How to Stop a Bully Article in Daily Beast

There is a three part series in the Daily Beast today on Bullying by Lucinda Franks. An interesting read. The topic is really rising to the fore of consciousness of our country. Many states Florida, Rhode Island, Virginia, etc. are taking the issue very seriously and have passed legislation. The mothers of bullied children have grouped together and are becoming a powerful lobby similar to how they did so with MADD, mothers against drunk driving.

Also interesting is some of the backlash against these measures and proposed statutes- the level of insensitivity by some community members is disheartening.

How to Stop a Bully

Ronny Turiaf is a Role Model

This is a blog on internet safety and reputation management, but I had to write a short post about Ronny Turiaf and something he did last night in the New York Knicks game. In the fourth quarter, of a very close game between the Knicks and the Charlotte Bobcats, Turiaf grabbed a rebound in traffic, and inadvertently elbowed a Bobcat player in the process. Turiaf threw the ball to his teammate, and then looked down at the Bobcat player who was still on the ground as everyone else was running up the court quickly to the other end.

You could literally see what was going through Turiaf's mind as he hesitated, "Should I run to the other end with everyone else, or make sure this guy is OK and help him up?" In a pickup game, decency dictates that one help the guy up as there is no real competition, nothing is at stake. In the fourth quarter of a professional game, book is to run to the other end, gain the offensive advantage of 5 against 4, and see the guy after the game. That is obviously what Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant would do in the same circumstance.

Turiaf's humanity won out. It's almost like he tried to turn away, but he could not. After a moment's hesitation in which his shoulder started moving toward the other end of the court, he quickly turned back, gave the fallen player a hand up and ran back to the other end. I did not see Mike D'Antoni's reaction (the Knick's coach), but the announcers were saying he was not pleased with Turiaf.

But in that moment, my respect and appreciation for Turiaf soared. I already suspected that I really liked Turiaf. His hustle, team oriented play and how how he does the little things have been a real pleasure to watch in the young season. His actions were exactly how I would want my kids to act in that situation. Competition is important, but too often it seems to take a back seat to our decency.

I don't think there is YouTube video of this play, but here is a nice post that highlights the value of Turiaf to the Knicks team: Ronny Turiaf

Parents Concerned About Cyberbullying

There were some very interesting numbers embedded in the recent article below on Care.com. It discussed how many parents are very concerned about monitoring their kids on social networks. One of the more interesting numbers was that 75% of parents monitor their kids' pages on social networks. This is the good news. My instinct tells me that most of these 75% are performing this task using an occasional manual method instead of a consistent 'always-on' automated approach such as YouDiligence. See the article.

Catfish and Naive Social Network Behavior

Saw the movie "Catfish" last night which is purportedly based on true events. That controversy aside, it was interesting to see supposed sophisticated social network participants experience 'eye-opening' events.

It reinforces that even the most experienced social networkers are capable of being fooled. If people like this are fooled, what chance do our young teens stand on the networks?

Sporting News: Saving Schools from Social Media Catastrophes

In the wake of the Fox News channel segment on UDiligence, Chris Littmann of the Sporting News blog wrote about our service. Mr. Littmann keyed in on the core value proposition of how UDiligence helps Universities protect their Reputation. He comments about how the public service we provide might not be exactly how some old-school administrators wish to spend part of their budget, but how in the long run it is probably a wise investment.

His piece captures and balances both the value of UDiligence and the perils that await the Reputations of Universities who ignore the wild side of social networking.

Founder on Fox News

Kevin Long, the YouDiligence founder, made an appearance on Fox News today. Fox News was following up on another story done by the Daily Missourian regarding our work with the University of Missouri Tigers football team.

A lot of the points Kevin makes in the Fox segment about how we help student athletes applies to our work helping parents with kids active on social networks. Check out the news segment here:

Inspiration from Madeleine and Anna Quindlan

One never knows where inspiration is going to come from. I got some from an unusual source the other night: an essay on the Madeleine children book series, "Mad about Madeleine", written by Anna Quindlen (which I have not been able to find published on the web in a cursory search).

But toward the end of the essay, Ms. Quindlen writes the line, "Children prize both security and adventure, both bad behavior and conformity, both connections and independence." To me, this is a perfect encapsulation of childhood, and especially the journey through the tweens and teenage years toward adulthood and independence.

From the outside, I am sure I was perceived as adventuresome, independent, non-conformist and a bit of a troublemaker. But this is not the real story. The real story involved a real daily tension between all the opposites listed in Ms.Quindlen's lines. I had a real pull toward security, conformity and connections on a daily basis, and I am sure my journey was more the rule than the exception.

This idea mirrors the concept of all of us having a nature half monster and half angel. And this nature is why YouDiligence is important for parents. Even the best behaved kids will have episodes where they are pulled off their good behavior axis. In other words, good kids have a daily struggle being good--it is hard to be good all the time.

