Tag Archives: facebook

Guidelines for updating your school’s social networking policy

Article posted by in May 9, 2012 at 8:27 am.
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (16 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

As a followup to our last blog post, we’d like to share some more guidance to keep in mind as you are updating and refining your school’s policy related to Facebook (and other social networking sites). We hope this is helpful for you. Please remember, though, that you must do a lot more than policy enhancements to be in compliance with the FCC’s new mandates, and to make a meaningful difference in protecting students and avoiding liability issues. Thanks again to Mike Donlin for his excellent summary on these matters!

 

Preliminary Guidance on the use of Facebook, MySpace and other Social Networking Sites in Schools

 

- Recognizing the value of social networking in 21st century education,

 

- Recognizing that social networking is specifically mentioned in Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act and FCC guidance,

 

- Recognizing that the FCC guidance states specifically that filtering of Facebook, My Space and other social networking sites is not necessarily required, and finally,

 

- Recognizing that there are potential safety, security and liability issues, the following is preliminary guidance for educators on the use of social networking sites in schools:

 

1. Check and follow your most current district / school policies and procedures on the use of social networking tools in schools. The policy you may be called by some variation of your district’s Internet Use, Network Use, Internet Access, or Network Access policy. You will also want to check your district’s Internet or network use/access agreement for students and staff.

 

2. Keep personal and professional/educational accounts separate.

 

a. There might be different, separate accounts through the same service, however.

 

b. Do not use social networking sites which do not come through your district network.

 

3. Never friend a student on a personal site.

 

4. Do not share personal information on your professional/educational site.

 

5. Remember: using a social networking site for educational purposes has the potential for extending your school day beyond the school day and the school walls.

 

- It also has the potential of exposing students to your own or to others’ personal information, even inadvertently.

 

6. All rules which apply to your bricks-and-mortar classroom and school apply to the online, social networking environment: bullying, harassment, courtesy, appropriate language, timeliness, etc.

 

7. Inform and involve school administration

 

8. Inform and involve parents/guardians as appropriate. However, this also may be problematic:

 

a. Inviting parents to join/participate would be tantamount to inviting parents to be involved in your classroom every day.

 

b. The parents would have to know that they should not join using their ‘personal’ sites.

 

c. Remember: there are students from broken, blended or other non-standard families, as well as some with no-contact orders. The teachers would have to be able to negotiate through all that in some, not too demanding way.

 

d. This might involve a small number of students, but potential risk and liability issues arise.

 

9. Do not friend other adults on your educational site.

 

a. Allow for the possibility of inviting “special guests” for specific educational purposes.

 

b. For such a professional guest profile-type, establish a vetting process, done by the educator using some sort of rubric.

 

c. Establish what the expert guest would need to agree to be involved.

 

d. Consider the involvement of teaching team members, student teachers, specialists, counselors and/or administrators

 

10. Read, become familiar with all site-related Terms of Use documentation.

 

Tags: , , , , .
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

Email This Post Print This Post

Public schools, Facebook, and the FCC

Article posted by in May 7, 2012 at 10:12 am.
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (12 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Our colleague Mike Donlin and I have been talking out some issues related to public education and teen technology use. He has recently pointed out that there are certain points that the FCC would like schools to know as it relates to their intersection with and use of social networking sites. Specifically, schools need to be very familiar with the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, and that it:

 

1. Adds statutory language to existing FCC rules for implementing the Children’s Internet Protection Act

 

2. Has an impact on eRate compliance

 

3. Requires that school districts’ board policies provide for the education of minors regarding appropriate online behavior including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and regarding cyberbullying awareness and response

 

4. This requirement is in addition to existing Children’s Internet Protection Act requirements (requiring blocks/filters, and education of staff, students, parents, etc.)

 

Also, in addition to policy language, it is important to note that the FCC also specifically mentions Facebook and MySpace, as well as addressing other social networking sites. The FCC finds that:

 

1. Individual pages on Facebook or MySpace might be potentially harmful to minors, but

 

2. these sites are not “harmful to minors”, per se, and

 

3. do not fall into a category of websites which must be blocked.

 

4. Further noting recent work by the Department of Education, the FCC and the DOE suggest that “social networking websites have the potential to support student learning…” (FCC 11-125 Report and Order, p.8)

 

So, what are the implications of all of this?

