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Blog posts tagged facebook
Facebook suicide: is it your time?
June 15, 2011
Georgina Harris reveals the growing trend for grown-ups to switch off – and why it could help your career
Always a reliable source of new fashions, the latest craze in social networking is… walking away. May 2011 figures saw over 100,000 Facebook users in the UK deactivate their accounts –six million US users also left, never to return.
Site monitors Inside Facebook revealed that despite vast growth in developing countries, newbies worldwide are holding back – just 11.8 million new users joined in May, down from 13.9 million users in April. Countries such as the UK, the US, Canada and Russia, with their millions of veteran Facebook fans, are starting to lose their user base with a wealth of site deregistrations, or Facebook suicides. Why?
Industry experts have a simple answer: adulthood and the right to privacy. But Facebook doesn't agree, which is the nub of the problem. This month, for example, UK Facebook introduced face-recognition software that checks online photos and suggests who they might be – identifying the site’s users without their permission.
Now if you’re on someone else’s page and sporting a bikini or less, Facebook will try and identify you with a name tag. Even committed tech fans wince a bit at this latest cleverness - Will Heaven, assistant comment editor at The Telegraph, blogged: “That midnight skinny dip at the Majorca beach party was a laugh – but there’s no need to share it with your boss.”
Being broadcast peacefully asleep in a phonebox dressed as a chicken is funny for teenagers at 15, and funny for everyone at 70. But most of us of working age want to control who sees the joke. Risks to professional integrity, and more, are obvious. Legally, cases of unwise and absent-minded social networking, whether it’s a snap of a small swimsuit or a small snap at a client, are growing too fast to ignore.
Facebook has defended itself, saying the software only offers tags with ‘high confidence’ that the names are the right ones. That just makes it worse if you’re frantically denying owning a chicken suit.
Various privacy groups are petitioning the EU for restrictions on how social networking sites use, gather, and publish information on people’s private lives. But until the law changes, many users aren’t pleased. Earlier last week, when Facebook admitted the photo-tagging software had launched, one grumpy ex-user Tweeted: “Facebook switches on facial recognition by default, without telling anyone. Not cool. On any level, why would you trust that site? Glad I left.”
People over 25 now realise that the 20 hours they spend a month on Facebook Walls probably aren’t anything like as bad for their career as Facebook itself broadcasting their private moments to passing clients and colleagues. Could it be that those who take their work seriously have one new option – user-generated discontent?
Georgina Harris, Law Donut editor
Has Facebook made a fool of you? Could the EU come to your rescue?
April 12, 2011
In the good old days men joined the French Foreign Legion “to forget”; perhaps a doomed love affair, an unhappy marriage, gambling debts or any manner of unpleasantness.
No longer is that possible with Facebook (and other social platforms) recording every man and woman’s indiscretion for posterity. In similar vein, Twitter is constantly criticised for being inane - who wants to know what you had for breakfast? Social media platforms expose every aspect of our lives for inspection, transmission, discussion and, sometimes, ridicule.
The sheer complication of privacy settings on Facebook, where openness rather than discretion is the default setting, mean that our private thoughts, comments and, alarmingly, photographs, all meant for a very select audience of “friends”, can be disseminated far and wide. Forwarded on in a fit of giggles, one lone Facebook indiscretion could mean that Andy Warhol’s prediction of “15 minutes of fame” could be coming to you, and soon. Unfortunately.
Your sudden fame will not just be limited to quarter of an hour: once out in the cloud, it will be preserved for posterity. That poses a further problem: where exactly is your data being processed? It may well be outside Europe, making it very difficult to object to photos etc being removed.
But not if the European Union has its way. The EU Commission has recently flexed its muscles and published proposals that would make Facebook “forget” all those shaming photographs of you lying in a gutter dressed as a nun after ten pints and a vindaloo.
As reported in The Guardian, EU Justice Minister Viviane Reding announced an intention to unveil a package of proposals shortly which will force social networking sites to have high levels of privacy as the default setting. And users will get the right to withdraw their consent to their information being processed. In other words, everyone living in the EU will be given the “right to be forgotten” online, and all their personal material removed. Failure by a social networking platform, even one based outside the EU, will lead to legal proceedings and sanctions being imposed by national privacy watchdogs.
It is also proposed that the companies will have to prove that they need to retain any information they stored, taking the burden off the individual to prove why it should not be processed.