The YouDiligence platform recognizes this daily struggle. YouDiligence platform also recognizes that independence is very important to all kids. We designed YouDiligence explicitly to respect this fact, and to try to create a platform that could simultaneously respect kids' privacy and give parents the peace of mind in knowing that their kids have a safety net for those times when the kids are not behaving as appropriately or safely as parents would hope,

FCC Chair Genachowski on Youth & Surge in Media Consumption

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said some interesting things at the recent Kaiser Family
Foundation event exploring media usage by young people.

The chairman, who worked to implement the Children's Television Act as a top FCC staffer in the 1990s, said the release of the study underscores the FCC's effort to update that act for the digital age--it launched an inquiry in October. "When I think about the challenges, I think about more screens, more time in front of screens, and more dangers from both."

He said the changes in technology and the media marketplace can "inform changes in policy going forward, so that we have, at the end, an ecosystem of policy, technology and economics that really serves kids and honors the First Amendment at the same time."

Balancing these factors will be the crux of the matter moving forward, and it is incumbent upon all technology developers and providers, especially in the internet safety field, to pay special attention to this balancing act.

Addiction to Facebook

It seems that Facebook has truly relegated MySpace to the wilderness. Social Networking essentially means Facebook at this point. MySpace is an afterthought for the great majority of people.

One of Facebook's important strategic decisions was to early on promote Facebook applications, that gave users the ability to perform a multitude of activities that was in a constant state of growth, but that didn't require growing Facebook resources. All they had to do was oversee and manage the process.

There was an article in Naperville Sun-Times today that explored the concept of addiction to Facebook. There are no similar discussions surrounding MySpace, in part because the activities on MySpace are still fairly limited.

One of the better quotes from the article:
"Oswego High School freshman Sara Rozhon told me she spends about two hours a day on Facebook. 'I'm addicted. (Without Facebook), I probably would have straight A's in all of my classes, and more of a life.' Rozhon does admit, 'I honestly think that without the distraction, my life would be easier.'"

LA Times Editorial Stance on Cyberbullying

The LA Times had an interesting editorial the other day against schools enforcing anti-cyberbullying activities for actions taken off of school grounds.

The arguments of the editorial "Schools should not be responsible for policing Cyberbullying" definitely have merits from a legal standpoint. What is not discussed in the editorial is the fact that a huge amount of cyberbullying and bullying in general activities of kids have their genesis in the school setting, and therefore to some degree they bear some responsibility.

So rather than hiding behind legal frameworks, schools should be doing everything in their power to fight against bullying and cyberbullying. They should be empowering teachers to crack down forcefully on bullying within their hallways--which inevitably lead to cyberbullying outside their hallways.

The first line of the editoriaI is "Parents, not schools, are the first line of defense against cyberbullying." While this is true, it is by no means the entire story. Schools need to do everything they can to help parents in this regard. Take the example of Ryan Halligan--I know that Ryan's father did what he could to help and protect his son. It is adding cruelty to injury to suggest that he should have done more. There are far too many stories like those of Ryan Halligan, and as a society, we should be thinking of ways to prevent these tragedies rather than focusing on legal merits.

Elementary School Kids Using Facebook

A Tennessee elementary principal is warning parents that many children in his school are using Facebook, seemingly to attract a boyfriend or girlfriend. While this is not shocking, it should put internet safety for their kids as paramount in parents' minds.

http://ydurl.com/p6xw

Parents understand most children are still learning how to interact socially at that age, but yet the 20-30 hours a week the kids spend on social networking sites are mostly unsupervised. This is a recipe for trouble or worse. Internet predators prey on these unsuspecting and impressionable youngsters looking for attention. Cyber-bullies use social networks to threaten and scare them.

Parents need to protect their children from these unfortunate realities, and YouDiligence (www.youdiligence.com) can help.

Boston Girl, 12, Duped by MySpace Predator into Thinking She was going to Hollywood to be a Movie Star

Chaulk one up for the MA State Police who were able to save a Boston girl, 12, who was lured to purchase a ticket to fly to Hollywood to become a movie star by someone posing as a 16 year old girl on MySpace.

http://ydurl.com/nr9p

Anyone who thinks that MySpace and Facebook are safe from creeps who prey on children needs to wake up. Parents need to protect their children and teach them about internet safety and using socal networks responsibly.

This story could have ended much worse. I am relieved for this girl and her parents that she is safe at home tonight.

YouDiligence helps parents protect their children from online predators and cyber-bullies.

BSOT = Be Safe Online Tonight

Another Cyberbullying Story

I try to make it a habit of presenting YouDiligence to at least one school or church organization every week. Last week, I spoke to the PTO of Fairfield (outside of St. Albans). It seems like at every one of these presentations, I hear a cyberbullying story. In fact, one of my primary tasks at all of these meetings is to just listen. Kids' online activity raises a lot of uncertainty for parents.