 

1. By July 1, 2012, School Boards will have to create or update current Internet Use policies to include wording that they are teaching Internet safety

 

2. Districts will have to decide how, who and with what they will implement this new requirement

 

3. With the comments on Facebook and other social networking sites, and with the inclusion of social networking within required Board policy language, education and training around both appropriate and pedagogical uses of social networking resources will be critical

 

4. Districts and schools will need background and training on issues, materials, approaches, resources

 

5. Cyberbullying awareness and response will need to be included within ongoing harassment, intimidation and bullying training and program implementation

 

6. As the education of minors about appropriate online behavior, digital citizenship, cyberbullying, etc., covers a wide range of issues and topics, it will be very important for prevention-intervention, school safety, counseling, educational technology and content specialists to work closely to create as effective and all-encompassing digital safety education program as possible

 

So, the major question are as follows: Is your district positioned to address all of these requirements? How specifically are you making this happen? What will you use to educate staff and students? What protocols are currently in place as it relates to prevention, investigation, and response? Are they ideal? I know that many states just wrapped up standardized testing, and are just trying to make it through the end of the school year. These matters, though, will have to be addressed before administrators take a break for the summer.

Tags: , , , , .
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

Email This Post Print This Post

Cyberbullying Your Own Kids to Punish Them

Article posted by in May 1, 2012 at 10:44 am.
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (22 votes, average: 4.36 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

Canadian Cyberbullying Educator and Speaker Lissa Albert and I have been chatting about some parents engaging in controversial and arguably questionable behavior to “send a message” to their teenagers about appropriate and inappropriate behavior. These instances have gone viral, and Lissa has done a great job of providing a backdrop of this practice as well as detailing why we just don’t support these kinds of responses. Her writeup is below – I encourage you to share with us your thoughts. Also, feel free to contact her with any followup!  Here we go:

 

There is a new, troubling trend emerging in our digital world; it blends social media and parental discipline. And it’s more disturbing than one might believe at first glance. It’s even been given a name: “cyber-discipline”.

 

The first such incident occurred in February 2012, when the news outlets carried the story of a man in North Carolina, who decided to discipline his 15-year-old daughter for having complained about her parents, on Facebook. She blocked her parents from seeing it, and used belligerent, curse-filled rhetoric. She was upset at all the chores she had to do, and complained about it. Was she mouthy? Yes. Obscene language used? Yes. Did she cross the line? Yes. But at the age of 15, is she still learning about appropriate behavior? Yes.

 

Tommy Jordan’s way of handling his daughter was to post a video on YouTube, entitled “Facebook Parenting: For the Troubled Teen”. The video begins with the camera on him, as he explains that he will be providing advice for parents who have to deal with kids misbehaving on Facebook. He addresses his daughter, telling her how he fixed her computer and spent money to do so, and came across a post on Facebook she obviously didn’t think he’d see. He reads the post which is what can only be described as a typical teen complaint about having to clean up and do chores. As he reads, he mocks her words. He then addresses the things she said, point by point, talking directly to her – albeit via YouTube.

 

When he is done, the camera moves to show the computer in the grass and dirt. He says, “That right there is your laptop.” He then moves a gun into the video and says, “This right here is my .45,” and proceeds to shoot the laptop – nine times. He counts the bullets, telling her she’ll have to pay him back the dollar each one cost.

 

He posted the video to YouTube, it went viral, and the father has gone on the talk show circuit. It also prompted many discussions about how social media was used as well as this type of discipline. The debate ranged from the insinuated violence, to the over-reactive nature of the discipline, to the utter waste of an expensive piece of technology. This father got revenge on what his daughter did; it is never right for a parent to get revenge on their child. He stated, in an interview, “She put it on Facebook, I put it on Facebook.” Why was it wrong for his daughter to swear and behave immaturely online but not wrong for him to do the same in a public video denigrating her?

 

Another case of blatant cyberbullying came to light this past week. In Akron, Ohio, Denise Abbott decided her 13-year-old daughter Ava needed disciplining for airing her gripes on Facebook, and used the same venue to exact her parental “justice.” She used Photoshop to place a red X over her daughter’s mouth in a picture of Ava. She added the text: “I do not know how to keep my (mouth shut). I am no longer allowed on Facebook or my phone. Please ask why. My mom says I have to answer everyone that asks.”

 

She uploaded the photo to her own Facebook account as well as to her daughter’s, making it the cover photo (the very large banner-type picture the new Timeline format incorporates) as well as the small thumbnail profile photo used as an inset (see photo). To make matters worse, the local network news did a story on what had been done, and while 13-year-old Ava does not appear in the story, her photo does. This prompted national news to pick up the story as well. Denise Abbott says, “You have to adapt your parenting skills with the times.”

