Intro to Blogging and Social Networking

Intro to Blogging and Social Networking An open letter from Parry Aftab of WiredSafety.org

My name is Parry Aftab. I head WiredSafety.org.

WiredSafety.org is the world’s largest Internet safety and help group, run entirely by unpaid volunteers from 76 countries around the world. We are a charity and promote safer and smarter use of interactive technologies and provide education, expertise and help to people of all ages online. We are an Internet safety watchdog group and are working with many large sites to help them create a safer environment and a better educated user group.

Xanga has agreed to post our safety tips and implement certain safer practices to help make sure that their users know what they need to know to protect themselves in cyberspace and enjoy the site safely. Part of this involves creating a special contact within Xanga to deal with serious matters and a program to make it easier for law enforcement to prevent and investigate cybercrimes and abuses:

• If you are a member of law enforcement, and need Xanga’s help, please contact Xanga here. Note that this is for law enforcement agencies and officers only. All other e-mails will be ignored if sent to this address.
• Schools and parents who have questions or need help should contact Xanga here. And if you need our help at WiredSafety.org with a cyberstalking, harassment or cyberbullying problem on Xanga, and you are unable to get help from them, reach out to WiredSafety.org’s cyberabuse reportline.
• If you suspect that you have encountered a sexual predator, immediately contact your local police department. You can also report Internet sexual predators at NCMEC’s cybertipline.

Xanga is a blogging & social networking site. You can share your likes (and dislikes), your expertise (or lack of it), communicate with friends (and strangers) and express yourself. It’s lots of fun. But if used improperly or carelessly, it can also be risky.

Xanga is dedicated to making their site fun, innovative and safe for its users. It is designed for a general audience and not just limited to teens. But no matter how careful a site is, whenever lots of people hang out online, it’s inevitable that some things will go wrong. Some people forget their manners and smart behavior when they’re online. They may do this thinking that they can’t be discovered or held accountable. They may think they are invulnerable or not realize the risk involved. Sometimes they don’t think at all.

When you have a free service, where anyone can be anyone they want to be, people act out. It also allows people to think they are anonymous and not accountable for their actions. But Xanga can identify the source of most posts and online communications at its site, through IP addresses. And, with the proper legal request (or when Xanga believes that the safety and welfare its users is at stake), Xanga will turn this over to the authorities. For more info, check out Xanga’s Privacy Policy.

While Xanga can help address problems and abuses reported to them (you can report any site on Xanga by clicking the little “flag” link on that site, or else you can report abuse here), it ultimately is up to us to protect ourselves in cyberspace (and up to parents to protect their children). We will help you learn how to do that. Expect many more guides coming soon. We’re typing and coding as fast as we can.

The problems encountered in social networking or other anonymous online communities typically fall into three categories:

• ID theft, fraud and privacy abuses;
• cyberbullying, cyberstalking and harassment; and
• sexual predators, con artists and sexual exploitation.

We’ll be providing more guides here at Xanga (including one for parents) shortly. Until then, here are a few safety tips that should help you stay safe at Xanga and everywhere online.