It is hard enough dealing with uncertainty for just oneself. When one's kids are involved, worrying over uncertainty goes to a whole other level.

At the meeting, a woman said she had really wished that she had known about YouDiligence two months ago, and she related the story of how her daughter was recently cyberbullied. Her story had all the classic aspects of cyberbullying that I have heard repeatedly in different forms and shapes. The mother noticed that her daughter had been moody and uncommunicative for weeks and weeks, and knew something was up, but the daughter did not want to share. Finally, the cyber bullying episode reached a point where the daughter broke down, and realized she could not control the situation. This is when the mother got involved. The mother did not share the exact specifics, but she felt that much pain and suffering would have been spared if she could have stepped into the situation much earlier.

And that is a very important point. Kids in their tweens and early teens are struggling with issues of control and mastery. And parents want to encourage this mastery--we are proud of our kids' mastering skills and knowledge growth. But the truth of the matter is that young kids should 'be spotted', and in fact, they want to know that their parents are doing so. The tricky part of adolescence for both kids and parents is navigating this path from very dependent (under 10 years old, and wanting to be spotted) to ostensibly independent (hopefully by 18-19, and resentful if parents are still trying to spot them).

When considering kids' online activities in terms of this navigation path, it is entirely understandable why internet safety has become the number one concern for parents.

Posting On Social Networking Sites Creates a Permanent Record

Remember when you were in junior high and the principal used to scare you into believing that if you didn't behave that it would go down on some all powerful "permanent record"? Well now that permanent record actually exists -- and worse, it's a public forumn. Internet safety is something all parents should teach their kids from the very beginning of internet use.

Social Networking can be a great tool and a harmless way to interact with friends. But there are dangers, not the least of which is that everything you post, is now there for posterity as this article highlights.

http://ydurl.com/ggvs

Whether it's MySpace, Facebook, or any other site, if you post it, someone can find it, access it, and expose it.

YouDiligence (www.youdiligence.com) helps protect kids futures, hopefully keeping their "permanent record" as clean as possible in the internet era.

Follow YouDiligence on Twitter

www.twitter.com/youdiligence

2 Purdue Fraternities & a Sorority Post Hazing Photos on Facebook & Get Suspended

I'm sure there are many stories out there about hazing incidents that have been posted on Facebook, but this one struck close to home -- 4 miles to be exact.

http://ydurl.com/f5n6

This is certainly not the first, nor will it be the last story about fraternity hazing. Aside from the obvious stupidity of the hazing activity itself (and I am a proud fraternity alum -- at Purdue no less), but what strikes me is the lack of concern by these students for their long-term reputations. If those photos made it to the Dean of Students' office, how hard will it be for a potential employer to find them at some point in the future?

Now that President O'Bama has opened the door, making it acceptable to review private Facebook and MySpace pages of applicants, parents of high school and college kids everywhere need to warn their children about the long-term consequences of posting what might seem like silly, fun, or innocuous things, as they can come back to haunt you. The Internet IS the "permanent record" that your junior high principal used threaten to put something down on to keep you in line.

All those "friends" they think they have -- yeah right. All it takes is to right-click-save and whatever mistakes might have been posted by a child on their page are now saved by someone that can use them later on. No one knows if another person will remain their friend for a week, a month, or ten years. However, once they allow access to their private social networking pages, they are exposing themselves to potential problems down the road.

The answer is educating our children about responsible social networking use, and yes, monitoring their activity to make sure they are following your rules and aren't getting into trouble. Trust but verify.

BSOT = Be Safe Online Tonight

2,116 Convicted North Carolina Sexual Predators had MySpace Accounts

Parents in North Carolina can rest a little easier as their attorney general struck a blow for internet safety by identifying 2,116 sexual predators in NC that had MySpace accounts -- and MySpace shut them down.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/03/10/nc.sex.offenders/index.html

In the last month there have been almost 100,000 sexual predators' accounts shut down on MySpace and Facebook combined. But that's out of nearly 400 million accounts -- uh, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that this represents a very incomplete accounting for the likely actual number of predators on those sites. These were just the predators dumb enough to use their real names -- and finally someone decided to run a check comparing the MySpace and Facebook roster against the convicted sexual predator database. It's not just the names that need to be checked. It couldn't be more clear, for the safety of their kids, parents need to consider monitoring their kids' pages.

Studies show kids spend over 30 hours per week online, mostly unsupervised. How likely is it that they come into contact with a predator or are bullied by their peers? That's a question parents must ask themselves.

Fortunately parents now have help. YouDiligence (http://www.youdiligence.com)/sends email alerts to parents when questionable material is posted on their kids' sites -- providing some peace of mind.

