It's no secret to many parents of 5th- and 6th-graders that a whole lot of kids under 13 are using social network sites, where the minimum age is 13. The two main reasons, I suspect, are that 1) social networking has become pretty much a fact of life for a lot of their peers, and they don't want to be left out, and 2) the dearth of alternatives to Facebook and MySpace. Sure, there are kids' … [Read more...] about Get Togetherville: Social networking for kids 6-10
social networking
Milestone for Net safety: Hemu moves on
Hemanshu Nigam, better known as Hemu, helped MySpace weather some serious Net-safety storms since shortly after News Corp. acquired the social network site. I'm telling you this because today he launched his own company, SSP Blue, about four years to the day he became MySpace's chief security officer. I remember that time well. It was at the height of the US's predator panic, when... MySpace … [Read more...] about Milestone for Net safety: Hemu moves on
Social Web privacy: A new kind of social contract we’re all signed onto
1993: In a famous New Yorker cartoon, a dog at a computer says to his canine buddy looking up from the floor, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog." Fast-forward 13 years.... 2006: "On the Internet, EVERYBODY knows you're a dog," declares the subhead to a Michael Kinsley essay in which he wondered at how narcissistic the social Web was (before that became a cliché). Fast-forward only … [Read more...] about Social Web privacy: A new kind of social contract we’re all signed onto
NY’s e-STOP law: Not sure how much it protects
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo recently announced that his state's new "e-STOP" law has "resulted in the removal of accounts associated with at least 4,336 registered sex offenders" (RSOs, some of whom had more than one account) from such social network sites as MyLife (formerly Reunion.com – 2,100 accounts), Tagged (950), hi5 (575), BlackPlanet (570), Bebo (542), Flixster (508), Flickr … [Read more...] about NY’s e-STOP law: Not sure how much it protects
Facebook No. 1 in most Asian countries, but…
...not in India, Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan, where Google's Orkut, Mixi.jp, Cyworld.co.kr, and Wretch.cc are No. 1, respectively (the US version of Cyworld ceased operation this past February). According to comScore's latest Asia-Pacific data (which don't include China), Filipinos are the biggest social networkers in the region, and 50.8 % of the total online population in the region, or 240.3 … [Read more...] about Facebook No. 1 in most Asian countries, but…