Cyber-Safety in an Era of the Expanding Presence of Social Media

Cyber-safety is essential. With online safety, there are more and more videos and photos being used to communicate essential information, rather than written statements or writings.

Here are a few questions to start us off:

1. What sorts of problems are we seeing with video content and are those difficulties being solved to communicate effectively and safely?

2. Are admin departments more responsive to cyber problems at work or school, compared to say a few years ago?

3. With the ALS ice bucket challenge, they have raised a great deal of money, in part - because of the video phenomenon - those quick videos reached a great number of people. As a method of communication - are video and social media as safe as they are popular?

With a look back to the old mobile consoles. The 1980’s. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/nintendo/9713765/...

Moderator Bio:

Krista Jessacher raises awareness about increasing privacy in this digital age. She has a legal background of about 15 years, including a law degree. Having worked at the courthouse for about five years as a court clerk and D/D Registrar, and as a lawyer, she is experienced in dealing with upset people. She worked with witnesses, Judges, lawyers, and self-represented people to facilitate the court process. While working as a lawyer she worked to settle client matters. She worked at two mid-sized law firms in Vancouver and also had her own law firm as a sole practitioner. She is currently a Board Member of a non-profit organization devoted to conflict resolution and teens.

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Permalink Reply by Agnieszka Regiec on November 7, 2014 at 4:30pm

Dear Subscribers,

Very often people who are in the pictures or in the videos, they wouldn’t post them themselves. I think that despite of lack of privacy, this is the other most disturbing effect of social media – whatever is being published in the Internet, stays there forever. I.e. Facebook – even if someone deletes their profile, it is not technically removed, so all the data are still possible to restore.

Friends or other people post pictures or videos with others in them. They might be offensive and are usually posted without any consent of people who are in the pictures.

Regarding the second question – I think that nowadays admin departments are a bit more responsive than a few years ago, but being responsive without having access to conversations, Facebook-groups etc., makes the problem more difficult. Admin departments should be more responsive and try do develop a specific protocol how to approach cyber issues, because cyberbullying and cyberstalking are very dangerous. One even hears about suicidal attempts caused by data/information leaks to the social media. Children and teenagers are vulnerable and any rumor about cyberbullying have to be thoroughly investigated in order to avoid depression or other tragic results.

Lately there has been a huge problem because of the leak of naked pictures of actors/actresses as a result of breaking into ICloud. We have to keep in mind that all the devices keep track of their users steps, they store location data, browsing data and some of them copy all the contacts, pictures, e-mails, etc. Google even allows advertisements to be customized to the users based on their browsing history and other preferences. Some apps don’t work unless you accept that they will keep track of your cyber-steps (to my knowledge - most of them actually). This might be both a useful tool and a very dangerous device – our lives are no longer private – almost everything could be restored, deleted pictures, transcripts of messages...

Regarding the Ice Bucket Challenge – at the beginning I also felt like this video chain was overestimated and an unsafe, unnecessary violation of privacy. The fundraising results, however, are very promising. Unfortunately politicians who wanted to get publicity used the challenge as a tool in their election campaigns. In Europe the IBC was transformed into slightly different one – one could either perform the IBC, or choose any charity organization and pay a sum of money to support it. As long as chains like this are being performed with cautious by Internet users, a lot of good might be done. That's why users' awareness of possible dangers coming with using the social media should be increased.

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Permalink Reply by Krista Grace Jessacher on November 7, 2014 at 6:43pm

Here are some quotes from today’s discussion:

“In particular, I do also believe it is time to establish a "duty of care" within the digital world. It is true that an individual's privacy is all too often discounted.” - Natalie

“This was a fantastic fundraiser that people loved. When I first saw it posted online I wondered why someone would post this online.” - Robert

“…Online Dispute Resolution to safeguard and develop privacy and data protections rights.” - Dr. Geary

“The Internet can never be made 100% secure. All users are subject to at least some risk.” - Mark

“Friends or other people post pictures or videos with others in them. They might be offensive and are usually posted without any consent of people who are in the pictures.” - Agnieszka

Krista