It’s a very welcome initiative, although we will have to wait and see what the proposals look like when published. It must be right that people can demand social networking sites remove embarrassing information about them, especially when it can rear its head several years later and prejudice a job application.
What remains clear, however, is that law on privacy and social media is still very confused. How an individual’s right to privacy can be protected on a medium that is fundamentally dedicated to sharing and openness is probably the biggest issue facing legislators and lawyers over the next few years.
More fundamentally, these new proposals are an attempt by a supra-national organisation to take control over a phenomenon (how else can you describe Facebook et al?) that defies national boundaries in its scope and reach. I think the EU is to be applauded for pursuing this agenda (are you reading Nigel Farage?)
Now, there was something else I had to do but can’t quite recall what it was...
Michael Scutt, Dale Langley & Co
The Dos and Don'ts of social media: guidelines for your employees
January 04, 2011
The heart of the term social media is the word 'social', suggesting that the online world is for interacting, communicating and sharing knowledge. The aim of having social media guidelines for your business is that they should mirror this mindset with the idea that employees should behave as they would do in the offline world — with inhibitions, decorum and common courtesy. This is especially so as it is still common for people to alter their online and offline personas. Many still use the internet as an outlet for airing their thoughts with little consideration of the severity and long term effects of their actions. This is not to say that employees cannot be trusted, instead they can be positively guided to utilise their talent and act in a way which protects their own and the company’s online reputation. Some do's and don’ts for setting up social media guidelines for your employees are listed below:
1. Do choose trust and empowerment.
Social media use can instill fear and angst in the minds of businesses. Most instantly assume employees cannot be trusted or will not act in the company's best interest. Nevertheless, they must learn that the paradigm shift is here to stay. Rather than fretting about the potential negatives they must realise its benefits. It is never a good idea to set stringent controls on social media in the workplace or via guidelines. Banning social media in the workplace or heavily restricting use could result in a backlash. Employees are potential social media representatives and to make social media work properly across the enterprise they must be empowered to leverage social media in support of the brand and its products. Therefore guidelines should protect and advise on social media, not control or restrict.
2. Don’t forget to cater for all platforms.
This includes blogs, forums, message boards, social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc), user generated content (ie YouTube, Flickr etc) and any other relevant channels. Create an individual framework for participation in various online communities. Covering all platforms avoids any confusion or loopholes, increases social media presence and identifies how social media channels overlap (ie status updates, uploading photos and friend/connection requests). Social media guidelines could include how to use each platform for business and personal use, how to utilise each platform’s functionality and suggestions on the most appropriate behaviour for each platform.
3. Do stress the importance of privacy and confidentiality.
It is essential to outline what information is regarded as private, confidential and sensitive, and which should never be disclosed in any circumstance. The next step is outlining how to behave when something is a grey area ie tweeting about a new client project — does the client want to be mentioned and is the project 100 per cent finished? Hold a team meeting at the beginning of each week to identify tweetable topics or assign a person as point of contact to give consent on disclosing potentially sensitive information. Privacy should also extend to client information, geolocation check-ins, other brands and competitors.
4. Don’t diminish personal responsibility.
It needs to be stressed that posting content online becomes permanently available thus you are accountable for your own reputation and digital footprint. Your online relationship changes and becomes even more essential as soon as you identify that you’re an employee of a firm or speak in any kind of professional capacity. Therefore, disclaimers should be encouraged to make it clear that you are an employee of a firm, but are interacting on behalf of yourself and not the company. It should be made clear that this doesn’t give a person a reason to be dishonest, rude or inappropriate. If someone would like to represent the company on a deeper, professional level there should be a point of contact or training offered to do so.
5. Do persuade employees to add value.
This leads onto thought leadership. Social media is about people, not logos. If employees want to communicate in a professional capacity then put suitable guidelines in place to cater for this. Guidelines for acting on behalf of the organisation should include:
- obtaining official backing from an assigned point of contact (see point 3, above)
- how to define purpose and outcomes which fit with the business’ objectives
- how to create valuable and unique content (ie blogging, forum participation)
- how to respect and engage with your target audience.
By encouraging employees to demonstrate the depth and breadth of their expertise with information tailored to your clients’ needs, it can help position your company as a leader and trusted resource.
Overall, the ideal guidelines should protect the reputation of the company on all platforms, be in line with the company's vision and act as a best practice engagement strategy.
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