CREEPY SOCIAL MEDIA

@Robert Gentel,

Theres an entire aspect of social networking that Ive been unaware of. I dont use FB and every time I learn something about how its forced interactions into the realm of the creepy, I ponder wheres it gonna wind up?

However, it does give me some ideas about sorting and sampling based on attributes .

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@farmerman,

I think the creepy thing is generational. I get "annoying" and "useless" but not "creepy" (with a few exceptions).

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@Robert Gentel,

I agree about the anonymity being a huge factor but I think the scale is great for predators. IM was not dissimilar in the effects we noted btw

I'm not blaming Facebook or social sites I just think it's necessary to do as much education as one can about some of the undesired effects

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Social graphs can be funny, anyway I have no desire to defend the quality of their algo (or them even, I ******* hate Facebook) but my point is that they don't make random recommendations.

I'm not on Facebook at all because from the start it's been clear that all data entered into their system are saved on their servers - no matter what users' privacy settings may be - and that their algorithms access the saved data directly. Probably very useful for marketing, but much creepier than Google.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

I agree about the anonymity being a huge factor but I think the scale is great for predators. IM was not dissimilar in the effects we noted btw

Scale is great for a lot of things but for online predation the necessary scale is a lot less than FB levels. Your IM example actually illustrates that well. Chat rooms were a haven for this alright, even when there were less than 60 million people on the entire internet. Now there are 750 million on facebook alone.

Quote:

I'm not blaming Facebook or social sites I just think it's necessary to do as much education as one can about some of the undesired effects

And probably countering my comments to the effect that I'd let a kid on FB as soon as they could type. But we probably differ on a more fundamental part too: I find the fear-mongering about child predation by strangers in general to be largely misdirected/unwarranted.

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@Robert Gentel,

High Seas probably has a similar situation as is mine ( or many on this site who have public practices which are under scrutiny daily for forensic and practice standards). I know many an engineer who, originally embracing FB, has spent lots of time subsequently distancing selves from it as responsibilities and "verbal footprints" are public record.
Thats why , every time I see some politician getting hoist based on some FB writings , I wonder how dumb they are for letting the personal sides of their lives mix with their professional one with such abandon.

Too much out there. I suppose if I was closely aligned so that my professional bios read that Im first and foremost computer associated, then I guess it would be more relevant to maintain these connections.
The entire information world is a tool to be used in order to get some real work done (thats my world). In the cae of individuals like you, I think Id want to know every gizmo out there and desire to attain proficency , mastery, and creative applications of them.

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@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

But we probably differ on a more fundamental part too: I find the fear-mongering about child predation by strangers in general to be largely misdirected/unwarranted.

On the contrary, we largely agree on that and I find anti-abuse strategies that focus largely on stranger danger highly irritating and largely ineffective. (Just ask kids who have been put through a stranger danger process what they think a stranger is.)

However, there simply IS enough abuse perpetrated by people that kids come across outside the family circle that I think kids need to have good education about it as well. Some of these predators also abuse very large numbers of children and adolescents. This category is also where most of the really violent sex crimes that we come across, where kids can sustain terrible injuries, or die occur (not true in the average sexua l abuse case, although not impossible, of course).

Of course, an effective sexual predator of kids generally makes sure the kid doesn't see them as a stranger. This takes less effort online, generally speaking, than it does in real life...where there is also a faint chance someone may see you doing it (grooming) and hence presents a bit more risk.

And, sadly, there really are the odd cases where a person randomly approaches a kid on the street and grabs them, or lures them away.

The EMPHASIS on 'strangers' as the MAIN danger to kids is wrong-headed....but that doesn't mean there aren't lots of cases where it occurs.

I am quite surprised that you would believe I would think majorly differently from you on that, since I am well aware of the stats both from research and from experience.

We may differ in that I see a lot of the results of actual assault by people not from with the kids' normal social circle, and where the kid gets sexually asulted the first time the actually see their online friend.

