This is and isn't about technology. Mostly isn't. But digital media allow for and expose a dangerous blend of two very different aspects of humanness, one destructive, the latter normative: social cruelty and teenage vulnerability (a lot of focus recently having been on the female variety). The cruelty, the extreme version called trolling – which feeds on outrage and weaponizes cultural … [Read more...] about Teens, social media & trolls: Toxic mix
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Two milestones in social media safety ed
Note the phrase "social media safety" in the headline. There are many more milestones in Internet safety education overall, but here are two vital ones for youth safety in social media since its early days in the middle of the last decade: Milestone 1: the finding of the Berkman Center's Internet Safety Technical Task Force (now Berkman Klein Center) that not all young people are equally at … [Read more...] about Two milestones in social media safety ed
‘Compassion mobs’ & other digital-age nonviolence stands
You've probably heard the phrase "kill 'em with kindness" for disarming detractors, well in social media it's more like swamping – flooding – public, sometimes collective, cruelty with kindness, acceptance, respect, etc. That was a powerful tactic used by students I wrote about in Part 1 of this series, but it has been practiced to huge ripple effect by students in Nova Scotia, Iowa, Minnesota, … [Read more...] about ‘Compassion mobs’ & other digital-age nonviolence stands
Of free speech in global social media
I'll probably come back around to this important topic again, but right now I have only two points to add to what's partly a discussion about free speech in social media, fueled in the past week by feminist Soraya Chemaly in the Huffington Post. It's difficult to talk about "controversial humor" pages in the context of free speech because this content on Facebook (and now on Tumblr, its creators … [Read more...] about Of free speech in global social media
State of cybersecurity concerns: Study
It's National Cyber Security Awareness Month in the US, and a group of companies, government entities, and nonprofit organizations kicked it off with some research. The survey from McAfee and the nonprofit National Cyber Security Alliance found that 90% of people surveyed responded "not completely" when asked how safe they feel from "viruses, malware and hackers while on the Internet." Their … [Read more...] about State of cybersecurity concerns: Study