Stalking generally involves harassing or threatening behavior that an individual engages in repeatedly, e.g., following a person, appearing at a person’s home or place of work, making harassing phone calls, leaving harassing messages or objects, or vandalizing a person’s property.

Stalkers (who are more like “cyber-bullies” and less like “griefers”) are becoming more brazen — leaving threatening cell phone messages, explaining what the families are wearing and doing at the time — all in freaky, guttural voices. Turns out, it’s all technically feasible (although illegal, of course), and police are investigating.

It sounds like a horror movie, but innocent families have literally been terrorized in their own homes by groups of anonymous hackers.

Just imagine someone (using sophisticated technology) being able to see everything you do, listen to everything you say, and use that information to threaten your childrens’ lives! For sisters, Darcie Price and Heather Kuykendall, this is no horror movie; indeed, it’s been a campaign of technological terror that they say has been all too real . . .

The two sisters recently shared their story with viewers of The Morning Show, a video of which is provided below:

The messages they’ve received demonstrate that the caller has come to find out what their families are doing at a moment’s notice, what they’re wearing, and as you heard in the video, they’ve gone so far as to threaten school shootings and killing family members and pets!

The Kuykendalls say they got these calls almost every day, and they appear to come from the cell phone of the Kuykendall’s 16-year-old daughter, Courtney.

They believe their cell phones, as well as those owned by other families, have been taken over and the cell-phones’ cameras mysteriously turn on and off. While the mystery of the Kuykendall family’s cell phone experience hasn’t been fully explained, it has left most people convinced that such events are indeed possible.

Abusive people are often controlling and want to know your every move. You don’t need to be a computer programmer or have special skills to monitor someone’s computer and Internet activities - anyone can do it and there are many ways to monitor with programs like Spyware, keystroke loggers and other hacking tools, many of which are found free of charge on the internet.

Still, parents and teens alike, who are educated about cyber-bullying, stand a far lesser chance of being victimized. Contrary to common belief, a lot of bullies don’t suffer from low self-esteem — quite the opposite . . .

Tags: cell phone, public records, sprint, alltel, facebook

Because the terms “cyber-bully” and “griefer” are often tossed around interchangeably, I began the first part of our discussion by clarifying the term “griefer,” the second part by clarifying “cyber-bully,” and by explaining (in both cases) when and under which circumstances the two terms were meaningfully distinguished.

I will begin this section by introducing the legal term harassment.

Where Cyber-Bullying Becomes Harassment
We can certainly split hairs over whether we’re looking at a simple case of “griefing” or “cyber-bullying” or whatever else one might prefer to call it. But, whenever we’re looking at conduct that substantially interferes with the education or physical or mental health of a student, or that threatens or intimidates a student — we are at the same time, looking at what the courts have overwhelmingly held as “plain, old-fashioned harassment.”

Once the perpetrator has engaged in harassment, the law could care less whether they were doing so while playing an online game (as a “griefer”), or were just being malicious to a fellow student (as a “cyber-bully”).

Either case, where it constitutes a pattern of inappropriate, disrespectful behaviors, becomes unlawful when (a) enduring the offensive conduct becomes a condition of continued education (for the victim), or (b) when the conduct is severe or pervasive enough to create an educational environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile, or abusive.

“Online harassment,” aside from occurring in an online environment, can still be construed as simple harassment. It can be direct or indirect, where direct online harassment would include threats, intimidating messages and/ or bullying that is sent directly to a victim by email or other forms of online communication, or by hindering the victim’s internet service, by hacking.

Chat rooms, instant messaging services, and social networking sites are all among the most popular venues for cyberbullying, and account for almost all instances of online harassment. Online harassment can even follow the victim home.

Two of the more important things we learn by looking at cyber-bullying from a legal perspective, is that (a) where harassment is found, the responsibility for creating a safe and respectful school environment is placed on the manager; and (b) schools have a legal responsibility to intervene when they know or suspect students are being harassed. One way to intervene is to punish. But, before punishing students, schools must draw a distinction between harassment and student expression (i.e., free speech) that is protected by law.

“. . . schools do not need to wait to respond to conduct until it escalates to a point where it may be punished. Schools may respond to such conduct in ways other than punishment. In fact, they have a responsibility to do so. For example, if a teacher were to overhear a student directing a homophobic slur at another student, she would have a responsibility to explain why such language is inappropriate and harmful. The teacher should also point out that if such conduct continues, it could be subject to punishment. There is no better way to prevent student harassment than to educate students about why slurs and other harassing behavior are harmful.”

