Eleven people (six in the U.K., three in Australia and and two in Canada) have been arrested for exchanging child sexual abuse images and videos on Facebook. The investigation started in March. One individual was sentenced in the U.K. yesterday, which seems to have prompted these subsequent arrests.

The success of the arrest of these eleven individuals is being attributed to international law enforcement cooperation.

RCMP Supt. John Bilinski, who heads the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, said the investigation “is a clear demonstration of how international co-operation can help ensure that child sexual offenders are brought to justice.” Source

Indeed, Interpol has been building an intricate network of interlaced law enforcement protocols since 1996, when they hosted a meeting in Lyon France and began InHope (a coordinated network of national tiplines and its Standing Working Group on Offenses against Minors).  The results of that investment in law enforcement is evident with today’s arrests.

What we aren’t as good at is organizing and funding societal responses – education, prevention and victim-support systems – needed to address the issues of sexual abuse and technology within the framework of community values and norms. Yes, we need law enforcement (self-reportedly overwhelmed with horrendous investigations) to apprehend these sexual offenders. The abuse occurring online is tragic but to think that law enforcement alone can solve this problem is naive and irresponsible. So is being dismissive or absolutist  about social networking and it’s effect on our society. We are negligent if we continue to ignore the educational, social service and community responses needed to deal with the consequences of the rapidly changing landscapes of technological communication for everyone.

This media storm and Facebook scandal are going to be over in a few days – for those of us not directly affected by these crimes (or in the Security Division of Zuckerberg’s empire, lol) – but the integration of social media into the majority of  people under-30s lives is a permanent fact of life.

Facebook, YouTube, blogs and news aggregators are moving unimaginable experiences, opportunities, information and yes, risk through the lives of millions at this point.  Facebook alone has 500 million users. It’s not going away anytime soon and is going to be a platform for social (and commercial) interactions for the foreseeable future.

Sadly, I don’t think many people have started to discuss the basics of internet safety with those around them. What is and isn’t personally acceptable in a post-internet world.

Many esteemed teachers, politicians and people outside the geek worlds that I have met in the last few years remain proudly uninvolved and unaware of the changing dynamics for younger people in their lives.

We all need to talk about what we’re doing online (or not) and what we think and feel about it.  We need to talk about it in our schools, at our dinner tables and family gatherings, and in our places of work. We need to stay aware of the ever-widening gap between the pre- and post- internet generations and do what we can to help each other. We need to stay interested in each other and each other’s perspectives about how, what, where, when and why we communicate.

With SOLOS, I’ve been talking about the same internet safety steps for eight years, and I’ll talk about them for eight more but mostly they’re common sense:

• Be aware of where your info goes and who sees it and how long it will last.
• Don’t let little kids play in adult settings.
• Know where to report abuse.
• Don’t share your usernames and passwords with friends
• Have multiple email accounts for friends, for family and for online accounts
• Don’t use your birth-day in your profiles. Use the real year you were born but pick a different day/month for your birthday.
• Don’t take, or let anyone else take, sexual images of you.
• If you are cyberbullied, (threatened, blackmailed, manipulated, pressured or stalked) tell someone and keep any evidence.
• Meeting Up: If you arrange to meet an online friend,  DON’T GO ALONE! Take a friend, tell someone where you are going, and have confirmed contact information about who you are going to meet.

We all need to learn about online communication, not just for ourselves but for those we love. Yes, it takes time and yes it’s a little overwhelming – but our kids are worth it.

If you are interested in more information, please contact SOLOS or feel free to browse our Library of resources and links.

We’ve reworked all our youth presentations this summer with topics and content most requested by you and your students. Updated descriptions will be on the website by Monday (Aug. 23) morning, but here is an early peek at what we’ll be offering.

We expect to have three presentations available for youth in various age groups this year:
(draft outline)

1) Your Online Life – managing your digital reputation: identity, images and relationships online — (grades 4-5, 6-7 & 8-10)
permanence of digital images, identity construction (who are you online and where?) social media, privacy settings, and self-representation, trends in social networking, sexting and the permanence and consequences of online content plus our Positive Examples and Tips and Tricks Handouts.

2) Being Kind Online – the basics of online behaviour; codes, ethics, laws and cyberbullying — (grades 4-5, 6-7 & 8-10) — definitions of cyberbullying and descriptions of how and where it happens, number of youth affected (CA statistics), recommended responses for youth, online norms and cultures, relevant laws plus our Positive Examples and Tips and Tricks Handouts.

3) Playing Online Responsibly – online citizenry; gaming for good and file sharing and copyright — grades 8-10 & 11-12 — critically thinking about online content, gaming for good, consumer skills online, viruses scams and ruses, downloading music legalities, net neutrality and current Canadian legislation plus our Positive Examples and Tips and Tricks Handouts.

We’ll also be updating our parent and professional workshops and presentations with the latest trends, statistics and safety information. Stay tuned.

I’m really excited about the upcoming year and the chance to get out to see you in your B.C. school districts again. If you’d like more information about our upcoming Roadtrips, just drop us an email or leave a comment here.

Later, Merlyn

In a podcast I heard on the CBC, (Spark, September 2009) he also talkedc about how google used to store every ‘search queery” forever. Each ‘seach’ that you do is associated with your IP address. (This practice has been changed and they now they store it for only 9 months.)

“Perfect digital info is a panoptocon. It’s also temporal.”

Mayer discusses perfect digial memory and how it means what we say today might be held against us in the future, denying humans the ability to  grow and change over time. We loose our ability to ‘act in time’.Forgetting is important to being human; forgetting allows perspective to develop and individuals to evolve.

REMEBERING VS.STORING VS. RECORDING

Mayer suggests that solutions to these unfortunate side effects of information technology might look like ‘expiry dates’ data, (ie. data may degrade overtime, have a built in expiry date or self destruct.

See also - Perfect Digital Memory | Viktor Mayer-Schönberger | Big Think.

Here’s a few good tips for those of us trying to get better at using the FB space.

Clay Shirky: Paywall will underperform – the numbers dont add up | Technology | The Guardian.

Here’s another review of Shirky’s second book.

“Shirky’s hypothesis is that a lot of the 20th century stuff we used to take for granted — most people didn’t want to create media, people didn’t value homemade and amateur productions, no one would pitch in to create something for others to enjoy unless they were being paid — weren’t immutable laws of nature, but accidents of history. The Internet has undone those accidents, by making it possible for more people to make and do cool stuff, especially together.”

via Gin, Television, and Social Surplus – Here Comes Everybody.

Here is a summary of a speech Clay Shirkey make back in 2008. In it he addresses the mainstream question about online activities “where do people find the time?”. A good read for an overview of the foundational shift from one-way media to individual and group participation and co-creation of new tools.

The SOLOS 2008/2009 Annual Report is available on our About Us page.  We’ve also wrapped up the Youth-2-Youth Program at Mission Secondary School. See the Youth-2-Youth page. I’ll let you know when the report for the Aboriginal Centred Community Expert Training (ACCET) is ready.

Later.

The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

We all have to make up our own mind about how we’re going to be (or not) on Facebook.

(See previous rants.)

apophenia » Blog Archive » Facebook and “radical transparency” (a rant).

Hopefully  Facebook is going to make some changes. I’ll keep you posted on what happens.