Week 6 - SOCIAL NETWORKING! Response & spark

Almost all of us are victims to the EVIL social networking realms these days... In my opinion if you are going to put your pictures, videos and text on the internet you have to take into consideration that it can be viewed by anyone! and is ultimately property of the social networking site itself. The social networking sites do have laws restricting

I had a scary experience myself when I was working as a teachers aide, where students googled my name and found photographs of me which I had posted onto myspace when I was a teenager. This proved how social networking sites can come back and haunt you, so ever since I have been extremely careful with what I put on my social networking sites, especially because I intend on being a teacher one day.

There is a way to protect yourself, most reputable sites e.g facebook do have extensive privacy settings to ensure that only certain users can access your information. My advice to others would be things like only add people to friends that you are sure you know and trust, always keep your images set to private, do not divulge your mobile number or address.

I thought another dimension of social networking I must mention here is CYBERBULLYING! I think parents in this day and age parents need to be extremely vigilant, especially in the impressionable teenage years from 14-17. When researching I find a very tragic landmark case about a 17 year old boy named Allem Halkic who chose to take his own life after being bullied on MYSPACE by another teen.

Here is a link to a story on the court case ran in the Age:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/man-avoids-jail-in-first-cyber-bullying-case-20100408-rv3v.html

This tragic case highlights the darker side of social networking sites.

I found a disturbing article on cnet.com
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-20018783-36.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20on how Facebook has been awarded further intellectual property rights with its new geolocation space. This is where you can "check-in" to a certain destination.. Its all a tad scary and invasive if you ask me, it's far too easy for someone to set up a fake profile and pose as a friend for my liking. I certainly won't be "CHECKING IN" anytime soon.

Further references:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/cyber-bully-convicted/story-e6frg6nf-1225851590486

http://www.smh.com.au/national/tragic-allem-puts-spotlight-on-bullying-problem-20090407-9xnx.html

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/number_of_virtual_world_users_breaks_the_1_billion.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29