- ACLU

By narrowly tailoring its punishments to fit the case at hand, a school strikes the proper balance between two equally important and entirely compatible constitutional rights — the right to equal protection of the laws and the right to free speech.

Insofar as my professional training does not lie directly in the area of law, I think it best at this point to simply direct your attention to the ACLU, which provides a model anti-harassment policy that can prevent harassment without violating student’s free speech rights.

Tags: social networking, sprint, cell phone number lookup, gps, iphone

Because the terms “cyber-bully” and “griefer” are often tossed around interchangeably, I began the first part of our discussion by clarifying the term “griefer,” and explaining when and under which circumstances the two terms are meaningfully distinguished.

That in mind, I will begin this section with a clarification of the term “cyber-bully.”

The Cyber-bully
Cyber-bullies operate outside the context of games, be they online or off.

Cyberbullying can include cruel jokes, malicious gossip, embarrassing information or photographs, and/ or Web sites designed to target a specific child or teacher. It can involve someone your child knows, maybe or a complete stranger. Cyber bullying is often limited to online insults about someone’s physical appearance, friends, clothing, or sexuality. But, some cyber bullies are more creative; they can be completely horrid, emotionally damaging but mostly, just plain cowardly.

Cyber bullying is the new way that bullies target their victims. It can involve tricking someone into divulging personal or potentially humiliating information and then sending it to other people online. Perpetrators use instant-messaging (IM), chat rooms, and websites to threaten, humiliate, and belittle their victims. Cyberbullying is primarily relational bullying — it takes place online, which for today’s teens, is the most social of social spaces. Instead of rumor being whispered in the hallway at school, it now is copied, pasted and forwarded.

Out of respect for all involved, the following extended quote was copied in whole from the commentary of a recent YouTube video entitled, “Megan Meier’s Death Linked to Friend’s CYBER-BULLY Parents!”

Should the adults involved in deceiving Megan, Lori and Curt Drew, be held accountable for their actions? The Drews have been besieged with negative publicity, and Meier’s death prompted her hometown of Dardenne Prairie to adopt a law engaging in Internet harassment a misdemeanor. In a bizzare twist the law’s first use could be to prevent possible harassment against the Drews!

Megan Meier died believing that somewhere in this world lived a boy named Josh Evans who hated her. The final message Megan Meier saw on her MySpace account: “Everybody in O’Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you.”

On Oct. 16, 2006, Ron and Tina Meier discovered Megan had tied a cloth belt around a support beam in her closet and hanged herself. Megan died the following day.

Six weeks after Megan’s death her parents were informed that Megan was the victim of a cruel hoax on MySpace. The perpetrators were the parents of Megan’s one time friend. The Drews had concocted Josh Evans to get back at Megan for quarreling with their daughter. After Megan’s death, they even asked Megan’s parents if they could store their foosball table in Megan’s parent’s garage. Upon learning the details of what had happened to their daughter and who was behind it, Megan’s father destroyed the, “alleged” hoaxers Curt and Lori Drew’s, foosball table.

Because Ms. Drew had taken Megan on family vacations, she knew the girl had been prescribed antidepression medication, Ms. Meier said. She also knew that Megan had a MySpace page.

Ms. Drew had told a girl across the street about the hoax, said the girl’s mother, who requested anonymity to protect her daughter, a minor.

“Lori laughed about it,” the mother said, adding that Ms. Drew and Ms. Drew’s daughter “said they were going to mess with Megan.” Over the last year the Drew’s have had threatening phone calls, a brick through the window,a lawn job and paintball attacks.

This Wednesday [late November, 2007], officials in Megan Meier’s home town vote on whether to make online harassment a local crime. The proposed ordinance would make online harassment a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by a $500 fine and up to 90 days in jail.

Or, the telecommunications harassment law. Amended in 2005, the law prohibits people from anonymously using the Internet with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person.

aliceangel17

You can read more about this case on this website; relatedly, you can join a Google group devoted to exposing online predators and cyber-paths here.