 

The news story made the Internet, and has – of course – gone viral. Denise Abbott has also gone on the “Today” show, and may yet appear on other shows. A simple Google search reveals that this story has gone around the world, with news items from France, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and Germany, and probably more countries than can be listed in this space.

 

Both Tommy Jordan and Denise Abbott have said that had they known they would receive such worldwide attention, they might have rethought their actions. Surely Denise must have heard about the backlash Tommy Jordan got; and yet, she did what she did anyway, as well as invite local news media into her home to cover the story. It’s important to note that it’s always too late for regrets, once it’s on the Internet. This will never be erased even as the headlines fade. Abbott has said that she never expected this to go viral the way it did. Jordan says the same. This reinforces the need for parents to understand the viral nature of the Internet.

 

Tommy Jordan speaks directly to his daughter about his feelings regarding her Facebook posting; but he does so via video camera, posted on YouTube. Denise Abbott prefaced her actions by removing Ava’s phone and Facebook privileges. Both these parents seem to have the right ideas, the wrong methods. Instead of addressing their children’s behavior privately, at home, they – in essence – opened the walls of their living rooms to the world. And yet, they did so because they were upset that their children had done the very same thing! Hannah Jordan had complained using Facebook; Ava had used Facebook to speak disrespectfully about her mother but no details have been provided.

 

Both forms of discipline, in my opinion, went way overboard, but they also crossed an important line between home discipline and public degradation. Moreover, it seems these parents wanted some sort of public approval for getting their kids in line. That seems to take priority over getting the behavior changed; otherwise, why post it online? Why go on talk shows? Why not deal with their children in their homes, privately, and respectfully? Shouldn’t adults be the adults in these situations, and model positive behavior instead of reflect the very acts for which they are penalizing?

 

What is wrong with these types of disciplinary actions? Some thoughts:

 

- Parents have turned parental discipline into a world-stage event. It’s tantamount to putting one’s child on a stage, in a spotlight, pointing fingers to highlight what is actually normal teenage behavior, stating “look how badly my child behaved,” and inviting everyone on the Internet (and those watching on television) to do the same. It is a very strong example of cyberbullying, using technology and the platform of social media to humiliate and denigrate. It is not discipline at all, it is public shaming, and it is abusive. Various news stories have Ava saying she deserved it, but did Ava really feel that way or is she somehow feeling coerced to own up to it?

 

- It also opens doors for so many other parents to follow suit. On the site where the story first emerged online, there are countless comments from parents exclaiming, “I’m definitely going to do this when my kid acts up!” Polls (unscientific as they may be) on the various news outlets have shown an overwhelming majority of parents who believe that both Jordan AND Abbott acted appropriately. It provides dangerous precedents for more cyberbullying behavior on the part of parents, the very people who are supposed to be protecting their kids from the world, not exposing and shaming them.

 

- This trend also begs the question: what will parents like Denise Abbott do when their children commit a second, or more egregious infraction? They will – we know they will. Kids misbehave. It’s normal. As they grow, they test their wings. What will she do when Ava uses harsher words, or decides to skip a day at school, or any other numerous known teenage rule-breaking behaviors? The bar is already advanced on how far she will go to discipline Facebook rudeness. What comes next? Where does she go from here? She has already said, on NBC, that she will do something similar again if that’s what it takes. That, in itself, is deeply alarming. And if she has to do it again – did it really work in the first place? There is no magic disciplinary action. Kids – like adults – learn through repetition and maturity. We will all make mistakes. We may make the same mistakes more than once. That’s human nature.

 

Some questions to ponder:

 

- Why is it “creative parenting” when an adult carries this out but cyberbullying when kids target one another? If this had been another kid, the story would have been about cyberbullying. Abbott may even have called out the other teen who was humiliating her daughter. Yet somehow, these parents – and their supporters from far and wide – believe their actions are for the betterment of their children. The very example of the power in cyberbullying is intrinsic in these stories. Abbott’s actions, in her mind, are justified because she is the parent, the authority – the one with the power, as opposed to another child carrying out this action, in which case she probably would have been incensed that her daughter had been targeted and victimized.

 

- As well, is it not dangerous to call this “creative”, which carries a positive connotation? Almost every news story has referred to it as “creative parenting”. We must change that perception.

