is Alice Goldmann is describing here.

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.

The Internet Industry Association is working with Police and Government to try and control safety concerns on social media sites. Currently, they are powerless to step in when sites are hosted overseas.

Very timely for our forthcoming privacy class. Google has been wardriving. Which makes perfect sense. Useful for business and so easy to do when they're driving by. Who owns info that we put out on the street?

Google Australia will today be sent a "please explain" letter from two local privacy organisations demanding to know why the company has been collecting personal Wi-Fi network data from Australian homes alongside the images it takes with its Street View cameras. Google has taken some heat lately about its commitment to privacy after officials from 10 governments - including New Zealand, Canada and France - wrote a letter to chief executive Eric Schmidt to express their concern over data collection for Street View and the implementation of its Buzz social networking tool.

- 30% of smartphone users accessed social networks via mobile browsers - this was up from 22.5% in 2009. - Total social networking access via mobile browsers on all mobile phones rose to 11.1% - this was up from 6.5% in 2009. Most of this growth was in the uptick in smartphone usage. Big numbers. But how can content creators make money off it? Where's the profit? Are these sustainable media?

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.  

Article that suggests that China might be reshaping its media apparatus to deepen its leverage over the Web.  Policing over social networking, microblogging and video.

The Dutch consumers'association is trying to take some responsibility for privacy online away from the consumer and shift it to the owners of social networking websites. The association believes it is too difficult and time consuming for consumers to set the privacy settings themselves.

Are the Social Networks a new weapon for democracy? This article gives an explanation about Obama's Government intentions of spread the free internet in these countries like a weapon for reach democracy

The US military has given a thumbs up to social networking saying that it benefits soldiers in other ways rather than risking security. Let's just hope a facebook update doesn't get anyone court marshaled...