In the meantime, it’s important to consider that those who engage in cyber-bullying are probably not thinking about the consequences of their actions, and probably believe they are smart enough to not get caught because of their presumed “invisibility.” From what we’ve read of Lori Drew (above), this was probably not so in her case (far from it) — but, either way you look at it, cyber-bullying is still a repeated attack (i.e., a harassment) on others, and chances are, if someone is being cyber bullied, they are probably also being physically bullied at school; as, again, we found with Megan Meier.

Long story short: CYBER-PATHS NEED TO BE VERY SURE WHAT THEY ARE ACCUSING SOMEONE OF! THE TRUTH is a 100% defense to defamation or libel. Accusing someone of defamation or libel when they are telling the truth, however, IS actionable.

While we are reticent to call “cyber-bullying” a crime or in any other way, to treat children as adults — we cannot hold them as innocent or otherwise ignore the damage they inflict on innocent others, damages which in some cases have resulted in suicide.

For this reason, we look to the law to understand how it views such behaviors, where it draws important distinctions, what it requires in terms of responsibilities, and what it provides by way of civil remedies. The final section of our discussion will take up the question of where cyber-bullying becomes harassment.

Tags: nokia, obama, online security, pocket pc, people finder

Because the terms “cyber-bully” and “griefer” are often tossed around interchangeably, I’d like to clarify when and under which circumstances they are meaningfully distinguished (at least for our purposes), and when they are not. General definitions, set in their proper context, will probably suffice for this purpose. Where such definitions fail to adequately reach, or address, problems involving physical or psychological damages, we will look to the law to determine (a) whether it has come to recognize meaningful distinctions between griefers and cyber-bullies. More importantly, we will look to the law to (b) get a better understanding of the types of remedies it provides where damages are incurred (Note: though it would seem to “round-out” our discussion to lie it alongside an actual case study, our blog format is not suitable for such elaborations, so anyway . . . ).

Let me begin with a general clarification of the term “griefer.”

The Griefer
“Griefer” is a slang term used to describe a player in a multiplayer video game who plays the game simply to cause grief to other players through harassment. Griefing is a malignant form of emergent gameplay (see “griefer” at Wikipedia.org).

I think of griefers, metaphorically, as the annoying kids at a birthday party; they keep yelling, crying, and throwing things until you ignore them long enough for them to realize they’re not actually changing anything with their off-the-wall behavior. If you give them credit, or attribute any change to them, good or bad, they’ll continue acting out. In this sense, griefers are simply immature pranksters who only feel important when they can successfully frustrate other people.

The video below shows how a griefer disrupts a Second Life interview. They invade the interview with flying penises, and plaster obsenities and racist materials over the scenery. For this reason, viewers should be be over 18 years of age.

Griefers dedicate their online lives to destroying the time others have, while engaging in virtual communities; they are a sub-culture unto themselves. Griefers’ existence revolves around the idea that there is nothing online so serious that it cannot, in one way or another, be ridiculed or trifled.

The idea that SecondLife (a popular online game) is a “free place to live your second life,” is said to be under attack by griefers, but it’s the money makers who are worried because here, griefers affect their revenue streams, which is why those who have a vested interest in such games have turned to real world courts to settle their disputes with griefers.

Looking back on Wikipedia’s definition — particularly where they suggest griefers want to “cause grief to other players through harassment” — we find literal evidence that griefers intend to harass. And, while some might reasonably overlook the more playful intent of griefers as “good clean fun,” the money makers are not alone in wanting to draw a line. Countless others have been affected where griefers have chosen to harass innocent others, particularly those who are not involved in any game whatsoever.

This is where we distinguish “griefers” from “cyber-bullies” . . . the only question remaining, for purposes of assigning legal responsibilities, is whether such distinctions are at all productive?? I will address this question in the second part of our discussion, which begins with a clarification of the term “cyber-bully.”

Tags: obama, online security, public records, nokia, ipod

Social networking over the Internet among teenagers is more than just a passing fad. I suspect that it will grow in popularity as more and more households go on-line.

Facebook now brings together 66 million online users. While many of these users are students and recent graduates, users 35 years old and older (myself included) represent more than half of Facebook’s daily visitors and are now the network’s most rapidly growing demographic.

Though security measures, such as minimum age limits on MySpace and valid college email addresses on Facebook.com, have been set in place, these are certainly not foolproof. MySpace recently made national headlines when a Michigan 16-year-old was detained in Jordan while on her way to Israel to meet a man she met on the website; the story was followed on television by several Dr. Phil shows. The girl has since been returned to the United States.

