Should There Be a Panic Button on Social Networking Sites?
There has been much coverage in the UK press recently regarding behavior on social networking sites, including cyber-bullying, especially with regard to the safety of children. Being sure of a person's identity and intention online is a particularly difficult problem given the scale of sites and services available on the Internet. This has led a number of sites to consider the implementation of a panic button to report inappropriate behavior online.
Children, without strict parental controls in place, potentially have access to any number of sites, including not only social networking sites, but also topic based forums, blog comment areas, instant messaging systems, chat rooms and multi-player in game chat. Information given out in direct and immediate communication systems such as instant messaging and chat rooms could be used by online predators or cyber bullies.
Inappropriate behavior can often start out as harmless discussion before becoming inflammatory, possibly leading to instances of cyber-bullying or other predatory behavior so careful consideration needs to be placed on safety mechanisms. The idea of a panic button looks to be a first step in helping keep people safe online. The Bebo social networking site was one of the first to link an alerting function to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre in the UK which offers a safety net to children and parents.
The idea of this particular central alerting system is an interesting one especially as it is linked directly to a government project which could potentially place innocent people under the watchful glare of government agencies – as part of the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT). The Virtual Global Taskforce consists of a number of police forces around the world jointly investigating online child abuse. The safety of our children is paramount made even more so by the apparent ease in which social engineering tactics can be employed, anonymously with easy to setup accounts, on the Internet.When using Internet social networking sites, and other sites where personal information may be made available, it is vital to ensure you are familiar with the privacy controls in place and to make effective use of them. It is also important to educate children, in particular, to never give out personal information over the Internet.
You can read more about the UK Government Internet Safety initiatives at DirectGov: Internet Safety.
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