Moderating those a**holes ....

Last week, Anil Dash (a veteran blogger) wrote a piece which has been gratefully received by community managers and moderators the world over.  Provocatively entitled: If your website's full of assholes, it's your fault, the post makes the case for community owners to stop washing their hands of (or wringing their hands over) the problem of  the "vitriolic, hate-filled spewing" of comments which the most innocent of posts can generate.

 Like most of those who commented on Anil's piece, I loved the passion and lack of cynicism within his piece, and I agree completely with that community owners should be morally responsible for the contents (including comments) within their spaces: "Businesses that run cruise ships have to buy life preservers. Companies that sell alcohol have to keep it away from kids. And people who make communities on the web have to moderate them."

I urge you to read the original post because it's both challenging and engaging, but in case you don't have time right now, here are Anil's headline steps for running a website - all of which are so palpably true they should be stencilled onto the bathroom mirrors of would-be publishers:

•  You should have real humans dedicated to monitoring and responding to your community.
•  You should have community policies about what is and isn't acceptable behavior.
•  Your site should have accountable identities.
•  You should have the technology to easily identify and stop bad behaviors. 
•  You should make a budget that supports having a good community, or you should find another line of work.  

Anil expands on all these points, and I was particularly interested in his recommendation regarding the use of reputational scores:  "Don't make reputation a number or a score, make it an actual representation of the person's behavior."  By which I guess he means, call a troll a troll*.  Though I wonder - given the mentality of the trouble-makers in the first place, would achieving 'troublesome troll' status on their profile become a badge of honour?  Hmmm.

 I have some sympathy for the legal cleft stick in which some brands feel that they find themselves, thanks to the vagaries of the Hosting Defence. However, legal rulings on the use of the Hosting Defence have varied: it's an extremely grey legal area, and thankfully many brands do take their duty of care very seriously and devote the necessary resource to moderation and community management.

 It seems pointless to set up a community and then have its wellbeing destroyed by trolls and flamers; irresponsible to leave personal information posted by youngsters up there; and very dangerous indeed to play host to illegal images or content which would fall foul of obscenity laws.  In my opinion, brands should look to try to prevent the unacceptable content in the first place through community direction, education and technology - and then mop up any which remain with sufficient human moderation to be effective.

 In a shameless plug (but it's relevant, I promise), watch out for the forthcoming eModeration white paper on managing social media on news sites, which will explore this point in much greater detail.  Leave your details below if you'd like to be notified when it's published, or sign up to RSS/email feed of this blog.

Thanks to www.flayme.com for the image

*I had originally put an English idiom for 'plain-speaking' in here - but I've been alerted to the fact that in the US it could be considered offensive.  Apologies for any offence caused, please be assured it wasn't intentional.  Two countries divided by a common language and all that ....

Read more...

Law and Social Media: why you need to beware

We're delighted to have this guest post from Jeremy Fordham, who normally writes over on onlinephdprograms.

Image courtesy of Stephen Gordon

It used to be that privacy laws were fairly simple. When the Founding Fathers created the Fourth Amendment, which protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, the broad idea was to keep the police from kicking in a door without a warrant and to keep prying eyes out of your mail. As technology has changed, however, so too has our definition of privacy. Is e-mail communication private? What about social media conversations? Likewise, when an account is set to private, is it really private? It may seem like only those who have attended Ph.D. programs in law have the ability to answer this question, and in fact, it's one with which lawyers and law enforcement constantly grapple, and there is no easy answer. The law regarding social media is only beginning to de defined, and it’s a slow process that involves the establishment of case law via torts and criminal complaints. In the end, the only way to truly understand the law as it relates to social media is to constantly stay abreast of the ebbs and flows of the tide and to protect yourself by having a realistic understanding of your rights.

The Basic Legalities of Facebook

Yes, Facebook is just one purveyor of social media, but it’s the biggest one. As such, it’s particularly pertinent to the establishment of new laws and the reinforcement of the legality of existing user agreements. Additionally, it’s important to understand what you’re signing away when you sign up for a Facebook account.

