Does it matter if celebrities write their own Tweets?

The fuss over whether or not Stephen Fry owns his own Twitter account (to save you reading the debate - he does) started me thinking: does it really matter whether a celebrity or public figure is sending their own messages over Twitter?

I don’t think it does. But before Twitter purists get all hot under the collar, I think that the key here is honesty. Barack Obama’s example of using social media and Twitter to galvanise voters is extraordinary (but I wouldn’t expect him to be Tweeting all the way through a G8 meeting. I’d rather he focused on saving the world, to be honest). To date, he has 314,000 followers, and ‘follows’ nearly the same number. On that basis alone, I think most people would accept – even prefer - that he has a team to run all his communications, including his Twitter account.

It really depends on the reasons for setting up a Twitter account. For politicians, it might be to impart news and policy changes, which could credibly be done by somebody in their office. But there are a growing number of celebrities on Twitter - notably Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross in the UK – who use it to give the rest of us a peak into their daily lives that we wouldn’t otherwise have. The Kutchers (Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher) used Twitpic to post live updates of them at the Oscars on Sunday http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/twittering-celebrities-take-fans-backstage-in-their-lives/ - a very personal glimpse into their world.

Twitter puts celebrities within reach of ordinary people, in a way that gossip columns, TV shows and paparazzi shots can’t do. Celebrities who want to create that kind of intimacy with their fans do so on trust that they are who they say they are. To fake it (and be discovered) could damage the trust placed in celebrities by their fans – as though they have been revealed as an imposter. Much better would be to appoint someone close to them, such as a personal assistant, to Tweet their view of the celebs world. It still offers the ‘window on the world’ to fans, but is a much more honest approach than faking it.

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Is social networking bad for our health?

More ‘evidence’ this morning that too much time on the computer is harmful to our health. No, not because of damage to our eyes and backs - though we know this to be true. Not because of the lack of exercise is turning us into sedentary flabby-thighed weaklings (so maybe I’m only talking about myself here!). And not because what we see online is damaging to our minds or attitudes. No, the specific target this morning is social networking sites. And the reason they are harming us is because we are using them as a substitute for actually getting out there and meeting each other in the flesh.

Research recently published suggests that the number of hours people spend interacting face-to-face has fallen dramatically since 1987, as the use of electronic media has increased.

The report by Dr Aric Sigman in Biologist, the journal of the Institute of Biology, says that is indeed the flesh which bears the brunt of this lack of contact with others. Apparently, when interacting ‘in person’, the body experiences various levels of response which are good for our health: this probably an evolutionary throwback to the times when it was necessary for us to be tribe animals in order to survive.

He says that evidence suggests that a lack of face-to-face networking could alter the way genes work, upset immune responses, hormone levels, the function of arteries, and influence mental performance. This, he claims, could increase the risk of health problems as serious as cancer, strokes, heart disease, and dementia.

Dr Sigman also argues that using electronic media undermines people's social skills and their ability to read body language.

"One of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction in the number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being," he said.
"In less than two decades, the number of people saying there is no-one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled."

Dr Sigman says he is "worried about where this is all leading". He added: "It's not that I'm old fashioned in terms of new technology, but the purpose of any new technology should be to provide a tool that enhances our lives."

If this is true, I wonder also about the impact of telecommuting – as we home-workers smugly congratulate ourselves on not catching the nasty office viruses or breathing in polluted city air, are we damaging our health in more subtle ways by not physically getting together around the water cooler?

See this morning’s report on the BBC

Update: See this interesting story from NHS Choices website that suggests the article is not a Systematic Review and maybe flawed

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eModeration offers Community Management

The latest here at eModeration is that we’ve now – officially - added Community Management to our Client Services offering. Ashley Cooksley, who is heading up this new venture, explains how Community Management differs from the existing moderation service:

“While moderation certainly improves the member’s experience within our client’s communities, much of this is done behind-the-scenes. With community management, we will become more visible within their community, and look at their community from top to bottom. Perhaps we start hosting their community areas - in other words, we start a conversation and keep it flowing, or we help guide members through the client’s community, and their website. We can also look at how the client is communicating with their members, and offer suggestions or create new community strategies. We actually already offer our current clients a lot of what we would consider community management services, as we already do some hosting within the communities, but this new service will expand and enhance what we currently offer to our clients."

eModeration plans to offer a three-tier packages for clients to pick from:

"The first package is designed to help a client setting up a new community; to help them to find the right tone to communicate, the right tools to do the job, and to create a solid community strategy. We’ll be researching their competitors, recommending moderation tools and methods, working with their in-house teams to define the right editorial tone and community culture. We’ll help set realistic targets and set short and long-term goals for the community to achieve.

“Then for existing communities it’s a health check – well, OK, a full strategic analysis! We’ll make sure the client is using the best tools for their purposes, and check their current goals and community integration strategy. We’ll evaluate the community tone and culture, analyse the their member communication and advise on best practices for community change management. Basically, we find out what is working, what isn’t working, and then look at how we are going to address the areas that need improving. We'll evaluate how we promote the community throughout the rest of the website if that’s appropriate, and offer recommendations about how to improve their overall community experience for their members.

