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Our List |
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Articles
About Recent Facebook Issues &
Scams:
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1.
Class Action Suit in the Works for
Victims of Social Gaming Scams by Ryan Tate [Nov.
12, 2009]
2. Are
You Getting Scammed by Facebook Games?
by Belinda
Luscombe [Nov. 06, 2009]
3. Is
Facebook a Paradise for Scammers? by Daniel Lyons
[Nov. 6, 2009]
4. Can a team of 150 Facebook
"police" protect millions of young teens from
inappropriate content? Walking the Cyberbeat: To make
Facebook advertiser-friendly, its 'porn cops' delete
risqué content and enforce decorum by Nick Summers
[May 1, 2009]
5. Want to understand the flame
wars concerning Facebook's Terms of Service? Join the
Facebook group devoted to the topic. MILLIONS AGAINST FACEBOOK's NEW LAYOUT
& TERMS OF SERVICE
6. Revised TOS Gives Facebook Perpetual
Rights to User Content
[Feb 4, 2009]
7.
This article is a bit "tounge in cheek" but makes very
good points why our teens have some difficulties with
using Facebook. Facebook Made Me Do It - Seven lies we
tell ourselves about social networking by Raina
Kelley [Feb 20, 2009]
Finally, we invite you to
read the article from Children Online that was published
both by the National Association of Independent Schools
[Jan. 2009] and Teacher Librarian magazine [June, 2009]:
The
Impact of Facebook on Our Students.
[pdf]
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Farmville and Spamming -
exposing social network
scams:
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We are often asked by
students in our workshops if a website, plug-in, or free
application is safe to use. We try to teach
students that on the Internet, there is often a price to
pay, even for "free" things. Farmville is a perfect
example.
Farmville is a very popular farm simulation game
developed by Zynga.com and used on Facebook.
Sounds downright educational and it can be! It can
also steal your money if you fall prey to some sleazy
marketing practices perpetrated in it. To learn
how this game, and others, have earned millions of
dollars fraudulently visit:
Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem
Of Hell by Michael Arrington [October 31,
2009]
To gain a deeper understanding how readily
our teens have been manipulated in social networks by
unscrupulous marketers, read this anonymous article by a
Spammer posted recently at TechCrunch.com. To paraphrase
one of the author's points... While he can't get kids to
pay for things directly on Facebook, he can easiy trick
them into doing one of three things:
a) installing a
spyware or adware toolbar
b) giving up their email
address
c) giving up their cell phone
number
This article is an eye opener for anyone
who had doubts that our kids were being manipulated and
targeted by scamsters. Visit
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About
Children
Online
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Children Online offers
innovative and comprehensive workshops on Internet
safety and online education to students, parents,
faculty and administrators. Our approach,
unique in the field of Internet safety, combines a
thorough understanding of Internet technologies, child
development and counseling, to focus on the impact of
the internet on the social, emotional and language
development of young people.
Doug Fodeman and Marje
Monroe, experts in technology, counseling and education,
work together to provide invaluable research and tools
for parents and schools with practical real-life
solutions to the issues faced by young people
online. Since 1997, Marje and Doug have spoken to
thousands of students, teachers and parents.
They have several publications in the area of Internet
safety and offer a free online newsletter. More
detailed information can be found at
ChildrenOnline.org.
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30th
Edition of the Children Online Newsletter.
Our research with
thousands of teens has demonstrated that the most
popular social networking site for teens is
Facebook. The great majority of students in grades
7 - 12 have Facebook accounts and children as young as
nine in fourth grade are creating accounts.
As
wonderful as Facebook is for adults and older teens who
wish to connect with friends and family, it is first and
foremost a business designed to make money. Therefore
the decisions made by Facebook don't always have our
children's privacy or best interests in mind. For
example, just a couple of years ago Facebook recommended
that users be at least 16 years old to use Facebook.
Today the recommended age to use Facebook is
thirteen. You can be certain that the recommended
age did not decrease because Facebook research
determined their site to be developmentally healthy and
appropriate for thirteen year-olds to use. The
decision, no doubt, was based on marketing and an
attempt to increase revenue streams for Facebook.
Facebook has grown so tremendously large that it
is impossible for them to successfully police all areas,
uses of their site and all third-party applications.
Scams are rampant and very successfully directed at
naive, trusting, and unsuspecting teens. Below are
several tips and suggestions to discuss with your teens
regarding their Facebook accounts. We encourage
you to play an active role in their use of this very
popular online hangout.
As always, we invite
your comments, as well as ideas for future newsletters.
Our telephone number for Children Online is
413-214-1225.
Best wishes,
Marje Monroe and Doug
Fodeman
Contact Marje or Doug via
email at marjem@childrenonline.org or
dougf@childrenonline.org for information about our
programs or consulting services.
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Facebook Savvy - Taking the
first steps
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Among the thousands
of students we work with in grades 7-12, YouTube and
Facebook are always listed as the top two websites of
choice. Facebook chat is often listed as the
online communication form of choice for teens, beating
out Instant Messaging and Texting. Even "tweens"
flock to Facebook eager to be part of this fun and
vibrant online community. And while it is fun and
vibrant, Facebook also contains many risks and
challenges for young people. To complicate
matters, Facebook rules and privacy settings change to
better suit their marketing and commercial strategies
and often without any consideration or notification to
users. Sorting through the maze of privacy
settings, Terms of Service and safety settings can be a
daunting task.
As a follow up to our very popular
January 2009 newsletter on Facebook, we offer an
in-depth look at the challenges of navigating the safety
settings in place on the site. Facebook has made
many changes to their safety and privacy settings in the
past 12 months. Here are our insights and
recommendations.
