In the aftermath of the Lori Drew trial, I have been reading bits and pieces online as time has permitted. This trial made me think of a few things over the past several days about internet safety, the realities of social sites and other odds and ends pertaining to the internet. I stumbled across this well written blog in the LA Times where the reader is asked to ponder whether or not social sites need to get serious about cyber bullying, online pranks and other debauchery that we see when we go to places such as My Space, Facebook, Twitter and others out there.
Currently, I have an account on these main social sites but the primary reason has to do with business and networking. I also add my family and friends and have reconnected with people I either worked with or went to school with in the past. Plus, you can keep everyone abreast of the latest happenings all at once rather than bit by bit through email or the phone. There are some great advantages to having accounts on these sites. However, in my own experience not only on social sites but on the internet as a whole, there is a very dark side to the dangers that can occur. Predators can be found lurking these sites for their next young prey. People are looking for love and in all of the wrong places. One very scary and overlooked problem is not only with setting up fake profiles as Lori Drew did but setting up profiles pretending to be celebrities. Fans join and see their favorite celebrity on there and will send them an add request asking to be friends. The celebrity will accept and this person is so excited! Not only that but the celebrity is actually sending them messages and leaving comments on their pages and turns out some mentally ill adult, predator or a kid is behind the screen fooling everyone. This does occur because on My Space, some friends and I took the initiative to catch these bogus profiles and report them to My Space a year ago. However, My Space asked us not to do this any further and they created their own celebrity avenue on there. Yet the fake profile and poser issue still exists. This can be very traumatic to the person who thinks they are writing their favorite celebrity only to find out that it was not that person after all.
We need to get tougher on these social sites. Facebook will delete bogus profiles and I commend them. All this problem does is add to the cyber bullying problem and feed into the predator and stalking that occurs. The psychology of the victim is traumatic. They feel violated and like they have been stabbed in the back. This can create trust issues and other psychological problems down the line. Plus, it is a very real problem that exists. I helped to catch two posers of celebrities away from social sites and the rest on social sites. Many consider this a joke but it is no laughing matter. I have defined this as a form of cyber bullying in my book with hope that people become aware of this. They say that they do not tolerate any cyber bullying on their sites? This is a form of cyber bullying so why do they tolerate this? Folks, get educated! Take this seriously! Pretending to be someone online is identity theft and is wrong. Do not enable this; ban these cyber bullies from your site! Keep things clean and safe for everyone. Do what you can to stop these online posers, I know I did.
Resource cited:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/11/in-the-wake-of.html Elizabeth Bennett is the author of Peer Abuse Know More! Bullying From a Psychological Perspective and resides in Los Angeles, California. To learn more, visit http://www.peerabuse.info .
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14 users commented in " Social Sites: Stop the Posers! "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackHi Elizabeth,
Thank you for challenging social networking providers and their customers.
I believe you are aware of a Network that has already risen to the challenge: iLAND5.com. This is a safer network for children ages 5-18 that offers an enriched online experience of social networking, fun and educational games, plus homework help – all free!
Access to iLAND5.com is secured through the most secure process available of face-to-face, identity verification through our school partners virtually locking out predators posing as children and the creation of imposter profiles.
All five websites in the iLAND5 Network further protect children from cyber bullying through dynamic filtering that sends a smiley face blocking inappropriate messages, “eyes on monitors”, upload review, anonymous abuse reporting, and exclusion of outbound links protecting children from unwelcome content.
No other Network provides this level of security AND an enriched online experience.
Thank you for your continued efforts to make the internet a safer place – especially for children. This is a daunting task that will take the vigiliant efforts of the entire online community.
linda
SafeWave.org
Liz you are SO right ! I can’t tell you the trouble I’ve had with this internet thing ! It should be outlawed ! People just make up all kinds of crazy things ! It’s so dangerous and as a society, we should lock down everything that could possbily be dangerous to the lowest common denominator. Most people are really gullible and will believe anything they read, like I’m gay or brainwashed Katie Holmes and keep her locked up in my basement. I’d like to hurt those people that write stuff like that I really would. There should be internet licensing and government regulation. Keep up the good work.
The only answer to the problem raised in this article is by using online age verification systems such as the biometric age verification online, in real-time provided by VerificAge (www.verificage.com):
- It establishes full segregation between adults and children online
- Does not use any kind of data base. Eliminating risks involved in storing and maintaining data.
- It does not identify the user personally but rather his/her age group category; therefore, the user’s privacy cannot be jeopardized.
- The system is based on a “one time” biometric measurement that can distinguish a child from an adult with a very high accuracy rate.