In a separate case, a 14-year-old girl from Austin, Texas is suing MySpace for $30 million, alleging she was sexually assaulted by a 19-year-old man she met on the site.

Apparently, some people believe that, if they’ve done nothing wrong, then they have nothing to hide. If you share this view, consider the following:

When you open a credit card account, start a new mobile phone contract or move your electricity billing online, you have to present some personal information to the company so they can authenticate you later. Traditionally, this would be your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name, but now popular alternatives include your favorite food, a pet’s name or even a customized question and answer.

Scan through your Facebook profile and see if you (and therefore anyone else) could answer basic questions about you. If so, a potential thief has access to your security answers and it’s time to edit your profile and maybe, call your bank!

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s 23 year-old CEO has openly explained that Facebook makes a lot of use of memcache to get better performance and that they’ve built a lot of custom code for MySQL, which they’ve donated back to the community, and why he’s seen as one of the most interesting business leaders of our time.

Talking about how his management team works, how he’s working to keep a unique culture, and has explained in detail what’s coming this year in Facebook.

Speaking of which, Facebook has recently come to demand that you take an extra three minutes and get a Yahoo Mail or AOL mail address. This would seem to be a clear indication that the company is “pruning its subscribers” in anticipation of an acquisition in the next 2-3 quarters. After all, Facebook has an economic incentive to publish ever more data about its users.

So, while Zuckerberg may well rigidly adhere to the highest code of responsibility to the internet community his work fostered, some would still argue that, some day, all the data Facebook has collected will be owned by a Murdoch, and all the people who use this site will likewise be owned. The direct marketing fallout is potentially just a mere annoyance compared to the more grave implications attending thereto (did someone say “Patriot Act”?)

Apparently, what happens on Facebook doesn’t stay on Facebook.

Tags: smartphone, facebook, sprint, obama, nokia

Nowadays, virtually all kids have cell phones, many of them have computers, and they’re now able to make and stay in relationships, using Facebook and other social+networking" rel="tag">social networking sites, which collectively will mean they won’t have to say goodbye to one another. Their list of friends can simply grow larger and larger and, for a lot of them, they’ll probably stay in touch… Not all, but let’s just say a lot of them will. And, years later, what will they be like??

The point I was trying to make was that I grew a lot (socially, psychologically, intellectually) by not staying in touch with a lot of the people who I had previously allowed (taking personal responsibility here) to limit my thinking, influence my values, etc. such that keeping my distance from them has allowed me to grow in ways I would not have grown otherwise.

Sure, a lot of those same people influenced me in positive ways as well, but had it not been for the distance, I might not have learned to grow on my own. I think it would have been sad to have not had the opportunity to grow in my own way, and in my own time.

I liken someone’s socio-psychological growth, metaphorically, to the growth of a bean stalk. If you grow a bean stalk next to a stick, it’ll grow up nice and strong alongside that stick. You tie it to the stick and it gives the bean something to lean on. However, if you grow a plant without that stick, it’ll still grow, probably not as straight and tall, but however much it grows, it will have done so on its own. Now, if you take the stick away from the first plant, it’ll probably fall because it’s growth was predicated on leaning. The second plant never had anything to lean on, so its growth was more autonomous.

We don’t always know what will happen in our lives, so oftentimes, when a situation develops beyond our control, where we’re no longer able to lean on those who’ve always been there for us . . . we either crumble (because we never learned how to take care of ourselves), or we thrive (because we had previously learned how to live without the support of loved ones).

I wonder how the current generation will develop/ mature as time goes on, insofar as they’re not allowing themselves the same kind of distance from close associates that I had, which led to a lot of growth — a lot a good growth.

In the end, I guess time will tell. It always does. I just wonder about these kinds of things sometimes because there’s a lot of people from my past who, quiet as it’s kept, I don’t really care to get back in touch with. I’d like to know that they’re doing alright, but beyond that, I can only imagine that there’s a good reason why we haven’t stayed in touch over the years — and I’m comfortable with whatever that reason might be.

After all, I’m no longer single. I’m a happily married man, and (like most happily married men) I don’t live the way I used to live. I don’t think the way I used to think. I’m 1000 times more responsible and in control of myself than ever before, and when I engage certain personalities from the past, they remind me of a time when none of this was true about me; a time when I had a lot less to be proud of. It’s not anything to do with social networking privacy issues; I feel comfortably secure in where I’m at these days, and I work for myself; I just don’t feel as if I have very much in common with them any more.