“Finally, the third level is ongoing community management. While the other two packages may be for a set project period (i.e. forty hours, one month, or a few days), this third option offers help to the client for as long as they need it. We'll do this in the form of daily contact with the members on the site, daily health checks of the community, regular reporting of member comments and trends, and even offering a buzz monitoring service (an analysis of how the client is being discussed both within their community, and on the Web). Our clients can create their own custom community management package that works best for their needs. "

Ashley has been involved in the Internet industry since 1996, working primarily in editorial and community management roles for companies such as Petsmart.com, Ticketmaster-CitySearch and AOL UK. Her first actual foray into online community was when she created a website for tween girls called Terrifichick in 1998. Since then, she has been working with online communities, often focusing on the youth market, and has been with eModeration since 2008.

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Keeping Track of the Bad Guys

An interesting series of articles in ComputerWorld about online dating ... This article Online dating: Blocking the bad guys is particularly interesting for its mention of the ReputationManager service "which is also used by financial services, social networking and online gaming sites, collects data on 32 categories of unwelcome activities ranging from fraud to spam to chat abuse.

"The system then associates those behaviors with the specific computer used by creating a "device print." In this way, scammers who are detected can't just log in again under a new identity."

Obviously this would create a problem with multiple users of the same machine, but otherwise an interesting solution.

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Abuse for Journalists in Comment Threads

On Monday 9th February, The Guardian published a piece on the potential for abuse suffered by journalists in user comment threads responding to news articles.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/09/newspaper-comment-pages

The article discusses different reasons why some readers turn against the authors of news articles, as well as looking at the moderation methods and approaches used by various online publications. The comments left by readers of The Guardian's article offer further insight and are well worth reading.

I've always been an advocate of encouraging brands to allow a certain amount of criticism of their product - it demonstrates a willingness to learn from their consumers as well as a degree of transparency. However, allowing direct personal criticism of individual members of staff - whether they be journalists or marketeers or engineers or telesales staff - just never feels okay.

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others on this. Just please don't flame me...

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European Commission pact with social networking sites

Just an addition to my post below - more information has come through on T! Tech about the agreement signed in Luxembourg today by the social networking sites. Apparently, seventeen sites (namely Arto, Bebo, Dailymotion, Facebook, Giovani.it, Google/YouTube, Hyves, Microsoft Europe, Myspace, Nasza-klaza.pl, Netlog, One.lt, Skyrock, StudiVZ, Sulake/Habbo Hotel, Yahoo!Europe and Zap.lu) "have agreed to put a "report abuse" button on their sites allowing people under 18 to report inappropriate contact or conduct by another user by clicking on it.

"They will also ensure that the online profiles and contact lists of users under 18 are set to "private", making it harder to get in contact with young people, and make sure that they cannot be located with a search engine.

"The firms will also prevent under-age users from accessing their services."

Well, the first two are relatively easy to accomplish. But I look forward with great interest as to how they are going to manage the third. Still, as they have have pledged to introduce the measures by April 2009, we won't have to watch this space for too long ...

See Yahoo! Tech's piece here

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Safer Internet Day 2009

On Safer Internet Day 2009, half of Europe's teenagers browse the web with no parental oversight or supervision, a survey suggests, whilst social networking sites such as Facebook, Habbo and Bebo sign up to an agreement to help protect users.
More from the BBC on this here.

The latest CEOP video released today to mark Safer Internet Day is an attempt to combat cyberbullying and can be found on YouTube here. CEOP's portal to coordinate UK activities is now available with resources for parents, teachers and young people. eModeration's activities get a mention on the 'All' tab by the way - the only moderation company in the list of supporters, ha hem!

To support SID 2009, eModeration has written two news items on www.emoderation.com and sent out a press release to the press to help attract coverage. There will be a Safer Internet Day tag to all our emails sent out today, and our magnificent staff of moderators across the world have done their bit to spread the word amongst local schools, telling them they can download teaching materials and ready-made school assemblies from the site. It's not too late to get the message out when you read this.... and parents may want to test their own knowledge with CEOP's online quiz on the 'Parents' tab of the portal. Scary stuff.

Further reading:
Webuser
New Media Age

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Websites for children must register their moderators, says new law

Organisations with interactive websites likely to be used mainly by children must ensure that staff moderating the sites are not barred from working with children from October.

It will be a criminal offence for an organisation to knowingly employ a barred person for a regulated role, such as moderating children's sites. The (UK) Government is changing the way that it controls who has access to children and vulnerable adults and new laws take effect on 12th October, which make the moderation of online services such as bulletin boards a regulated activity.

That means that anyone on the list of people banned from working with children will also be banned from moderating online services that are likely to be accessed and used by children. The same is true of people on the list relating to vulnerable adults in connection with online services likely to be used by vulnerable adults.

The Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act was introduced in 2006 and has been modified by a commencement order which expands it to include some online services as regulated activities, meaning that they cannot be performed by anyone on the list of banned people.

The new law includes as a regulated activity "moderating a public interactive communication service which is likely to be used wholly or mainly by children".

Organisations will have to decide whether any of their activity falls within the boundaries of the new law. If it does they will need to register staff with Government body the Independent Safeguarding Authority (ISA), which will check if those people are on either list. Schedule four of the Act defines the activities which will be regulated from October.

"A person moderates a public electronic interactive communication service if, for the purpose of protecting children, he has any function relating to—

(a) monitoring the content of matter which forms any part of the service,
(b) removing matter from, or preventing the addition of matter to, the service, or
(c) controlling access to, or use of, the service.

5) But a person does not moderate a public electronic interactive communications service …unless he has—
(a) access to the content of the matter;
(b) contact with users of the service."

An ISA spokeswoman said that a person would need to have access to two-way communication with users for the Act to cover their activity. Many interactive online services, though, demand registration, which usuallyinvolves the provision of an email address, which would allow two way communication. The ISA spokeswoman said that it would not proactively regulate the law. "We are not an investigatory agency," she said.

It would be up to social services or the police to follow up any complaints that a barred person was engaging in work covered by the act, an ISA spokesman said. Any organisation that knowingly employed a barred person to perform work which it knew was regulated would be committing a criminal offence, he said. The law will be phased in and from 12th October this year will only apply to people filling new jobs in regulated areas. It will extend to all 11 million roles connected with children and vulnerable adults over the following fiveyears on a phased basis, but the Government has not yet published the phasing-in programme, the spokeswoman said.

I'd just like to add that all eModeration staff - managers and moderators alike - are all police-checked, and always have been. Interestingly however, in a survey of 138 moderators, carried out in October 2008 by Crisp Thinking, facilitated by eModeration, a surprisingly high number of respondents (mostly UK and US residents) said they had never been checked.

Story sourced from Outlaw: http://www.out-law.com/page-9762 and thanks to Kai at e-Mint for bringing it to my attention.

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eModeration pledges support to Safer Internet Day

On 10 February 2009, organisations and media throughout Europe and elsewhere around the world will do their bit to raise awareness of the issues around Internet safety, and how to encourage safe, responsible Internet use among children and young people.

Content moderation plays a big part in keeping websites, virtual worlds and MMOGs interactive and fun places for children to play and learn in a safe environment. This is why eModeration, which already works closely with the Internet Watch Foundation to promote child safety online, is pledging its support to this year’s Safer Internet Day.

Child safety online is a clear government focus, with the creation last year of the UK Council for Internet Safety. It is this body that Lord Carter’s Interim Digital Britain report states will lead the development of a Child Internet Safety Strategy, the details of which will be released later this year.

Safer Internet Day is an annual event. This year’s activities are being co-ordinated by The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, with its ThinkUKnow website acting as the main portal.

Jim Gamble, Chief Executive of the CEOP Centre said:

“There are many resources out there aimed at helping young people stay safe online – software and other tools which can feel reassuring. But none of these will help unless people take notice of what the threat really is. This is where CEOP comes in, providing information on what children are actually doing online and how offenders are using online environments to target young victims.

“That is why we are encouraging all parents, teachers and anyone working or caring for children or young people to use the Thinkuknow resources: they’re there for you and they’re free. Critically, Thinkuknow is informed by what our own work in tackling this horrific crime is telling us. It helps break down some of the mystique, is realistic about what children are doing and gives very practical and often simple advice to help children stay safe online.

“Parents can help themselves to protect their children if they visit www.ceop.gov.uk/parents . Many have already done so and registered for regular updates from CEOP.”

eModeration is showing support by promoting safe Internet use to schools through its network of moderators and social media connections. We are also making available its guide to safer Internet use, which can be downloaded free from our website.

For more information on Safer Internet Day, see http://www.saferinternet.org/ww/en/pub/insafe/sid.htm

For information on UK school activities and downloadable teaching materials see http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/teachers/resources.aspx

From 10th Feb 2009, Safer Internet Day information is viewable on www.thinkuknow.co.uk/sid09/portal

Safer Internet Day 2009 projects are organised in association with INSAFE, the European Safer Internet awareness-raising network co-funded by the European Commission. Across Europe, similar activities will be taking place. A flagship event to mark Safer Internet Day 2009 will be held in Luxembourg on 10th February, bringing together a number of internet safety stakeholders. In addition, the European Commission will launch a Europe-wide communication campaign and unveil a video clip on cyber-bullying, one of the most frequent problems young people encounter on the internet. This will be broadcast throughout Europe and disseminated on the internet, especially on sites popular amongst teenagers. Also on 10 February the Insafe network will join up with organisations from all over the world in a virtual exhibition ground. The Insafe virtual fair will open its doors to the public on 10th February and close on February 24th.

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