 

- If the behavior does change, is it because the child has learned a lesson? Or merely because the child has been so intimidated by his/her public shaming (and perhaps emails or posts from strangers) that call further attention to their rule breaking? Ava’s response via email stated that she had been rude to her mother but that she will think twice next time because “It made me realize that I didn’t want my picture on there like that because all of my friends were asking me what happened and what I did.” She doesn’t say that she realized it was wrong to be rude to her mother, only that she did not want to be humiliated again. Lesson learned? Perhaps. Punishment feared? Yes. Parental discipline is not to instill fear of the punishment; it is to teach a change in behavior due to understanding of why the behavior needs changing. I don’t believe we’re seeing that in Ava’s statement.

 

- With so many bullycides and cyberbullycides in our headlines, do we really want to see cyber-discipline become the acceptable, notable norm? Will more “creative” solutions for parents to use social media to shame their children, in the most public forum possible, emerge if this is not addressed? And if so, is it not frightening to think of what other parents may do? Those with true abusive streaks have the potential to harm their children beyond the pale.

 

- Denise Abbott, in follow-up stories, even says, “When you put everything on Facebook, you have to realize there is a consequence for all of your actions.” Does Denise realize that the consequence is now worldwide reaction to her actions on Facebook? And that consequence is not only negative toward her, but encouraging of others to follow in her footsteps? How many more kids will we see highlighted on the news as the targets of “creative discipline” and how many will already be experiencing bullying or cyberbullying at the expense of their self-esteem? Must we get a tragic wake-up call before cyber-discipline is finally put into its proper category – that of cyberbullying?

 

The story has gotten a lot of press, and those supporting the actions of both these parents seem to be unaware of how cyberbullying is inherent in both cases. How can we prevent more children from the cyber equivalent of stockades in a public square?

 

It’s time to get proactive. Spread the word that cyberbullying doesn’t just “look like” inflammatory texts in emails, text messages, Facebook or Twitter posts. Spread the word that cyberbullying takes many forms, and we must train everyone involved (parents, teachers, students, and bystanders) not only to recognize cyberbullying but to stand up in defense of victims, especially when those victims are being targeted by their parents. Harsh? Not when you look at the analysis of the behavior: social media used as a tool to publicly out a misbehaving teen. Whether it is parent or peer, this is cyberbullying. And it’s up to us to make sure cyber-discipline does not become sanctioned cyberbullying.

Tags: , , , , , .
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

Email This Post Print This Post

Facebook for Educators, and the issues we need to consider

Article posted by in February 23, 2012 at 1:39 pm.
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (9 votes, average: 4.44 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

I have been chatting with my colleague Nancy Willard of the Center for Responsible Internet Use about Facebook in schools, and how they should and should not be used by educators. These are her recent thoughts with some of my input added…just to get some more discussion going on this issue. We both think that schools MUST shift to the use of interactive technology environments to effectively prepare students for success in their future. There are incredibly effective tools to do this, like EPals and EdModo. However, Facebook in its current instantiation may not be perfectly suited for certain uses by educators. For example, the use of Facebook for community outreach – by schools or extracurricular organizations – is perfectly appropriate. In addition, there may be times that it would be helpful and appropriate for students to access material on Facebook for instructional purposes. However, I would hesitate to recommend that Facebook be used as a platform for instructional activities based on its current limited feature set for schools and educators. The potential problems – including potential liability for schools – are significant.

 

These include:

 

- The privacy of student work products must be protected under the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Having students publicly post their work on Facebook could very well violate this federal statute. (Justin and I recommend that schools and teachers set up Facebook Fan Pages which ensures that communications between the adults and students are public…but Facebook is testing the capability for Fans (students, in this case) to send private messages to the owner (adult educator, in this case) of the Fan page. See here for more information.)

 

- Schools would have to ensure that every adult has effectively set up the appropriate group protections to avoid the potential of liability.

 

- If a teacher has access to student Facebook profiles, these profiles could reveal evidence of abuse. If a teacher fails to detect and report such abuse, the teacher might be in violation of state mandatory reporting laws.

 

- Facebook requires individuals to be at least 13 years of age to sign up. Schools must adopt interactive platforms that can be used throughout their K-12 system.

 

- Students deserve privacy in their personal and social communications. Being required to use Facebook for their instructional activities disrespects this privacy for some. Also, some students and their parents might prefer not to have an account on Facebook.

 

- Facebook’s business model is focused on market profiling and advertising. Whether instructional environments should be engaged in these activities is definitely a controversial issue.

