Facebook just caught up with Google+, Dropbox, and its own little sib Instagram (which it acquired last spring) where photo-uploading convenience is concerned. [I've found photo-sharing much easier and more fun since my kid introduced me to Instagram last summer.] My ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid explains here how to use the new Photo Sync feature in your Facebook app to upload photos from … [Read more...] about Facebook’s new photo-syncing tool
COPPA has likely increased minors’ risk: Study
If there were no Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, teens would be safer in social media, a new study from researchers at New York University indicates (pdf). Without COPPA, children under 13 would have little to no reason to lie about their age to set up a Facebook account, for example (this would be true of any COPPA-compliant site U13s want to join). We all know that, right? We also … [Read more...] about COPPA has likely increased minors’ risk: Study
The sweetness in social media use
I just had to write about this, thankful as I am to feel so close to my family and friends new and old while working 12 time zones away. I'm in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the 2012 Internet Governance Forum, for which I'm co-leading a session on digital citizenship involving teens and young adults from here, Georgia, Iran, Egypt, Europe, and Hong Kong, and where my ConnectSafely.org co-director Larry … [Read more...] about The sweetness in social media use
Facebook’s privacy primer for new users
Hey, kids, if you want to get parents, grandparents, or aunts and uncles on Facebook, now's a better time than ever. FB now has a privacy primer for people who are signing up for the first time. "We’ve implemented these enhancements as part of our broader effort to integrate more privacy education into the new user experience," it says in Facebook's blog, acknowledging the "guidance on this … [Read more...] about Facebook’s privacy primer for new users
Teens, social media & trolls: Toxic mix
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