Lawyer Andrew Flusche created a blog post to help people specifically navigate the tricky legal language of Facebook’s user agreements. In his post, Facebook Isn’t Private, and 7 Other Things You Should Know, Flusche points out a number of elements of Facebook’s user agreement that will surprise and astound. They’re legalities that plenty of other social media sites are using to their advantage as well. Among them:

• Terms of service can change at any time, so you’d be well advised to check back frequently if you’re concerned that something you’re doing might violate future terms.
• Know who can create an account. Facebook says it’s only for personal use, though many companies have sites. Those sites have to be tied to a specific individual, though, and that individual can’t have more than one account.
• When you post to Facebook, you give up all copyright to your material. In other words, Facebook can do what it wants with your content.
• If Facebook is hacked, they don’t have to take the blame. Everything on your account could be published to a third party site, used to harm you, or otherwise be maliciously employed, but Facebook is not responsible.
• If you have a suggestion for how to improve the site, don’t tell them. If it’s good, they can use it and not pay you a dime.
• You can’t sue if Facebook violates their terms of service (remember that first bullet point?). Basically, when you sign up for Facebook, you agree to “final and binding arbitration” that won’t be in a court of law. Of course, if by some chance you make it to a court of law, the court’s in California, but the laws are in Delaware.
•  Facebook doesn’t guarantee privacy, and they do sell your information to third-party contractors. Thus, if it’s private, don’t post it.

Clearly, Facebook is very much a company in which the buyer, or poster, should beware. This is true of all social media sites, and even if you think you understand the terms of service, you’d be well advised to carefully consider what you post.

Additionally, in case you were wondering, lawsuits against Facebook don’t happen—at least not when the one who wants to sue is just an ordinary Facebook user. If you were involved in the creation of the social media behemoth, however, you might have a case.

Forecasting the Future

Bradley Shear is a lawyer with interest in how social media law is evolving. He writes about it on the blog Shear on “Social Media Law” and recently contributed to a Legally Easy podcast about what the future holds for social media and its users. Among the things that most concern him:

•  Social media sites are becoming increasingly admissible in court. Thus, when you post to a social media site, you’re creating evidence.
• If you claim you were hacked and that’s where the incriminating evidence on your social media account is coming from, be prepared to back that statement up.
• Integrity of social media evidence must be established for it to be admissible in court.
• While Europe is pushing forward with more stringent privacy controls, the  U.S.  lags behind in our legislation. Congress is debating the issue, and a bill in California that would make it illegal for certain sites to track consumer information has stalled.
• Privacy restrictions sometimes hold up in court and sometimes don’t. It’s best to err on the side of caution in what you post.

The truth of the matter is, social media is currently a wild West town without a sheriff. While there are some legal precedents, they vary by state and by case. Thus your best and safest bet is: if you do something that could come back to haunt you, don’t post anything about it. Assume that anything you say on social media isn’t private, even if you’ve set it for private. Above all, consider the effect of every post, of every photo tag, and every video before you post it. If you can say honestly that what you are posting will not harm you or anyone else, that it is not something that should be kept private from even one person, and of which you have no expectation of needing to maintain the copyright, you can safely post it. If you can’t answer those questions definitively, it’s best to keep it out of the realm of social media and in your private, paper-based diary.

Thanks very much for the post Jeremy.  If readers would like to know more about Facebook privacy settings, take a look at our recent series of posts - links to them all from this post on auto-tagging.

Read more...

Facebook and Time Warner - trying to teach kids to be kind

 Kameron Jacobsen 1996 - 2011

It's good news, I guess.  Today Facebook announced a new partnership with Time Warner, Inc to launch a campaign called Stop Bullying: Speak Up.

Over the next few months they say they'll be working with many of Time Warner’s companies in broadcast, print, online and social media to ignite a conversation to educate parents, teachers and youth about the actions that will help protect young people from the impact of bullying.