- It can assert a user’s age every time he wishes to access a website, content, or while interacting with others
It seems that VerificAge’s solution is going to change the surfing culture on the Net and increase dramatically children’s safety online.
That’s a great idea! They should just put a chip in everybody’s head for immediate positive identification, and make everybody buy new computers with chip readers. And making owning and operating old computers a capital offense. And make every pay a big tax to log onto the internet to pay for this massive control system. We’re tallking about the mental health and safety of children here, so anybody who’s against will be prosecuted as a child molester. Hey, odedy, great spam, dude ! Rock on !
Thanks for the comments everyone.
Awareness about this needs to be raised more. Some of these imposters are down right dangerous. Having Orlando Bloom asking a 15 year old for her land mail address? Yes, that happened on MySpace. Some are kids who are feeling badly about themselves and figure this is a way to garner attention. Then some are kids who just enjoy being mean. Some of these are adults with problems themselves.
Its a bad problem and one these sites need to crack down on….
Thanks for the comments, much appreciated!
Take Care,
Elizabeth
Research suggests that the greatest threat to kids online are cyberbullies not predators and cyberbullies are usually peers. While iLand5 employs a monitoring system, such a system could never detect shunning behavior, one of the most prevalent forms of cybertorture. The upshot is, the people most likely to hurt our kids online will still have access to them. The concept appears to cloister children rather than provide enrichment.
The best thing we as parents can give our kids is ourselves – our attention, our knowledge, 24/7 access to us, and our support.
Life itself contains unwanted content and did so long before the internet even existed. Instead of keeping kids away from things we consider unwelcome, how about teaching them right from wrong and teaching them how to make it in a world that isn’t always everything we’d like it to be.
really ? thanks for the comments ? really ? one from one your own “collegues”, one from a spammer hawking some unworkable internet scheme, TWO FROM TOM CRUISE ridiculing you. Brian’s was the only real comment, posted after you’d already been here, but then he used the term “cybertorture”, so it’s hard to take him seriously. It’s hard to take you seriously. There are much more serious problems in the world than “cyberbullying”, but everybody’s got to make a buck, huh ? I bet you’ve got more than a few books for sale on the subject, doncha ? And it’s a hard cruel world – if parents let their spawn roam “teh internets” unsupervised, then roam the world unsupervised to be caught up by a predator they met online, well, I call that evolution of the species….
Ach du lieber Himmel!
Coddle die Kinder and see what namby-pamby weaklings you raise in result.
What does not kill you, macht you STRONGER!
Thanks Brian for your well thought out response. You raise some excellent points especially in your last paragraph. It is so true; we do have obstacles in this world that we must face and not all of them pleasant. Parenting does feed into this a great deal. at the same time, we need to do what we can to decrease this current problem that exists online.
SandRider, I thank you for your response along with Friedrich’s. One thing about me; I do not engage in any flame wars or personal attacks online. Whether it be Tom Cruise, a colleague, spammer or whomever, the important thing is that they took the time to read my blog and comment. So, with that, have a good evening
Take Care,
Elizabeth
Oh and Tom Cruise and Fredrick, I know what you are doing and know you are not who you say you are. I hope you got something out of my blog
Take Care,
Elizabeth
So you condone censorship on the internet then? Why not just tell parents to monitor what their kids are looking at? Can’t go that route can we?
I agree social networking sites should do something sbout the celebrity posers.
I think it’s sad MySpace told you not to do something when you’re reporting the fakes. MySpace instead should be thanking you and telling people not to pretend to be a celebrity(and enforce it).
You say Facebook is good at deleting the fakes. Nope! Been over a year I’ve reported many fake celebrities and to this day Facebook has refused to delete all Bret Hart accounts.
On his official site on questions&answers page Bret says he’s not on Facebook. All they had to do was go to the link and read it for themselves.What more proof do they need than someone saying on their official site they’re not on Facebook?
I ran into singer Jessica Simpson. Asked her. Found out which are the posers and again to this day(nearly 2 years later)all the fake Jessica Simpson accounts have not been deleted.
Facebook has become very negligent and careless in not giving a damn about the celebrity posers.
Shame on Facebook!(and all other social networking sites) allowing people to be a celebrity poser)because by not doing a thing about it shows they have no respect whatsoever for all their legitimate users(celebrity or not).
It’s a great post,
I like it.
Well done on this! The amount of posers on social sites is simply ridiculous. It’s up to the public to protect ourselves from these sick people! Shame on the social sites for not caring about their members!
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