So my thinking has simply been to “let sleeping dogs lie”; like the Beatles used to say, “Let it be.” There’s a lot to be said for social networking, no doubt, but apparently there’s a lot to be said for the lack of social networking also. In the end, it still appears that we’ll make of our lives what we will, despite our greatest technological challenges and/ or discoveries. I don’t know for sure. I’m not that smart.

What I do know is that I’ll remain on Facebook. I’ll just remain mindful of what I am and of what I’m becoming, rather than what I was.

Tags: sprint, pocket pc, ipod, iphone, alltel

Like most people, I’ve been adding new friends/ people from the past, people from college and high school. I’ve been looking at their faces, their profiles, and wondering what I would say to them after so many years have passed.

The main thing is that by engaging my memories about them, and what they meant to me — it all just reminds me of how much I’ve grown since then. I mean, we’re talking 30 years since high school and 25 years since college.

I got friends out there who are now grandparents, and interestingly — most of them, when I look at their profiles, have anywhere from a few to maybe a dozen so-called “friends.” Then, of course, there are the youngsters that I know also, nephews and nieces, people like that (they’re “20 something”), and I’ve noticed that a lot of them have anywhere from 200 to 300 friends!! Of course, they’re in college and they’re attacking it like any other fad.

For them, it’s cool to have a Facebook presence and to join hundreds of arcane Facebook “groups,” so their numbers will naturally soar as a result of their being involved with one another, in college, and let’s face it, Facebook’s only been around since 2004.

In other words, we didn’t have social networking sites like Facebook when I was coming up.

When I graduated from Carleton College (Northfield, MN) in ‘76, our school had just snapped up its first computer. It was not exactly the “talk of the campus” (it was more of an “interesting oddity” at that time); it filled up a whole room that was always refrigerated, and no one that I knew had ever actually “seen it.” Still, it was apparently memorable.

Guess that goes to show just how much things have changed in a relatively short amount time.

What’s worth teasing out, is the idea that I grew up knowing that the “school trip” (i.e., the whole “going away to boarding school/ college experience”) involved getting to know someone for a couple or few years, and eventually, splitting up and going your separate ways — knowing that you’d probably never see each other again for the rest of your lives! Heck, I finished college, grad school, my doctorate and taught for 10 years and, for the most part, things were still like that! We didn’t make associations that were “that close” because we knew, in the back of our minds, that pretty soon, we’d have to split up. There were no “best friends forever” (BFF); in fact, nothing was “forever.”

I mean, that’s the way things were, we all knew it, and though we didn’t exactly like it, we accepted it and worked around it — by putting more into the time we had together.

Nowadays, virtually all kids have cell phones, most either own or have access to computers, and they’re now able to make and stay in relationships, using Facebook and other social networking sites, which collectively will mean they won’t have to say goodbye to one another. Their list of friends can simply grow larger and larger and, for a lot of them, they’ll probably stay in touch… Not all, but let’s just say a lot of them will.

So, I ask myself: what are they going to be like when they get to be grandparents??

Tags: obama, public records, cell phone, smartphone, sprint

Cyber-bullying is the new way that bullies target their victims. They use instant messaging (IM), chat rooms, and websites to threaten, humiliate, and belittle their victims. Cyber-bullies tend not to think about the consequences of their actions and believe they are smart enough not get caught because of their anonymity.

Bullies can easily post offensive messages attached to a target’s name and photograph. A few keystrokes, and those messages can reappear anywhere. Bullies can also challenge authorities with arguments of freedom of speech and intellectual property; they pit ethics against rights. Bullies can be male or female - the main difference is that female bullies are more likely to carefully plan their attacks, are usually more devious, manipulative, subtle, leave less evidence, will often bully with a smile and are more likely to bully in groups. They are also more likely to bully with words and body language (including glares, rolling of the eyes, the “evil eye”, some forms of exclusion, and the silent treatment).

In general, cyber-bullies pick on children who are not confident. Bullies in cyber space don’t have to be the biggest kids in the school yard, and in a world where sticks and stones really can’t break your bones, it is those most adept or loose with their words who can hurt others the most. Bullies use email, instant messaging, chat rooms, mobile phone cameras, text and websites. They aim to humiliate by altering photos and text on MySpace pages; they hack into victims’ accounts and pose as them, sometimes locking the victim out of their own account.

