Social media has definitely paved the way for causes, public relations, and news. However, it’s also been an epicenter for controversy. Last week, social media mogul Facebook had its first sentenced public crime in a court of law. A nineteen year old male posed as a female on Facebook and then lured young boys between the ages of fifteen and seventeen to submit nude photos of themselves. The man then blackmailed the boys into performing sexual acts for him or else he would release the nude photos to the high school. Unfortunately, seven boys succumbed to this man’s sick twisted plan. He got fifteen years in prison, but is that really long enough? How can we protect our children when social media is everywhere these days?
Just a few months back, a girl on Facebook and saw an ad for a colon cleanser, CleanseProX, featuring her deceased mother in the ad. How was this possible? Facebook’s privacy settings were weak and allowed your photos to be out there for the whole world to see. In fact, in a response to social outcry, Facebook finally gave their privacy settings a facelift, but they are still incredibly confusing.
With any new trend, there is going to be negative press because that’s what we like to read. As a public, we find tragedy more compelling to read about than an ordinary humanity story. When someone’s story is bleeding on a page or in the news we find ourselves compelled and thirsty for more. It’s a bit sick frankly. Social media has certainly generated its share of bad press with suicides, impersonations, blackmail, murder, and self-incrimination. But it has also generated some good press with things like the Pepsi Refresh Project, GoodSearch and Shutterfly’s recent photo contest. Information is what these social networking sites put out and it is up to you to be informed properly if you or your children are going to use them.
Facebook’s privacy settings are not clear. There are about seven pages of different types of privacy settings where some answers trump other answers but which trumps what is not clearly explained. If you are unsure as to what to set your Facebook privacy settings to, choose to set everything to Friends Only and only accept friend requests from people you know well.