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1. Read the Terms
of Service
When we speak to students in grades
7-12 we show them the Terms of Service on Facebook and
ask students to study the language, analyze the terms
and fully understand their rights on the site. We
recommend all parents and teens read the terms of
service together and discuss what they mean. Look
carefully at the language and wording and work with the
teens to fully understand the implications of using the
site. This includes posting pictures, chatting, lack of
privacy, their right to retain information and the
marketing realities.
Ask the students how
the language and wording affects them and what, exactly,
are their rights on the site. Ask your child to be
a "critical consumer" and fully explore all of their
rights on the site. Discuss the inherent risks
that arise from the loss of personal information and
lack of privacy in social networks such as Facebook.
Remind them that there is NO PRIVACY on Facebook and
even Facebook cannot completely monitor how third party
applications scrub for and use their personal
information.
Keep in mind that the Terms of
Service often change in Facebook and HAVE changed in
just the last few weeks.
2. Review and Discuss the
Privacy Settings
Many teens set their sites to
"friends of friends" allowing their friends' friends to
view their private information. With the typical
teen user having hundreds of friends on Facebook, this
option leaves the teen's private information in the
hands of tens of thousands of viewers. We
recommend setting the restrictions to "friends only",
allowing only their own friends to view their
information. Encourage your teen to think
carefully about how they define a "friend" on Facebook
and who they want to trust with their personal
information.
The reality today is that lots of
people want access to your child's private information
and are getting it. There are dozens of
applications available which can be used to "suck out"
the private information of everyone in a connected
network once friended into that
network.
3.
Be aware of the default public search option in the
settings
In 2008 Facebook added a public
search option on their site, which allows Google, and
other major search engines, to search users profile
information. Facebook opted in all users as their
default setting. This means that for many teens
who do not know there is a public search option, their
profile information can be searched openly on
Google.
4.
Set the posting of ads shown by Facebook & third
party apps to "No One"
A new feature coming to
Facebook concerns Ads and News Feeds. In the
privacy settings, under the "News Feed and Wall
"selection is a tab called "Facebook Ads." In the
future, your photos and content may be used in
advertising to your friends and those in your networks.
Advertising may be created using your personal
content by either third party applications or by
Facebook. The current default setting for
displaying these ads is "only my friends." We recommend
restricting both of these types of ads to "No One" and
not allow ads created with your content to be posted on
anyone's pages. Note that a great deal of
marketing is done on Facebook and personal information
is regularly "scrubbed" for help in personalizing and
customizing marketing ads to users.
5. Be
aware of and view networks joined by teens on
Facebook
Many teens are part of several
networks including schools, camps, towns, cities, or
organizations. While the networks help teens feel
connected to communities, they can also present a
greater risk of exposure of their personal
information. Restricting networks allows tighter
control of personal information and reduces the risks
involved with too many people having access to private
information. Educate teens about the risks that
arise from the loss of privacy. Talk to them about their
"online reputation" as well. Explain that
colleges, camps, police and potential employers are
searching Facebook for any information that will help
them in make decisions about hiring, granting admission,
etc. The wider their network is, the easier it is for
others to view their private content.
6. Educate teens about the
numerous scams and tricks aimed at Facebook
users
With the explosive popularity of
Facebook, new scams, tricks and trojans are found
attacking Facebook users daily. Within the past
year alone, the numbers of scams and tricks targeting
users on Facebook has skyrocketed. It is critical
for teen users to become savvy in protecting themselves
against these hazards. Here are a few
suggestions:
A. Never click a
Facebook link in an email. Do not trust
links, instead use your browser to go to Facebook and
follow up on emails.
B. Avoid using Facebook
applications before researching them first.
Applications on Facebook such as "Snowball Fight" may be
connected to spyware or adware that can be potentially
dangerous to your computer and privacy. Use the
wisdom of Google to search for information on the
application using search terms such as spyware or adware
connected to the application name. Example:
Google: Snowball Fight spyware
adware
C. Avoid clicking on the
ads listed on the sidebar of Facebook.
Educate teens about the risks of spyware and adware and
assume they can be found in many of the marketing and
advertising sites found on Facebook. Remind them to
NEVER enter their cell phone number into any advertising
field or give out other personal information online
without your permission.
D.
If it seems too
good to be true, it is. Accounts are often
hacked or phished and then used to send out bogus
messages to others in an attempt to trick them into
clicking links that cause computer infections. Teach
teens never to click links from friends that direct them
to visit external sites.
Facebook is a unique and fun tool for
communicating that is revolutionizing the way people
connect with one another. This can be exciting and
wonderful. On the other hand Facebook also
contains many hidden risks to young people and requires
a great deal of thought and strong
decision-making. We encourage parents to help your
teen avoid using Facebook until age 16. When
Facebook is used earlier, we recommend knowing your
child's password or "friending" them to help keep them
safe.
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INTERNET
SAFETY CURRICULUM
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Safe Practices for
Life Online
Children Online has a
curriculum on Internet Safety that includes nearly 100
student exercises and lots of information on many topics
including social networks, instant messaging,
cyberbullying, online marketing, scams directed at kids,
protecting privacy online, avoiding identity theft and
impersonation, creating strong passwords and
more.
 There is also a student
edition which includes cartoons and "Did you know"
sections of interesting facts for students.
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© Children Online 2009
Doug
Fodeman & Marje Monroe.
For permission to reprint
please contact
DougF@ChildrenOnline.org
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