I wouldn't see a problem with letting your kid on the net as soon as they could type, because you're net and abuse savvy and would know how to help them keep safe, and would be able to support them if they came across something they found distressing.

Lots of kids don't have parents who can keep themselves remotely safe, much less their kids.

Of course, these are the same kids who get abused in disproportionate numbers on the net or not.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

I am quite surprised that you would believe I would think majorly differently from you on that, since I am well aware of the stats both from research and from experience.

I guess it's a matter of degree, and of course I know you know the statistics about strangers very well. However I'm not sure about your take on whether more or less education on this subject is currently needed.

Personally I think that society is fairly well educated about the danger of online predators, perhaps even tending towards being inordinately inundated and want to see less concern than current levels. About that I am not sure if you agree and certainly don't think it'd be as easy for me to hold this perspective in your shoes.

Quote:

We may differ in that I see a lot of the results of actual assault by people not from with the kids' normal social circle, and where the kid gets sexually asulted the first time the actually see their online friend.

It would indubitably change my perspective on what I'd feel is necessary, but I'd also probably doubt whether it inordinately did so at times. I know it's out there, but feel that anyone who doesn't know this is living under a rock and I've no ideas on how to deal with such rock-dwellers in practice. Most proposals I see to address this issue I find very over-the-top but I'd be open to hearing examples of education/awareness promotion that you consider worthwhile.

Quote:

I wouldn't see a problem with letting your kid on the net as soon as they could type, because you're net and abuse savvy and would know how to help them keep safe, and would be able to support them if they came across something they found distressing.

Lots of kids don't have parents who can keep themselves remotely safe, much less their kids.

You get no disagreement from me, I personally think the majority of parents are unfit to be parents. In practice, however, I'm not sure what more should be done about it. When kids fall prey to the online predators they are splashed about in the news and there is so much porn and crap online that if anyone doesn't yet know that the internet can be dangerous I don't know how to make them without being overbearing about it (stuff like the internet filter Australia has been considering).

I appreciate the fact that you are promoting awareness and education instead of technical solutions ala the horrible idea down under but even when it comes to that I feel we are almost saturated in it and that the awareness of the danger is widespread while parents simply continue to be often quite inadequate.

I have no idea how to solve this, and sometimes grimly suspect that the poor (parents) we will always have with us. Rubs the idealist in me the wrong way but there it is, I don't think we can do a whole lot more than we already to do to educate people about online predators. I also think that it might have reached the point where it has become counter-productive fear mongering (i.e. with too much restriction causing circumvention that precludes better regulation of activity). For example, I think the kids under 13 should not be prohibited from using facebook at all. This would allow Facebook to tailor their experience more appropriately (e.g. make parent-managed accounts, block certain features) whereas now they just circumvent it by lying about it, which the software is bad at detecting.

I guess the nuts and bolts of my postion that I think differs with yours is that I feel that kids should be online much earlier than most people do, and feel this would actually make the internet safer and suspect you may not be as optimistic about that.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

I don't have a position on when kids should be online. I think it depends on the skills of those assisting them in their online experience, not their age.

Your questions about how we should be educating are really good ones.

Thing is, the very parents whose kids are most vulnerable are the ones who have no idea about net predators, about kids accessing porn (I see lots of people who have no idea that kids seeing porn, or rape, or domestic violence, or lots of sex is even an issue for instance). The society you are thinking of vs the society that people like me see are often different beasts. We've had mothers who actually delivered their young daughters to the homes of net friends they had never seen and left them there without even meeting the person to check. That's some pretty out there cases, but they exist. These are situations where very great harm came to the girls in question.

I've actually been looking around for good net safety packages (not very hard, because I haven't time) that generally very ignorant people might be able to make sense of....including stuff for lonely mummies who fall for lovely men on the net who use that modus operandi for accessing the kids.