And, of course, bullies don’t have to actually “see” their victims or answer for their actions. Like the cowards they are, they hide behind their computers - behind a veil of “presumed anonymity.” Bullies think because it’s on the Internet and not at school, adults won’t see the hurtful or threatening messages or Websites and they can get away with it. Cyberbullying can include cruel jokes, malicious gossip, embarrassing information or photographs, and/or Web sites designed to target a specific child or teacher.

It can involve someone your child knows or a complete stranger. Cyber-bullying is often limited to online insults about someone’s physical appearance, friends, clothing, or sexuality.

Girls are twice as likely as boys to be cyber-bullies as well as be targeted by cyber-bullies. There was a recent case caught on tape about a 16 year-old girl who was filmed being beaten mercilessly for a 1/2 hour by 6 other girls — apparently, the fight broke out over something the victim had posted online (see video below). And, while the girls (and two male “look-outs”) have been charged by authorities, and that would seem bad enough, wait a minute. The mother of one of the girls who perpetrated the violence was quoted as saying something to the effect that she didn’t see why the victim would say what she did if she didn’t have the nerve to back it up! And we wonder how these teens became so brutal, where’d they learn their conflict resolution skills, and where in the heck they got their sense of humanity from (or the lack thereof). This is insane!

Parents educated about cyber-bullying stand a far lesser chance of their child being victimized. But, as indicated in the above video, some parents do a crappy job of raising their own children and lay fertile ground for their kids to grow up believing they can inflict violence, or otherwise, put their hands on someone else when things don’t go their way. I grew up with all boys in our family, we fought every day, but I grew out of it when we got to the age and size where we realized we could do serious damage to one another. Contrary to belief, a lot of bullies don’t suffer from low self-esteem — quite the opposite . . .

Message from a Concerned Reader:

For the past three years, I have spearheaded online safety education and awareness not only in my school, but entire region. As Internet Safety Coordinator, I have now taught over 750 children online safety lessons I created, and have educated countless parents and teachers. Working with over 500 children every week, gives me a unique persepctive most do not have.

Cyberbullying is an issue I have been more than passionate about for the past three years. I have also put together an award-winning educational resource blog that deals specifically with online safety issues.

Thanks for writing about this rapidly growing trend. If you want further info, please take a look at my website: http://InternetSafetyAdvisor.info

Well, we’ve got one more piece to wrap up our series on Cyber-bullies, trash-texting and happy slapping. I want to sharpen my research focus for this next piece so that it not only incorporates much of what I’ve established so far, but takes us to a place where we can more intelligently discuss ways of addressing this phenomenon (outside of incarceration). Or, would you like to see our society simply build more jails and, as a matter of policy, answer violence with incarceration?

Tags: cell phone, mobile computing, smartphone, social networking, gps

. . . it’s (might as well say) inevitable that some people will act in ways that will annoy fellow members. So, based on online blogs, articles and using Facebook religiously, here are our Top 10 tips on Facebook Etiquette.

1. Don’t be Afraid to ‘Ignore’ Someone!

Probably the number one conundrum on Facebook is how to respond when you’re contacted by a blast from the past, who (for whatever reason) you don’t particularly feel like getting back in touch with.

Don’t let this worry you! If you ‘ignore’ them when they friend request you (by pressing your ‘ignore’ button), they won’t get a message saying you rejected them, or anything kinda’ awkward like that. Think of it as pretending you didn’t see them, while walking down the street — hey, it happens all the time, to everyone. Lighten up!

2. Give Good Birthday Greetings

Facebook keeps track of your friends’ birthdays, and sending them a message on their special day only takes a couple seconds. Plus, it’ll help you save face for forgetting to send them an actual card! So, “be a friend to your friends” and take the time to ping them off a message.

3. Respect the Wall

There’s nothing cool about opening your profile and finding some wimp has drawn a naked woman on your wall made from asterisks (*), dollar signs ($) and dashes (-). Hey, it’s a public display to Facebook friends, so the least you could do is show a little respect.

4. Talking to Strangers?

Although adding people (you haven’t actually met) as friends is a great way to boost the size of your list, it’s a practice that frowned upon by “Facebook aficionados.” OMG, they even have a name for these people: Creepers!

