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"Facebook needs to get involved in policing this sort of thing" I am guessing you were an angel when you were in school. Well, I was not an angel, so I can te

"Facebook needs to get involved in policing this sort of thing" I am guessing you were an angel when you were in school. Well, I was not an angel, so I can tell you what effect Facebook policing this would have: it would move somewhere else, where it will not be policed. Even if every website on the Internet were policing this, there are enough hackers and geeks at every high school that you would see teenagers setting up their own bulletin boards, email systems, etc. -- and don't think for a moment that a geeky kid would turn down the popularity points they would gain by running such a thing. If you took the Internet and the cell phones away, then teenagers would pass thumb drives around. Basically, you would need to erase computers entirely to prevent this from happening. Good luck with that one.

rayiner 14y ago
I was an angel in school, but I'm not naive. Sure Facebook cracking down on this sort of thing won't eliminate it entirely. But the whole point of shaming someone on Facebook versus passing it around in a locker room is the visibility. But it's that same visibility that also makes it a convenient point of policing. Policing might push that stuff off Facebook, but those alternate venues are going to reach fewer eyeballs (causing less reputation harm), and be more ephemeral. Moreover, I'd argue that Facebook has a responsibility, as a company that makes a ton of money off these teenagers, that they don't when those teenagers share the same pictures via sneakernet.
- betterunix 14y ago
  There are plenty of high-visibility websites on the Internet; it would not take long for the students to find one that is equally visible and not policed. Kids manage to smoke pot in school, they manage to cheat on exams, they manage to leave before they are supposed to -- they will find somewhere that is not policed on the Internet, or else they will set up such a thing for themselves. I would not be surprised if some high school students used steganography to share explicit photos without the moderators catching them (consider the way teenagers use proxy servers and Tor to evade school firewalls). "Moreover, I'd argue that Facebook has a responsibility, as a company that makes a ton of money off these teenagers, that they don't when those teenagers share the same pictures via sneakernet." Slippery slope: ISPs also make money off teenagers, possibly even more than Facebook (cell services certainly make more than Facebook -- teenagers basically demand SMS and 3G/4G from their parents these days, which has turned enormous profits for the telecom industry). Do you think it is acceptable for ISPs to be policing this sort of thing too? Facebook is a communications service; they should not be in the business of filtering the communications of their users, any more than Comcast or T-Mobile. Really, there is a bigger picture here. Yes, bullying is a problem, but if the communications systems that teenagers use were to be filtered as a matter of course, that would just train teenagers to believe that they live in a world where communications are always being watched. Is that really what we want the next generation to grow up thinking? Do we really want the next generation of leaders to believe that one of the things people in authority are supposed do is to monitor the communications of those they govern? Do we want to create adults who shrug at the warrantless wiretapping program?
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > There are plenty of high-visibility websites on the Internet; it would not take long for the students to find one that is equally visible and not policed. Kids manage to smoke pot in school, they manage to cheat on exams, they manage to leave before they are supposed to -- they will find somewhere that is not policed on the Internet, or else they will set up such a thing for themselves. I would not be surprised if some high school students used steganography to share explicit photos without the moderators catching them (consider the way teenagers use proxy servers and Tor to evade school firewalls). If your rush to reductionism makes you fail to perceive the difference between Tor and Facebook, I'm not sure what I can do to help you. There are lots of ways to share pictures, and lots of high profile websites, but only a tiny handful, and possibly just one, where you can easily reach everyone in town with a single post. > Slippery slope: ISPs also make money off teenagers, possibly even more than Facebook (cell services certainly make more than Facebook -- teenagers basically demand SMS and 3G/4G from their parents these days, which has turned enormous profits for the telecom industry). Do you think it is acceptable for ISPs to be policing this sort of thing too? Facebook is a communications service; they should not be in the business of filtering the communications of their users, any more than Comcast or T-Mobile. I strongly disagree. Comcast and T-mobile are dumb pipes. Facebook is a social networking company that takes advantage of teenage social networks to serve advertisements specifically to teenagers. Comcast sells bandwidth to anyone with the money to pay. Facebook profiles and targets and intentionally sells 13-18 year old eyeballs to advertisers. > Do we really want the next generation of leaders to believe that one of the things people in authority are supposed do is to monitor the communications of those they govern? Facebook already monitors your communications. What we're debating here is what how they use the information.