"As part of our latest initiative, Facebook and Time Warner Inc. will leverage the reach, depth and social connections of each of their properties." Facebook said.   The campaign will include but is not limited to:

• CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° Town Hall – Anderson Cooper will host a town hall dedicated to discussing the current bullying issues confronting kids today as well as discussions with certified experts to teach adults on coping with this problem.
• Facebook’s Social Media Pledge – An interactive Stop Bullying: Speak Up Social Pledge App that will enable educators, parents, and kids to make a personal commitment—and recruit others to join them—to help stop bullying.
• Cartoon Network Multi-Platform Resources – Deep integration of the network’s bystander-focused bullying prevention platform with Facebook’s Family Safety Center.
• Time Inc. Expansive Coverage – PEOPLE, sports illustrated and TIME have dedicated significant coverage to bullying over the last several years. This October, all three brands and their affiliated websites will feature editorial content that highlights the problem and innovative programs and measures being taken to combat it. 

Earlier this year, Facebook unveiled its newly designed Family Safety Center and a "social reporting’ tool, which enables people to report bullying or harassment to parents, teachers or trusted friends.

I took a quick look at the comments on the Facebook announcement.  Poignantly, there was one from the parents of Kameron Jacobsen, the 14 yr old from Orange County who killed himself after Facebook taunts about his sexuality earlier this year. Kevin Jacobsen Sr. said: "I'm glad this is finally being addressed with concrete ideas. My only wish is that this would have taken place before we lost our son Kameron."  Kameron's parents have set up a Foundation to try to make this tragedy into something positive - check out www.kindnessabovemalice.org which tells of how, with immense dignity and love for youth, they are trying to spread the message of Kameron's needless death to stop bullying like this happening. A great list of bullying resources there too. 


Let's hope that all these efforts - personal and heartfelt, like KAM, and the larger corporate responsibility-led versions - manage to change the hearts and minds of those who bully; either from malice or boredom or herd instinct.  The sad fact is that children and teenagers have always bullied, mocked, inflicted pain.  The difference now is that they have such a powerful weapon in the shape of social media but are without the maturity or compassion to know how to use it properly.

Read more...

Why should Facebook open up to under 13s?

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the excellent Children's Media Conference in Sheffield, where I was speaking on a panel: 'Facebook Stole my Childhood', examining the issues thrown up by marketing to children within social networks.  The Children's Media Conference is one of my favourite yearly events - in part because it's not wholly about social media, so I get to look at my own field from a different perspective, but also just because everyone there is just so friendly and welcoming.

I had honestly expected a degree of dissention within my panel: ably chaired by Jo Twist (Commissioning Editor for Education , Channel 4), I was up there alongside writer Henry Becket, James Charlton of The Advertising Association, Barbie Clarke from Family Kids and Youth and Ian Douthwaite, the Head of youth research organisation, Dubit.  All of whom could be expected to have a different angle on child internet safety from my own.  However, whilst the panel was, I hope, informative and lively, we all came out at pretty much the same place on particular issue: on whether Facebook should be opened up to the under 13's.

For those who don't know, there's a reason for why 13 is the magic number, and that's due to COPPA.  In brief, as most sites are available in the US, they fall under the umbrella of COPPA, a US Federal law relating to online social networks, chat and gaming sites aimed at children. Every site, game or community that has u13s as members must gain verifiable parental consent, and parents must be able to access the information their children have input. See more details on 'Check' - a really useful reference site for anyone involved in marketing to children.

So that's why Facebook (and Bebo, and MySpace) is only open to over age 13 and over.  But as everyone knows, if you're not on Facebook, you don't exist, and 38% of European  9-12 yr olds have a social networking profile (20% on Facebook)*  Just in case your maths lessons happened a while ago, that's one in five 9 to 12's with  Facebook profile.  Some of these profiles have been set up with the knowledge and help of their parents, and some have been set up secretly.  I've no doubt that a number of children have two profiles - a 'safe' one where they friend their folks and behave like good cybercitizens - and the real profile where they say and do what they want with whom they choose.