5. Stay Sober

Like drunken text messages, inebriated wall posts lead to heartache, in more ways than you can imagine. If you’ve ever had a Black Russian (or two…), we’re probably thinking along the same lines already! Long story short: Don’t drink and Facebook (or blog, for that matter). You’ll be sorry!

6. Who Wants a Clean House?

There are literally thousands of Facebook applications on the market, but having too many can clutter your profile and make you look like a stinky geek. Remember, you can delete applications once you get bored with them, and there are often several applications to choose from that do the same thing (to check out the best applications click here).

7. Avoid “Shrines” Like the Plague

There is nothing more tragic than a Facebook profile devoted to a loved one or a potential partner. Face book is all about you, what you’ve been up to and what you’ve got to say for yourself — not about someone else you’re trying to impress.

8. Add an App or Two

Installing Facebook apps is as simple as ordering something to eat from a restaurant menu. There is no need to download any files, and no need to copy anything to your hard disk, or run any kind of complex installer. This is because all the available applications are stored on Facebook’s own system.

Related Posts on the Web

• 12 Tips for Getting Your Startup Featured on Mashable
• 10 Things You Didn't Know About Facebook
• Marketing Your Business on a Facebook Page
• Social Network Privacy Fears Exaggerated
• 5 Tips For Making The Most Out Of Social Networking Websites

My 10 favorite applications are Video, My Questions, Graffiti, Top Friends, Superpoke!, X Me, Fortune Cookie, iLike, Free Gifts and Horoscopes.

9. No Place for Stalkers

A lot of people won’t join Facebook! Apparently, they’re afraid of being stalked by cyber-bullies, ex-partners or creepy online admirers (women stalk me like that all the time — just kidding)! But seriously, if you play around with its privacy settings, Facebook is really a safe place for anyone.

10. A Note on Privacy

For some reason, people often feel strangely comfortable revealing details online that they would never discuss in “real life,” but beware. Facebook lets you categorize yourself in many ways, including your sexual preference(s), relationship status, and political views. And, although this information is deeply personal, posting it on Facebook makes it available both to people you know as well as those you’d probably rather not.

Facebook allows you, for example, to join as many virtual “groups” as you’d like; some are pretty straightforward (e.g., groups with names like “nerdy pickup lines,” “you were sexy until I saw that cigarette in your hand,” or “free rice”). Some, however, are organized around overtly controversial political or religious statements (e.g., “anti Hillary Clinton for president 08,” “Against Gay Marriage? Then Don’t Get One and Shut the F*ck Up,” or “abortion is murder”).

Here’s the Point: One fifth of American companies actually admit to using the Internet to search for job candidates’ Facebook profiles . . . which means the real number is probably a lot greater, and more importantly, there’s no way for you to determine (after the fact) whether or not you’ve been passed up for a position/ promotion because you thought you were completely anonymous, saying the “wrong” thing, being friends with the “wrong” person, or joining the “wrong” group on Facebook. Think!

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As indicated in our introductory piece, this will be the first of a three part series on the cyber-bullies, trash-texting and happy slapping. While every generation seems to find its own way of “doing its own thing,” the recent popularity of social networking seems to have placed countless children and younger teens in the way of harm that none of them could either anticipate or control.

I hope, by identifying some of the concerned parties and laying out some of the basic considerations involved, that this series will generate a social network of its own — one that’ll sharpen parental awareness and place teens ahead of the curve so they can act more responsibly.

That said, we’ll begin our discussion in the usual way, by defining a few key terms.

Part 1: The Slippery Slope of social networking
Also known as virtual communities or profile sites, a “social network” is a website on the internet that brings people together to one central location where, from the comforts of their own home (or basement, it depends), they can talk, gossip, share ideas, photos, videos, stories, their journals, make new friends and so on.

Some of the more popular social network sites include Bebo, Facebook, MySpace (which, I’m sure, you’ve heard of), YouTube, and Yahoo 360. More of these types of sites are being launched every day, especially catering to smaller niche areas (i.e., bodybuilding, sewing, specific colleges, etc).

Over the past few years, social networking sites have become especially popular among younger kids/ teens (8 - 16). Some, as a result of which, have unfortunately become popular destinations for cyber-bullies and online predators who intentionally prey on younger kids.