I am usually in the position of educating after the harm has occurred, which kind of sucks, really.

Obviously hysteria is not a basis for any education.

I am just thinking that actually talking to kids and parents about real (but obviously disguised) cases, where people can look at the tactics used by the abuser and how they managed to inveigle their way in might be one way...I find that's what most helps in most teaching, examples that people can analyse and make sense of.

But I agree, if you draw parents in the great lottery of life who don't know how to parent, and how to identify and learn about stuff they realise they need to know, it's damn tough to for you to be able to keep yourself very safe.

You've inspired me to look around for what is there, so I can promulgate it in the training I do if I find anything I think is classy!

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

My point, which you may have missed, is that the friend finder could be a chain of evidence for who is seeking whom and a means of identifying their practices if any complaints are lodged. I don't think that would hurt anything other than their avid desire to increase traffic--which i think is their only motivation. They want to be able to post a notice such as "Your friends A & B have played this game," or "Your friends X, Y and Z liked this page." I don't think it is at all unreasonably cynical to see them interested in potentially increasing their bottome line, and not at all interested in behaving responsibly.

As for your "bunch of kids," i have thee "friends" who can be considered kids--all of them the products of invitations to "friend" them by their moms for the purpose of playing the games. Whether or not FB is willing to be responsible, i am, and, understanding that this is not really about actually being a friend of the child in question. Therefore, i don't send them messages (if i feel a need to send a message, i would send it to the mom with a reference to the child, although that's never come up); i don't post on their walls, which would only annoy them, and probably piss off mom, too. I have one such friend who plays one of the games herself, who sent me a friend request listing adults who play the game to whom i could refer for recommendations, and who is now, i believe, over the age of 18. So this isn't about "a bunch of kids." There is one mom who is using her child's account in this manner, and it appears that this child has very young friends, and that is the thing that is creeping me out. I don't really care if you prefer annoy, it creeps me out.

I consider FB to be irresponsible in this matter, and i strongly suspect it's because the only thing they care about is boosting traffic in the hope of increasing the revenue stream. I don't find FB itself to be very sociable. If a seller of eggs at the supermarket is polluting the local water source with chicken **** from their egg farm, they are not only being irresponsible, but they are acting criminally. I don't think FB is necessarily criminal, but they are certainly being irresponsible in the pursuit of their revenues.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

. . . you said you friended a bunch of kids . . .

That's a gross distortion--it's not a bunch, and i only responded to a friend invitation sent to me, specifying that Mrs. Mom Soandso is using this account to play Game X or Y.

Quote:

. . . these suggestions are friends that appear in multiple friends of yours (to oversimplify their algo) and this is why they think you know them.

This is also false. Of the thee accounts of children used by moms to play games, i know of none of them who have one another on their friends list. This is indeed ramdomly generated because it appears to be enough for FB that they are on your friends list. The vast majority of these suggestions show "1 mutual friend" because Mom is often not even listed by the bot which is generating this "suggestion."

Nobody is impersonating anyone. I know this because in every case except the one i explained above, the friend request explained in advance the purpose of the "friending" operation. The fourth case, as i explained above, involved a young lady (who is now of age) who included the names of several adults on my friends list as recommendations when sending the friend request. I don't happen to run around amassing "bunches" of children who are being impersonated by adults. There's a name for this kind of reckless and exaggerated characterization on your part, but i'll let that rest.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

I believe the original post referred to one kid - she came in as a specific request by p.m., her mother has set up her account so she (the kid) can't be sent friend requests or messages, she has to initiate the request - not system generated.

Acceptance of that one request has created the flood of system-generated requests. Several of the new recommendations to 'friend' kids do not have any friend connections to Set's account.

Those are the ones I generally find odd - the seemingly random friend recommendations that FB makes.

Excellent summary--that's exactly what's going on.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

I guess you guys call it random because the algo is a black box to you, but there's nothing random about it. Simply put, it recommends people that are friends with people who you are already friends with, the more of your friends they are friends with the more likely it is for you to know them. Sometimes you don't know them, but that doesn't make it random.