• For Parents: Parents should review my guide at WiredSafety.org about social networking and profile sites. And not panic. Before you react, remember what we did when we were teenagers. If my mother could have seen what I did when she wasn’t around, I would STILL be grounded! I tell parents to pick their battles. Even if their teens are using lewd and rude language on their profiles, try not to overreact. If they are posting provocative pictures, or demonstrating dangerous behaviors online, THAT’s when you need to take swift action. Make sure that they are not sharing too much personal information on their profiles that is publicly viewable. Remind them to password protect anything personal and only allow their real life friends to have access. Make sure they do not communicate with strangers who try and contact them at the site. I am writing a Guide for Parents About Xanga and Social Networking. Check back soon. WiredSafety.org also is producing short videos and workshops for parents on Internet safety. You learn more about online safety and get our help by visiting WiredSafety.org.
• Keep Your Personal Information to Yourself: Never divulge any personal information that could be used to find or identify you in real life in a public forum. Password protect this information. This information includes your real name, address, telephone number, mobile number, your workplace, health club, or links to websites or other profiles that might give this information away. It also includes this kind of information about your friends and family. You may be sharing more information than you intended to by including a pic with something showing in the photo. Your personal information could be easily abused and misused. Your password can often be guessed, your identity can be stolen, it can be used by people wanting to defraud you or groom a teen into an offline meeting, or used to cyberstalk or harass you or by cyberbullies. It’s your personal information… PROTECT IT!
• They are Just People You Meet Online, Not Real Friends: Remember that your online friends are not really your friends. You may like them, think they understand the real you and even connect. But, unless you know them offline, they are not real friends. They are just cyberfriends. You don’t know if that cute twenty-year old guy is cute, twenty or even a guy. Treat them like strangers you encounter on a bus. Chat with them, but don’t spill your guts to them. They should not be entrusted to provide you with advice about important life issues, or confided in, no matter how tempting it may be. No matter how often you have chatted with someone or how much you think you know about them, you never really know who you are chatting with online. People who are smarter than you are have been tricked. Don’t become a victim!
• Meeting Offline: Never meet anyone from the Internet offline. If you ignore all my tips about this and decide you are going to meet your cyber-soul mate offline, be careful. Review WiredSafety.org’s cyberdating tips first. And protect yourself. But remember-people have been killed by Internet “strangers” they meet offline, don’t become the next.
• Protect Your E-Mail Address: Use a free e-mail service, such as yahoo or hotmail. That way if things go wrong, you can just delete that account and don’t put your own e-mail address at risk. Also, get a good SPAM blocker program and never reply to SPAM asking to be removed from their lists. At best, your response never makes it to the sender. At worst, you are now identified as someone who reads the SPAM and are in demand by all SPAMMER lists.
• Are You Really Willing to Let Your Principal, Parents, or a Predator Read Your Profile: Don’t post anything in public that you don’t want your parents, principal, boss, university president, or admissions committee or boyfriend or girlfriend, or their parents to see. These posts tend to last longer than any of us thought they could. Once it’s posted, it’s forever. They are passed around and discoverable by search engines. You are never truly private when online. Remember that. Password protect everything and guard your password.
• Protect your computer: Make sure you have a good firewall and an automatically updated anti-virus program installed on your computer. While you’re at it, get a good spyware or adware blocker too. And be careful about downloading or opening files sent to you, even from people you know. Many viruses masquerade as being from someone you know. And hacking tools and programs (such as Trojan horses) can give someone a backdoor to your computer, all your passwords and banking information.
• Protect Your Password! Keep your password to yourself and don’t pick one that’s easy to guess. (Keeping it on a post-it note glued to your monitor at work may not be the best way of storing your password securely.) To protect yourself from posers, come up with a secret code word for friends. If you are chatting with someone and suspect that it may be a poser, ask them for the code word. If they don’t know it, log-off. (It could be a crook, their friend, roommate, or parent!) And know that the people who abuse your password the most are your close friends. So make sure you don’t share it with them either.
• Get a Life! Xanga wants you to spend lots of time enjoying their site. But even they agree with me that sometimes everyone can spend too much time online. Make sure that you don’t spend all of your time online. Don’t give up on your offline friends or social life. I know that we are all thinner, cuter, more popular and smarter online than we are in real life. But spending less time online has its benefits too. (We may actually become thinner, cuter, more popular and smarter in RL. )
• Don’t be an easy mark. I am always amazed at how many otherwise intelligent people are conned online by offers that are obviously too good to be true. If something seems too good to be true, it’s not true. Period. No exceptions. Does it make sense to you that the brother-in-law of the former Nigerian president found you out of the 700 million other users online to entrust with their 500 million dollars? Give me a break! Read the tip immediately above. You need a life! (See tip above. )
• ThinkB4UClick: Before posting something online, check and make sure it says what you wanted it to say, can’t be misconstrued and is being posted at the right place or sent to the right person. Think about the person on the other side. Many cyberwars start with a careless message.
• Don’t bite at a “phishing” scheme. Phishing is when an ID thief sends millions of e-mails or IMs pretending to be your bank, or online service, like Paypal. They look real and try to scare you into reacting without thinking. They claim that someone has broken into your account, or that changes were made to your account. They ask you to log in using the link in the e-mail. The link takes you to their site, but you think you’re at your bank’s site. You type in your login and password. A page pops up telling you that your account is secure and thanking you. Your real account is accessed and emptied within minutes. If you aren’t sure if the e-mail is real or not, check with the site directly by typing it into your browser. If you were already caught by a “phish”, report it to your bank or the website right away.
• Take5! If something upsets you online, put down the mouse and walk away form the computer… so no one will get hurt! Take five minutes to do something you enjoy doing for five minutes, to help you calm down and reply with a clear head. If you find a post that is designed to harass, cyberbully, threaten or frighten you or someone else, let us know. It violates Xanga’s terms of service and will be addressed by their abuse team. And while you’re at it, treat others the way you want to be treated online too. It’s the Internet golden rule!

Let Xanga know if there is a problem. Xanga doesn’t permit anything that hurts their members. Check out their terms of service (and report abuses by either clicking the little “flag” link on the abusive site or contacting Xanga here). If you violate them, your hard earned and creative profile will be deleted. And arm yourself with good Internet safety information at WiredSafety.org.

Tell a Trusted Adult and Report Cybercrime: If you are a minor (under 18 years of age), make sure that you tell your parents or another trusted adult if something goes wrong. Don’t try and handle it yourself. If it involves dangerous or criminal activity, or someone you suspect is a predator or criminal, report it to your local law enforcement agency. Bring them a printout, but also make sure it isn’t deleted. The police need the original live communication (not just a forward) to check out the headers and other information necessary to trace the communication.

If you have questions or need help, visit us at WiredSafety.org and fill out one of our report forms. One of our specially trained volunteers will get right back to you. If you want to join and help us, you can drop by WiredSafety.org and fill out one of our volunteer applications. We welcome the help.

These tips were written for Xanga, and are copyrighted to me and WiredSafety.org. If you want to reproduce them or use them at your site, you’ll need to get my permission. To reach me, visit WiredSafety.org, Aftab.com or e-mail AskParry@WiredSafety.org.

Now, go have some fun!