Internet safety expert Nancy Willard, and author of the newly released, Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online Social Aggression, Threats, and Distress, gives parents and others the tools they need to help keep their children and teens safe from online threats such as sexual predators, pornography, and cyberbullies.

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“Online communications,” she explains, “can be extremely cruel and vicious. They can cause great emotional harm and can take place 24/7. Damaging text and images can be widely disseminated and impossible to fully remove.”

Willard doesn’t lead parents to believe they can fully prevent their children from using these sites, but they can use positive, practical strategies from her book and elsewhere to teach their children to make safer, more responsible choices online.

On the one hand, her book spends considerable time explaining to parents the dangers that lurk online; on the other, it shows parents that the best way to protect their children is to give them the information and strategies to make good choices, and to simply remain engaged with what their children are doing online.

I’m not sure about you, but I have small children in my family. I was not blessed with children of my own, but have nieces and nephews who are all affected by the ways their friends and neighbors handle themselves. Technology’s not the culprit, no more than it’s ever been. It’s people who use poor judgment with whatever technology is at their disposal, and sometimes, they commit unspeakable acts of violence on innocent others. None of us want to see these things happen, but if we don’t talk about them responsibly and before-the-fact, we just set ourselves up for whatever comes down the pike. I believe we can do better than that.

If you feel likewise, take a quick minute while you’re here, and leave a comment below. Voice your anger, your outrage, your interest, your questions, whatever — or are you one of those people who just want to rely on the rest of us to do all the heavy lifting, while you sit back and not even care whether we fail our youth by not schooling them properly on something as fundamental as “how to play nice with their neighbors”? Tell the truth!

Cyber-bullies, trash texting and happy slapping . . . if you think I’m making all this up, just watch the video above, and keep reading (you’re doing fine so far) . . .

In a perfect world, parents would know what their kids were up to 24 hours a day, health care would be universally available, and a gallon of gas would cost no more than a gallon of water. OK, back to reality. We don’t live in a perfect world, few of us can afford to get sick, and actually it’s really difficult keeping tabs on youngsters’ online activities 24/7.

But wait, it gets worse!

My wife and I recently returned from vacation, visiting her folks in Panama. Her extended family members range in age from 3 - 90+ years old, and like most Latin families, everyone socializes together. One exceptionally hot evening, everyone was having fun outside — playing cards, braiding hair, dancing to music, and so on. This went on for hours into the night, until suddenly, all the teenagers (male and female) disappeared! “Where’d they go,” I wondered.

Curious, I looked around the house and eventually found them huddled together, eyes glued to an online video. What, I wondered, could have captivated their attention so completely? Maybe it was a sports event. A new movie! Porn?

Come to find out, it was an amateur video someone had shot of a street fight between two teen-aged girls! They pulled hair, cursed each other, kicked, banged heads, tore at each clothes, and bled all over the street in front of a crowd of at least 50 (cheering) bystanders!

All of this and a whole lot more of the same was being freely offered by this new, Panamanian social networking site. Let’s be honest. The site could have been American, Canadian, Costa Rican or Chinese. All I knew was what I saw, and that was pure, unadulterated street violence . . . being traded and passed around like it was baseball cards.

When I got home, I did a little research. Now, we already know there are web pages and content on the internet that are neither suited, nor designed, for children. What I didn’t know was that, because of the increased popularity of social networking sites (especially among younger kids and teens), some social networking sites have become popular destinations for cyber-bullies and online predators who prey on younger children.

Then, there are those who don’t necessarily prey on the children, but harm them in other ways through what’s called “happy slapping” and “trash texting.”

photo credit: winning-information

I’m going to get into these subjects in an exclusive, three-part mini-series designed to keep your kids safe questionable online materials and individuals.

I’ve taken several weeks researching this subject and obviously take it very seriously. As well I should. I’ve got lots of younger family members in mind as I work, and would hate to have any of them (or any of your kids, for that matter) learn some of the lessons I’m going to share with you, the hard way.

There’s just way too much going on nowadays, and a lot of younger folks don’t understand this, but too many things have gotten out of control and a lot of them are heading in a very dangerous direction, unless someone takes the time to correct their behaviors.

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If some of what I’ve written rings true to you, and you think you could get something from this, please feel free to leave a comment (use the form below) and let me know. I’d really appreciate any constructive words/ ideas you might want to share.

The first part of our 3-part series is on “Social Networking,” and I’ll be sharing that in a couple more days. Thanks alot.