You're absolutely wrong here. As Questionner points out, one gets a lot of friend suggestions which don't list anyone from your friends list.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

. . . but Setanta seems to think that it should be removed for everyone, even folks like me who want it, because of the kid recommendations and I don't agree with that.

This is another false characterization. I advocate restricting this activity to the friend finder feature. They're just too damned eager to build traffic. If your user script is so quick and easy, you can set that up to get around whatver you would find annoying about the friend finder.

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@Setanta,

Note to self:

http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/cyberquoll/

http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/cybernetrix/shared/pages/about.htm

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

....use the friend finder but that only works if you already have their contact info,....

This is somewhat similar to LinkedIn. If you try to add too many people who you really don't know, and enough of them say they don't know you, then, in order to add someone, you either have to be a member of the same group (e. g. college, or former employer, but there are also open groups devoted to cycling, and frankly you could say you loved cycling or attended Barnard College and no one would check either) or provide the email address that they used to sign up for LinkedIn.

Frankly, it's not much of a solution, and it cramps the style of those of us who are trying to network and move outside of our personal inner circle -- which is precisely what networking is all about.

We've had lots of allegedly outed kids on A2K who've said they were 12, etc. and have been asked by fellow A2Kers (not the kids' parents) to remove their accounts. But we have no way of knowing if 12 is true or if it's a typo for 13, and I am sure there are plenty of others who lurk or who never mention an age who are under and we cannot police this. It puts us into a position that is completely untenable. I am not about to start validating an Indonesian birth certificate.

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@jespah,

jespah wrote:

Robert Gentel wrote:
....use the friend finder but that only works if you already have their contact info,....

Frankly, it's not much of a solution, and it cramps the style of those of us who are trying to network and move outside of our personal inner circle -- which is precisely what networking is all about.

We've had lots of allegedly outed kids on A2K who've said they were 12, etc. and
have been asked by fellow A2Kers (not the kids' parents)
to remove their accounts.

The NERVE of some people!!!
That is shocking!

I 'd never think of being so presumptuously arrogant!

If I felt strongly enuf about not speaking to him,
I 'd be the one to walk out, not expect HIM to do it !!!

In any case, if u don 't like anyone u can put him on Ignore
or just don 't read his posts.

David

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Interesting discussion about the predator stuff, dlowan, I think it would be awesome if you could move into some sort of training/ prevention.

Just wanted to add that my own hesitation about Facebook for my kid is more about close-to-home dynamics than about stranger danger. Several of her friends are on FB and have sent friend requests to me, I haven't accepted them but in the course of following links etc., I've seen a lot of stuff that gives me pause. I didn't see any outright bullying (though I know that exists) but a lot of little digs and miscommunication and bleh.

There already has been some drama via texting (which I'm largely in favor of), and it seems like that goes up several notches on Facebook. I think that's the sort of thing that needs to be learned and dealt with rather than avoiding forever, but I don't think she's ready for it yet.

She does hover a lot when I'm on Facebook and I've done some purposeful training when she's around.

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@dlowan,

Cool stuff Miss C. Coney . . . too bad they couldn't find a native English-speaker for the narration, but fortunately they provided subtitles.

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@jespah,

jespah wrote:

....... there are also open groups devoted to cycling, and frankly you could say you loved cycling or attended Barnard College and no one would check either) or provide the email address that they used to sign up for LinkedIn.

Frankly, it's not much of a solution, and it cramps the style of those of us who are trying to network and move outside of our personal inner circle -- which is precisely what networking is all about....

I question that; if someone falsely claims a degree from Barnard - or anyplace - maybe nobody will check today; but the claim will remain on the servers forever, and on the day someone does check for whatever reason the original poster will be outed as a liar and a fraud. People have had to resign for less.

2 Replies

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