rayiner 14y ago

I was an angel in school, but I'm not naive. Sure Facebook cracking down on this sort of thing won't eliminate it entirely. But the whole point of shaming someone on Facebook versus passing it around in a locker room is the visibility. But it's that same visibility that also makes it a convenient point of policing. Policing might push that stuff off Facebook, but those alternate venues are going to reach fewer eyeballs (causing less reputation harm), and be more ephemeral. Moreover, I'd argue that Facebook has a responsibility, as a company that makes a ton of money off these teenagers, that they don't when those teenagers share the same pictures via sneakernet.

betterunix 14y ago
There are plenty of high-visibility websites on the Internet; it would not take long for the students to find one that is equally visible and not policed. Kids manage to smoke pot in school, they manage to cheat on exams, they manage to leave before they are supposed to -- they will find somewhere that is not policed on the Internet, or else they will set up such a thing for themselves. I would not be surprised if some high school students used steganography to share explicit photos without the moderators catching them (consider the way teenagers use proxy servers and Tor to evade school firewalls). "Moreover, I'd argue that Facebook has a responsibility, as a company that makes a ton of money off these teenagers, that they don't when those teenagers share the same pictures via sneakernet." Slippery slope: ISPs also make money off teenagers, possibly even more than Facebook (cell services certainly make more than Facebook -- teenagers basically demand SMS and 3G/4G from their parents these days, which has turned enormous profits for the telecom industry). Do you think it is acceptable for ISPs to be policing this sort of thing too? Facebook is a communications service; they should not be in the business of filtering the communications of their users, any more than Comcast or T-Mobile. Really, there is a bigger picture here. Yes, bullying is a problem, but if the communications systems that teenagers use were to be filtered as a matter of course, that would just train teenagers to believe that they live in a world where communications are always being watched. Is that really what we want the next generation to grow up thinking? Do we really want the next generation of leaders to believe that one of the things people in authority are supposed do is to monitor the communications of those they govern? Do we want to create adults who shrug at the warrantless wiretapping program?
- rayiner 14y ago
  > There are plenty of high-visibility websites on the Internet; it would not take long for the students to find one that is equally visible and not policed. Kids manage to smoke pot in school, they manage to cheat on exams, they manage to leave before they are supposed to -- they will find somewhere that is not policed on the Internet, or else they will set up such a thing for themselves. I would not be surprised if some high school students used steganography to share explicit photos without the moderators catching them (consider the way teenagers use proxy servers and Tor to evade school firewalls). If your rush to reductionism makes you fail to perceive the difference between Tor and Facebook, I'm not sure what I can do to help you. There are lots of ways to share pictures, and lots of high profile websites, but only a tiny handful, and possibly just one, where you can easily reach everyone in town with a single post. > Slippery slope: ISPs also make money off teenagers, possibly even more than Facebook (cell services certainly make more than Facebook -- teenagers basically demand SMS and 3G/4G from their parents these days, which has turned enormous profits for the telecom industry). Do you think it is acceptable for ISPs to be policing this sort of thing too? Facebook is a communications service; they should not be in the business of filtering the communications of their users, any more than Comcast or T-Mobile. I strongly disagree. Comcast and T-mobile are dumb pipes. Facebook is a social networking company that takes advantage of teenage social networks to serve advertisements specifically to teenagers. Comcast sells bandwidth to anyone with the money to pay. Facebook profiles and targets and intentionally sells 13-18 year old eyeballs to advertisers. > Do we really want the next generation of leaders to believe that one of the things people in authority are supposed do is to monitor the communications of those they govern? Facebook already monitors your communications. What we're debating here is what how they use the information.