 

- Teachers and other school staff who want to friend students on Facebook are possibly setting themselves up for difficulties. School staff should certainly maintain friendly and supportive relationships with students. But do we want to *formally* encourage teachers to become students’ “friends?” Should they also go and hang out at the mall and go to movies with students? Or should they maintain a distinction in the status of their relationship? This, of course, is a polarizing debate with many strong opinions on one side or the other.

 

To summarize, these are some of the difficulties associated with teacher friending of students:

 

- The aforementioned mandatory reporting requirement

 

- Activities in an environment that is fundamentally built for sharing personal information, thoughts, experiences, photos, and videos (as compared to other social networking platforms like LinkedIn)

 

- Perceived pressure on students to allow teachers to have (at least some) access to their personal social environment, which may violate their privacy

 

- Perceived grading bias if some students establish deeper or stronger “connections” or friendships than others

 

- Possible expectation that busy teachers take on some of the responsibility of monitoring and intervening in student-student personal relationships when they are out of school

 

I really want to hear your thoughts on this…again, keeping in mind the caveats I have stated. I am not suggesting we throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Facebook is great and has numerous benefits and incredible potential. I just don’t think it is where it needs to be yet in terms of providing what schools and educators need to deliver education and provide connections in a perfectly appropriate way.

 

Here are some sample policies that may help you within your school or district as you seek to establish or revise your current formal rules.

 

Facebook has also contracted with a third-party to create a Guide for Educators, and it is available here.

 

Chime in and let’s talk this out!

Tags: , , , , , , .
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

Email This Post Print This Post

What is the story with IsAnyoneUp.com?

Article posted by in December 12, 2011 at 11:08 am.
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (24 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...

One of the Internet’s latest privacy controversies surrounds the rapidly-growing web site Isanyoneup.com.  The site, which launched in late 2010, is essentially a hybrid of social media and amateur pornography – described by some media outlets as a blog for “Revenge Porn.” The blog features thousands of posts containing extremely explicit photos of naked men and women, submitted by the site’s users.  While self-submit pornography sites aren’t all that uncommon, the real difference with Isanyoneup.com – and the true reason for the firestorm it has caused – is that the majority of the pictures on the site are not submitted by the people in those pictures. Instead, the site serves its purpose as a forum where jilted exes and revenge-seekers may share the most intimate photos of those towards whom they wish to retaliate (perhaps another variant of cyberbullying?). As if that was not enough, the blog has developed over time to include screenshots of the Facebook profiles and Twitter feeds of the people featured on the site.

 

Interestingly, the site was initially meant to be something much more innocuous. Hunter Moore, the site’s owner, registered the domain to serve as a would-be nightlife and traveling portal. However, Moore grew complacent and the project failed to launch – and its current iteration began one night with Moore attempting and failing to send explicit photos of a woman to one of his friends, and then being inspired to upload the photos to his then-dormant web site. The site soon became a private place for Moore and his friends to add and share similar photos of various women, until eventually a member of a popular online message board stumbled upon the site and began linking it to others (which of course resulted in an explosion of web traffic). The site’s popularity was further fueled when Moore got the idea to include explicit photographs of popular band members, create a Twitter and Facebook page for the site, and feature gimmicks such as the “daily gnargoyle” – posts which feature particularly unattractive self-submitted photos.

 

As if a site of this nature does not attract enough controversy, the site’s operator seems to relish in all the negative attention he and his site obtains. Moore routinely posts Facebook messages and screenshots of the Twitter responses from people lambasting him for his actions on his website. Recently Moore was featured on Forbes, in articles in Gawker and the LA Times, and even was in a segment on Anderson Cooper’s day-time talk show “Anderson” where he was confronted by two of the women who were featured on his site. In the latter interview, Moore expressed no remorse over his actions and stated that he enjoys what he does as he gets to profit from “seeing naked girls all day.” Additionally, Moore has been threatened with countless lawsuits – which he frequently makes fun of on his site and Twitter feed – and in one case Moore was even stabbed outside of his San Francisco home by a woman who had been featured on the site without her permission. Moore proudly uploaded a picture of his stab wound – and now does not allow submissions of people who live in his hometown of San Francisco anymore.