Many people don't realise this, but if you register as under 18 on Facebook, then the Facebook privacy settings work a little differently. Like adults, people under 18 can appear in search results on Facebook. Also, applications that they and their friends use and people who navigate to their profile will see their basic information (name, profile picture, gender and networks). But a public search listing will not be created for them, and even if they select the 'Everyone' setting, photos and status updates can actually be seen only by their friends, friends of friends, and people in a verified school or work network they have joined.

The problem is that when kids are lying about their age in order to get registered, they don't always choose to pretend to be under 18.  Which means that even these basic safeguards are not being applied.

A couple of months ago Mark Zuckerberg was reported to have said that Facebook should be open to children under 13.  Although perhaps he wasn't really quite that gung-ho about it:  “If children under 13 ever were [allowed to get on Facebook] we'd need to find a way for them to be safe,” he said, reported the Wall Street Journal. “We haven’t gone there yet, but over time it’s an important dialogue to have". 

On the panel at the Children's Media Conference, we broadly agreed.  Social networking for our children is now an important part of their psychological development, whether we like it or not. My fellow panellist, Dr Barbie Clarke, says in her co-authored paper for 'Mind the Gap' (another session at the conference) "A necessary skill to learn in adolescence is to negotiate social worlds, confronting difficult situations, and finding out about power play. It can be argued that the use of social networking using digital technology with which early adolescents are so engaged is a superb way to learn these skills." 

However, the paper goes on: "While there are many positive aspects of children using social networking, dangers undoubtedly exist, and not just the infiltration of online predators, but also cyberbullying and accessing disturbing or inappropriate material. While children are open about their lives, and want to share their worlds, they could potentially be putting themselves at risk, causing them emotional distress."

It's foolish to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that children aren't joining Facebook.  And wrong to think also that there is no potential harm in them doing so and being exposed to adult content, to 'friends' who may wish them harm, to cyberbullying.

 If a version of Facebook - Facebook with stabilisers but still 'cool' - could be created which would have default filters, no advertising, parental involvement, lockdown easy-to-understand privacy settings for those aged 10 -14, then perhaps we would be doing our best to provide children with the benefits of social networking and the training they need to negotiate an adolescence which will have social networking at its core.

Update 18 July 2011: DigitalME, the education social enterprise, just launched a 'debate hub' on the topic - come and read the zeitgeist and add your own view here.


* Research from EU Kids Online http://www2.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/EUKidsOnline/EUKidsSNSPressRelease.pdf

Read more...

Crisis? What crisis?

Guest post by eModeration's PR partner, Kate Hartley, Director of Carrot Communications


Crisis management is the phrase du jour in the eModeration / Carrot Communications camp at the moment. We’ve been workshopping our little socks off with brands and agencies who want help with preparing for a social media crisis. In the interest of finding out what the rest of the world is up to, we went to a ‘Crisis Management: cause, effect, recovery’ conference, organised by the lovely people at CorpComms magazine.

The Chatham House rule applied to much of the conference, so sadly I can’t share state secrets from the likes of Virgin, Goldman Sachs, Eurostar and McDonalds. (The presenters were incredibly candid which made for a fascinating day.) Gerald Ratner , of course, was one of the most inspiring, funny - and in many ways, moving – speakers I’ve ever heard at a conference.