Bullying is Incredibly Destructive

As I was watching some Parry Aftab YouTube videos (the leader of Wired Safety) I stumbled across this video. It is incredibly powerful and sad. It very simply and effectively shows a string of kids in a series of still photos taken during happier times of their short lives. To think that all these sweet kids killed themselves after being bullied is heartbreaking.



Reading the connected comments is a whole other story. As an adult who survived adolescence with, what I figure is a common mixture of, pride about how I handled some situations and shame how I handled others, it makes me uncomfortable to read the comments of what I assume are mostly young people.

There are the heartless and cold "only losers get bullied" statements.

There are the bravado "I was bullied from 7th-12th grade. Even after high school people have messed with me even to this day. But I learned to take all the things they say about you and find something to release it and make yourself a much better, tougher person. I did this by working out in a gym and ran into a few kids from high school, some that gave me shit, and they just stared in awe like they couldn't believe it. I just walked by as if they were dirt under my shoes. Not saying a word or nothing" statements.

Neither gives me much comfort, or illuminates a path out of the darkness of bullying. It's likely most kids experience, at some point, both sides of the exchange--they have bullied someone, and they have been bullied. In this day and age when cyber-bullying has provided a larger platform and audience for this behaior, it may be important for parents and educators to think about this when trying to guide kids away from the incredibly destructive behavior of bullying -- on the play ground or online.

5600 -- Really? Facebook Only Identifies 5600 Sexual Predators' Accounts

The sincerity of social networking sites regarding Internet safety can be questioned after the latest news from Facebook. See this TechDirt post:

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090220/1017023844.shtml#comments

During a week of taking a public relations beating and a subsequent user rebellion over claiming perpetual ownership rights to the content posted by its users, Facebook followed MySpace's lead to identify and remove known, convicted sexual predators from its site. What's curious is that out of Facebook's 100+ million subscribers only 5600 were registered sexual predators. By contrast, MySpace found over 90,000 -- this also seems really low when compared to their number of subscribers, which they put at 200+ million.

5600 -- Really? That's about as believable as Alex Rodriguez's partial-kind-of-not-so-much-yeah-I-was-young-and-dumb (hey it worked for Michael Phelps) explanation of his steroid use. One has to ask several questions:

• How hard did Facebook really look?


• How committed is Facebook to Internet safety?


• Is Facebook really concerned about the safety of their users?

We should probably commend the social networks for however reluctantly beginning to take small steps towards making their product safer. However it clearly further identifies the need for parents to protect their kids online.

YouDiligence (www.youdiligence.com) helps parents with this daunting task. YouDiligence doesn't rely on the honesty of sexual deviants to identify themselves. It works even if false identities are being used. YouDiligence scans the content itself of what is posted on kids pages, helping parents identify suspicious and troubling posts. Parents have the control to customize the search criteria that's used to alert them to troubling posts by their children and others on their children's sites. Once an issue is identified, YouDiligence emails the parent an alert in real-time.

BSOT = Be Safe Online Tonight

Using Social Networks to Share a Story

With all the issues of cyber-bullying and online predators dominating the news the last couple of weeks, two high school sports stories really stuck out to me this week that are from opposite ends of the spectrum. They have nothing to do with either cyber-bullying or online predators -- instead they are examples of how we shouldn't and should use social networks to share a story. The first story, unfortunately, did make the rounds on social networking pages, and the second story, which could likely win an ESPY this year, has yet to be seen online except in the media.


The first story comes out of the state high school basketball tournament in South Caroline. A video was posted on a social networking site of a huge brawl after a hard foul near the end of the game. The stands emptied and players and fans on both teams were involved in a 20 minute plus melee, the footage was posted on several social networking sites, and ultimately made it into the mainstream media.


The second story is of an act of sportsmanship and character that makes tears well up in your eyes. The short version is a Wisconsin high school basketball player's 39 year old mother unexpectedly died of cancer. He showed up to his game over 2 hours away to play after saying he wouldn't be there. He walked in after the game began and asked to play. Knowing the situation, the other team stopped the game, let him get dressed and come to the court. His coach had not put his name in the score book, so upon entering the game, he would be assessed a technical foul. The other team argued they didn't want the call, but the referee insisted. After gathering his players and asking which one wanted to take the shots, a senior guard raised his hand. He looked at the coach and said, "You know I'm going to miss, right?" the coach nodded. He took his spot at the free throw line and took the ball from the referee and twice took shots that barely made it past his arms -- obvious intentional misses. This received a standing ovation from the crowd, all of whom knew what the situation was.


This is the kind of story that needs to be shared on social networking sites -- it shows character and leadership. Let's hope that whoever had their cell phone or camcorder rolling at this point in the game will post it sometime soon. It surely will receive serious consideration for an ESPN ESPY award. For now, we have the story:


http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/basketball/boys/news/story?id=3914375