 

Despite the site being horrifically repulsive on several levels, Isanyone.com has managed to build a substantial and loyal fan base, with much of that popularity likely being the result of Moore and his controversies. On December 8th, Facebook sent Hunter Moore and Isanyoneup.com a Cease and Desist letter demanding that all relevant Facebook content be removed from the site. Facebook went further by permanently banning Moore, his web site, and anyone acting on his behalf from accessing Facebook. Moore no longer has the ability to link Facebook profiles to his blog posts, but continues to post screenshots of the Facebook profiles of the people he features on his site. In consistently controversial fashion, Moore has alleged he replied to Facebook’s Cease and Desist request with a picture of his genitalia.

 

As Facebook’s actions indicate, Isanyoneup.com has garnered a fair amount of legal attention. Moore claims he is threatened with lawsuits every day, but to date none have actually been filed in a court.  As Kashmir Hill of Forbes has speculated, Moore may have been able to avoid legal ramifications thus far due to the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The relevant part of this Act is section 230, which protects site owners and ISPs from the content that is provided by their users. For instance, if a Facebook user makes a discriminatory wall post on the site, Facebook generally cannot be held liable. As far as Isanyoneup.con and Hunter Moore are concerned, they have thus far avoided liability because the problematic content on the site is uploaded by his users via a submission form.

 

All of this is not to say that users are unable to protect themselves. As Hunter Moore himself has argued, the best way to defend yourself from ending up on Isanyoneup.com is not to take such explicit photos in the first place. While that may be ideal, in reality people are apt to make mistakes, and as such those featured on Isanyoneup.com have a couple forms of recourse. First, victims of the site are able to submit copyright takedown requests as long as they were the original owners of the photograph. One would qualify as an original owner as long as they took the picture himself or herself. For example, if a young woman took an explicit photo and forwarded it to someone who then uploaded the photo on Isanyoneup.com without her permission, the young woman could submit a copyright claim to the site, forcing the site to remove the picture or allowing the woman to file a copyright claim suit. Second, the Isanyoneup.com web site also includes a ‘Contact’ tab which allows those featured on the site to simply ask to be removed. There is no guarantee that this will actually result in the relevant photographs being removed, however, as some people have claimed in interviews that their removal requests have gone repeatedly ignored by Moore.

 

Outside of the aforementioned copyright claims, adults have little other recourse if they end up being featured on the site. Fortunately, minors are given much more consideration by Isanyoneup.com and Hunter Moore than adults are. An LA Times piece on Moore claims that his site goes to great lengths to protect minors, and all signs seem to point to this being true. Submissions to Isanyoneup.com are sent to a separate cloud server where a sample blog post is automatically generated but not actually posted online, where it is then investigated by Moore or one of his volunteers. Moore claims background checks are then performed on all subjects to determine whether they may be minors, as all submissions include Facebook profiles for which they can be cross-referenced. The site itself posts strict and clear warnings about underage content, and claims to forward the personal information of those that submit child pornography to the relevant authorities. In true Isanyoneup.com fashion, the submission page of the site includes a Facebook profile screenshot – including all of the personal information – of a man who submitted underage content to Isanyoneup.com.

 

Despite the obvious problems that the readers of our blog will have with Isanyoneup.com, the site is – from what we can tell – on solid legal footing. Moore and his site are not actually violating any laws as all content featured on the site is submitting by its users, the site responds to formal copyright claims by removing copyrighted photographs, and it protects itself from liability by storing initial submissions on separate servers and weeding out child pornography. For those that wish to avoid becoming just another featured blog post on Isanyoneup.com, Hunter Moore himself said it best: don’t take the photographs to begin with, and certainly don’t put them into the hands of people you can’t entirely trust.

 

Related readings:

 

A great piece by The Awl.com on Hunter Moore and his web site:
http://www.theawl.com/2011/11/the-man-who-makes-money-publishing-your-nude-pics

 

A few Forbes articles on Hunter Moore and Isanyoneup.com:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/07/06/revenge-porn-with-a-facebook-twist/

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/11/22/how-hunter-moore-could-get-into-legal-trouble-for-the-revenge-porn-on-isanyoneup/

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2011/12/09/facebook-goes-after-porn-site-that-features-its-users-profiles/

 

Los Angeles Times piece on Hunter Moore on the band members exposed on his site:
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/04/entertainment/la-ca-pop-nudes-20111204

 

Gawker “Facebook Declares War on Sleazy Revenge Porn Site”:
http://gawker.com/5866506/

 

Two short clips from Hunter Moore on Anderson Cooper’s show:                http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/64582249.html

 

 

Tags: , , , .
Subscribe to this blog via RSS or Email.

Email This Post Print This Post