week 2
GEMENI80
kawandaweek1.pdf
By Kathy Sole, Ashford University
Learning Objectives
After reading this module, you should be able to
Explain what is required to be considered a good digital citizen.
Module 4 Your Online Social Life
Caia Images/Caia Images/SuperStock
(http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Sole.26 05.16.2/sections/mod04intro#mod04intro)
Introduction
(http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Sole.26 05.16.2/sections/mod4.1#mod4.1)
4.1 Digital Citizen- ship and Etiquette
Awareness
(http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Sole.26 05.16.2/sections/mod4.2#mod4.2)
4.2 Communicating Through Blogs
(http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Sole.26 05.16.2/sections/mod4.3#mod4.3)
4.3 Communicating Through Social
Media
(http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Sole.26 05.16.2/sections/mod4.4#mod4.4)
4.4 Sharing Per- sonal Information
on the Internet (http://content.thuzelearning.com/books/Sole.26 05.16.2/sections/mod04summary#mod04summar
y)
Summary & Resources
Outline the potential consequences of plagiarism at Ashford University and state how you can avoid it in your assignments and online discussions. Describe how blogs can be used to enhance your academic, professional, and personal life, and identify at least two precautions you can take to ensure that your blog comments are kept private. Describe how social media can be used to enhance your academic, professional, and personal life, and identify at least two precautions you can take to ensure that your social media comments are kept private. Explain some of the ways people inadvertently share more information online than they should.
Lesia_G/iStock/Thinkstock
Being part of a digital community means knowing and following the rules of etiquette and good citizenship.
Introduction: What Are Your Responsibilities Online?
The digital world hosts a seemingly infinite number of possibilities and opportunities. People from all over the world go online to seek information, take classes, conduct business, shop, socialize, and even inspire social change. When you use a computer, smartphone, tablet, or other online device, you become a member of this digital community.
As in any community, citizens have both rights and responsibilities. Our society permits us to have freedom of speech, assemble with other people, and pursue activities that make us happy. However, with these rights come responsibilities to obey the law, respect our neighbors, refrain from littering, and participate in community activities such as Neighborhood Watch or cleanup days to keep our community safe and pleasant. Good community citizens accept their responsibility to help keep the community safe and beneficial for all its members.
Like most societies, the digital community has certain rules of etiquette and good citizenship. The information in the following sections outlines your rights and responsibilities as you navigate the online world and gives you the knowledge and skills to participate responsibly in this online society.
In the 1960s Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan recognized that technology and media allowed people to share ideas and interests in ways that were previously unknown. McLuhan coined the term global village to describe how we are connected with others through technology. McLuhan, of course, wrote long before the Internet had been invented, but he recognized the fact that when we engage with other people, no matter the context, we have shared rights and responsibilities. A digital citizen can be defined as a person who uses digital resources to engage in society (Mossberger, Tolbert, & McNeal, 2008).
The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed standards for identifying a good digital student–citizen. The society defines digital citizenship among students in the following way: “Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior” (ISTE, 2007, p. 2). Good digital student–citizens, in the ISTE’s (2007) view, conform to the following four actions:
1. Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology. 2. Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and
productivity. 3. Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning. 4. Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship. (p. 2)
What type of digital citizen are you? Do you meet the criteria listed? In what areas could you improve to be a better digital citizen?
A Good Digital Citizen Understands and Avoids Plagiarism
Digital citizenship translates to your online college classroom in that good digital student–citizens practice academic integrity. They conform to the academic integrity policies and student community standards in the university catalog available on the Student Portal home page. They avoid plagiarism, which occurs when a writer uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (non-common- knowledge) material without acknowledging its source (Council of Writing Program Administrators,
4.1 Digital Citizenship and Etiquette Awareness
Danae Munoz/Ikon Images/SuperStock
Plagiarism is a serious offense that includes using someone else’s language, ideas, or other original material without acknowledging the source.
2003). They use critical thinking to formulate responses to assignments and to develop academic papers.
