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New Report on Adolescent Internet Safety

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University released the final report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force entitled “Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies.”  The Report was commissioned by the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking which is made up of the 50 state Attorneys General who asked the Task Force…

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MySpace versus Facebook

Ok, now that we have discussed some of the risks and benefits of social networking, I want to return to an issue that we have discussed before on this blog.  And that is whether or not any one particular social networking environment is “safer” than the others.  And if so, how?  When I talk to…

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Family Online Safety Institute Conference – December 11th, 2008

I’m going to be in Washington, DC on Wednesday, December 10th and Thursday, December 11th for the Family Online Safety Institute’s annual conference, where I’ll be participating in a formal roundtable to discuss cyberbullying prevention and response and Internet safety issues.  I am really looking forward to this, as many top practitioners and authors in…

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Anger in Cyberspace

I found this new CNN article on anger online really interesting.  In our new book, we talk about two theoretical concepts which are highly relevant: disinhibition and deindividuation.  To be disinhibited is to be freed from restraints on your behavior.  In some venues, disinhibition can be a positive thing. For example, someone who tends to…

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Focal areas within cyberbullying prevention and response

Mike Donlin, Senior Program Consultant (aka Program Manager), for Seattle Public Schools (and our good friend and esteemed colleague) recently asked us a few thought-provoking questions about cyberbullying prevention and response.  They are as follows: 1. How can we consistently involve all the major stakeholders – educators, legal, the tech industry, families and youth –…

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Live Web Chat for EdWeek Today

We will be participating in a live web chat for EdWeek today from 1-2 Eastern time.  From EdWeek: “At its best, the Internet helps students find information and stay in touch with friends through everything from text-messages and blogs to social-networking and other video- and photo-sharing Web sites. But the Internet can also enable students…

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UCLA Research on Cyberbullying

A new research piece on cyberbullying was published recently by a couple of UCLA professors that pointed out that 72% of youth between 12-17 experienced online bullying within the past year.  I find this number insanely high; the authors rightly note that their web-based methodology (constructed very similar to our older studies) possibly led to…

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Tagging of personal pictures online, facial recognition, implications for youth

As most of you know, Justin and I have conducted some studies on the youth use of social networking sites.  Our primary intention was to determine if and how adolescents are rendering themselves vulnerable to victimization based on the content (diary entries, personal information, pictures, video, etc.) they post within their profile pages.  This content…

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Defining Cyberbullying

There has been renewed discussion recently about what behaviors actually constitute cyberbullying.  This is an issue that we have commented about on this blog before and discuss in detail in our book (see especially pages 5 and 49). One of our favorite Internet safety newsletters, Net Family News, recently reported on an article published last…