But there were some recurring themes through almost all the presentations. Here are my top 10:

1. Be open, honest, and get your facts right. You will get found out if you lie, shut down commentary or bluff the facts. Social media has helped that particular process along nicely.
2. Lawyers aren’t always right (just ask Ryan Giggs). Not answering a question when faced with a Select Committee may reduce your litigation risk, but it doesn’t much help your credibility or reputation.
3. Put a human face on the company response to a crisis. People are much more forgiving to a human being than they are to a faceless logo. (Possibly with the exception of Tony Hayward.)
4. Sometimes, saying sorry is the best thing you can do. Assuming you mean it. As is helping your customers out of the crisis. We’re all human, things go wrong. An apology goes a long way to repairing the damage.
5. You can’t advertise your way out of a crisis. Solve the issue. No-one’s going to believe lots of positive stories about you until you’ve sorted out the mess. (My addition to this: don’t post positive messages all over your social media pages, either. Same effect, multiplied.)
6. Fix the problem. Take business action. PR isn’t a magic wand that puts everything right. Change your business if you have to, to recover trust.
7. Don’t be distracted by events – focus on reaching, and helping, your customers. They’re the ones that keep your business going.
8. Twitter is the first place journalists go to in a crisis (Brand Republic’s Gordon MacMillan responded to a tweet on this saying its: “The sound of the crowd, on tap”.
9. It takes hard graft to repair the damage and respond to criticism. And much of the hard graft will be done by the management team, not just the PR team. Be prepared.
10. Learn from the crisis. Review how you did, change your processes, even change your business. It might make you stronger.

 

 Many thanks to our Kate for her permission to reproduce this post, which first appeared on our BunkerBriefing blog, devoted to social media crisis communications. 

Read more...

Newsbytes: 1 July 2011

Google+ “sharing” service launches: Facebook rival?

Google has launched a new social service, dubbed Google+, which allows users to share content, videos and status updates. The company says, with an unusual degree of humility, that they’ve finally realized that “if you don’t know people, then you can’t organize the information for people.”

Yes, yes - I know it sounds like they’re taking on Facebook; and yes, yes - that hasn’t panned out so well for them in the past. But by all accounts, Google+ is PD cool.

Standout elements include Google’s brand-new, never-been-done-before concept of circles, which closely resembles how real-life social circles actually work and looks potential privacy issues squarely in the eye. Circles allows users to decide, with some granularity, which group of contacts you share which pieces of content with – none of the ‘share with your best friend ^and^ your boss - or don’t share at all” Facebook malarkey [Ed: we've got sneaky way round that here]. There’s also a video chat feature called ‘Hangout’, which by all accounts gives Skype Video a run for its money; and ‘Huddle’, a mobile group chat service that sounds super useful in enterprise situations. Upshot: while Mark Zuckerberg needn’t panic quite yet, Skype and other group messaging services should be anxiously twisting their hankies.


Google launches 'What do you love' and mobile site functionality

Google have been busy bees this week. As well as Google+, they hatched What Do You Love (I know – clunky), a new service which gives users search results from each of Google’s many different search resources. So a search on ‘shoes’ (don’t look at me like that) returns every Googley, shoe-based option available: ‘Find shoes nearby’ (maps) ‘Scour the earth for shoes’ (earth) ‘Latest news about shoes’ (News)
‘Access shoes stuff on the web, faster’ (Chrome) et-cet-e-rah, et-cet-e-rah. They’ve also squeezed additional functionality into their Google Sites platform, so that, as well as web pages, users can now knock up a mobile site quicksticks, without any knowledge of html.


MySpace sold for about thirty pence

I love MySpace: it’s very much the Eastenders of social networks, always a new low to be plumbed. Earlier in the week, the company laid off 150 workers – a full 37% of its staff - prompting many to wonder what in Hecate’s name those people had been actually employed to do. Now it seems that the site has been sold – for $35m. Hold on! (you cry), that can’t be right! Surely that’s a full eleventy-kajillion less than the $580m that owners News Corp paid for the social network back in 2005? Told you! (I respond): Eastenders.

And the story just keeps on giving. Now, as if a surreally-unsuitable guest-star has just swaggered into the Queen Vic, it emerges that Justin Timberlake has bought a stake in the ailing network. Yes, Timberlake did play Facebook chairman Sean Parker in The Social Network, and yes, that fact in no way qualifies him to do anything social-networky in real, actual life - even though he now wears geektacles. And yet I have here in my hand a press release which says that he will play a “major role” in its strategy and creative direction! See? Just. Keeps. On. Giving.

For example, this is interesting! It seems that MySpace has sold the non-anonymised data from every profile ever created – including, potentially, sexual orientation, political beliefs and suchlike - to ad-targeters Specific Media. I know! - what could possibly go wrong?


Investors pumping kazillions into social start-ups

New research from AdAge finds that, in the first quarter of 2011, private equity investors have thrown a mahoosive $2.5 billion into social startup companies – and an equally eye-watering $1.6 billion into social networks. To give you a sense of just how much kerching this actually is, Q1 venture capital funding for all privately-held firms in the States totalled $5.9 billion – so the proportion going to social business is truly staggering.


Social stats up, driven by over-fifties

Both Facebook and Twitter had a bit of a bumper month this month – 26.8 million people in the UK visited Facebook, making it bigger here than all of Microsoft’s sites - MSN, Windows Live and Bing – put together. Only the redoubtable Google was more popular, according to Nielsen. Twitter also saw some super-duper stats - 6.14 million uniques, translating to a 34% increase month on month.

Intriguingly, Nielsen finds that both increases are largely driven by the over-50s. While overall Facebook membership grew by 41% in 2 years, over-50s growth was 84%. Over on Twitter, the number of women aged over 65 grew by an even more astonishing 96%.
Advertisers, keen to tap this (relatively) comfortably-off demographic, will be champing at the bit.

Facebook: more awesome on the way

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg told visitors to Facebook’s Seattle base that he planned to “launch something awesome” next week – prompting speculation that their iPad app is finally cooked. Others wondered whether Facebook might be about to unveil a new photo-sharing service – or Project Spartan, a rumoured HTML5-based competitor to Apple's App Store which is already said to have 80-plus third-party developers, including Zynga, on board.


Facebook offers brands bigger, better insight

Facebook is also beefing up its insight team, the better to help brands measure their Facebook marketing results. VP of global marketing Carolyn Everson told delegates in Cannes that brands should stop fretting about the number of ‘likes’ they had, and start looking at actual consumer behaviour. “We need to measure awareness, affinity and purchase intent”, she said, and cited Samsung, Nike and US airline Jet Blue as examples of successful brand activity on Facebook.

Everson also announced the launch of an invitation-only ‘client council’, comprising a dozen or so of Facebook’s key clients and agencies, who will advise on the company on new ideas and products.


iPhones like buses: two coming at once

Apple fans – get ready for not one, but two new iPhones this September. Speculation is mounting that the tech behemoth will launch am iPhone 4S – a faster, unlocked iteration of iPhone 4 - and a spanky new iPhone 5. The latter will be pitched at Apple’s existing customer demographic, the former at the 1.5 billion potential new customers globally, two thirds of whom prefer pre-paid plans.


Video games have constitutional free speech protection

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that that a state law, which restricts the sale of violent video games to minors in California, is unconstitutional. The court found that the act violated the First Amendment, which protects the right to free speech, and held that “crudely violent video games, tawdry TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of speech than The Divine Comedy.” The judges were unconvinced that video games had special status, because participating in interactive acts of violence was different from, say, reading descriptions of violence – “the basic principles of freedom of speech do not vary with a new and different communication medium”.

Groupon subsidiary publishes user database

Yikes - Groupon’s Indian subsidiary SoSasta.com accidentally published its entire user database - including email addresses and clear-text passwords – earlier this week. The company scrambled to reassure users that “none of your financial information… has been compromised, since this information is not stored on SoSasta, as per law" - but didn’t mention that the information had already been indexed by Google. Upshot: SoSasta users who’ve used the same password/email combination on other sites (we shouldn’t, but we do) should definitely Panic Now.

A bientôt, mes amis!

For more social media snippets, follow @emodkate - or for general twittery, @KateVWilliams

Read more...