Plagiarism is a serious offense. When you represent another’s work as your own or closely copy the language or arrangement of a document that is not yours, you are stealing other people’s work. Most organizations and academic institutions, including Ashford University, have strict policies prohibiting plagiarism. Faculty members are required to report suspected plagiarism, and a formal investigation is conducted. If you are found guilty, the penalties are severe and may result in a failing grade on the assignment, a failing grade for the class, suspension from the university, or expulsion. Such consequences are a stain on your academic record and a blemish on your integrity and your reputation. You must be extremely careful to give other people credit when you use their ideas, because forgetting to give credit to others is not a valid excuse. Some examples of actions that would be considered plagiarism are as follows:
Submitting a paper written by someone other than yourself, such as a friend, family member, or a previous student. Submitting a paper written by you for another class, unless you have permission from your instructor and clearly indicate that the paper was submitted previously for another purpose. Ashford University’s policy on recycling your assignments can be found in the “Student Responsibilities and Policies” link in the classroom. Submitting a paper you found online or purchased on the Internet. Copying partial or complete sentences or paragraphs from the work of others without giving them credit. Changing only a few words from another person’s work and then passing it off as your own idea. Forgetting to include the source of other people’s ideas you used in your paper.
It is important to refrain from plagiarism under any circumstance, whether academic, professional, or personal. This includes when you are writing a paper for class, making a comment in a discussion forum, doing a presentation, or engaging in social media. It is never appropriate to present someone else’s ideas as your own.
A Good Digital Citizen Respects Copyright Laws
To be a good digital citizen in your Ashford University classes, you will be required to understand and respect copyright laws and make sure you do not violate them by using others’ materials either inappropriately or without written permission. The following resource provides a brief overview of these laws and how to observe them: http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/student-copyright (http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/student-copyright) .
A Good Digital Citizen Practices Online Etiquette
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With so many new forums for social networking, it’s important to learn the rules for online etiquette.
In any society, having good manners and being polite are important to ensure that people respect one another and treat others appropriately. As a good digital citizen, you must also practice good manners. Over the past few years, a system of online etiquette has evolved about what is considered polite and professional behavior when using digital resources.
In the physical world, etiquette includes unwritten rules of good behavior such as holding the door open for the person entering a building behind you, not shouting or being rude in public, and showing respect for your colleagues. Online, similar rules are important to maintain a positive shared environment. Digital citizens are careful not only about what they say online, but how they say it. One of the biggest problems with online communication is interpreting the writer’s tone. What we think is short, sweet, and to the point, other people might interpret as rude, abrupt, or condescending. Always reread what you write before posting online to reduce the likelihood that what you have written will be misunderstood.
The following is a brief list of ground rules for communicating in any online environment. In the remainder of the module, we will look more closely at digital citizenship and etiquette in the classroom, at work, and on social media.
Always avoid offensive language, and reread what you write so it is unlikely to be interpreted as offensive. Never share personal information or material about other people. Never distribute pornographic or slanderous material. Don’t engage in flaming, a term that describes an increasingly intense and vicious debate. If it appears that a discussion is headed in this direction, simply stop. Remember the Golden Rule: Treat people the way you would like to be treated.
Have you ever displayed negative etiquette online? What steps can you take to improve in this area? Are there any tips on etiquette you would add to this list?
In addition to avoiding plagiarism and displaying appropriate etiquette, a good digital citizen protects the online community by making sure to guard against transmitting computer viruses and other threats by installing antivirus and security software on his or her computer. We will discuss this topic in more detail in Module 6. A good digital citizen also exhibits a positive attitude toward the use of technology, supports others in the community, takes personal responsibility for lifelong learning, and acts as a role model for other students.
These rules are easy to learn and will quickly become second nature. This course is designed to make your online experiences fun, useful, and as positive as possible.
Plagiarism
The ability to collaborate with others on the web is often called collective intelligence, and it has created opportunities and forums for people to instantly share information with others around the world—via online communities—that were previously impossible. This collective intelligence is open to anyone who logs in or creates an account on the site. This means, however, that nothing you write is private. As one observer wrote:
In the late 1990’s, the head of a large Internet computer company made the statement, “Privacy is dead, get over it.” There’s some truth to that statement, that in order to ensure one’s privacy, one should never make a single public utterance or statement. For absolute privacy, say nothing online. However, that is not a realistic strategy in this day and age. The Internet is the great communicator vehicle, and it will not be silenced simply because of privacy issues. (Grohol, 2005, para. 11)
Simply said, if you want privacy, don’t use the web. Most would agree, however, that the web is a wonderful tool for learning, sharing, and interacting with others. You must be aware that everything you say and share on the web is public information. This is especially true when you post to blogs and social media sites, which we will discuss in this section and in Section 4.3. Your college class assignments will rarely require you to post information on a blog or on social media. However, using these types of websites can be an excellent way to connect with your classmates and share information with them outside of class. Some social media sites, such as LinkedIn, are also great ways to connect with people in professional careers you may plan to pursue.
Do you remember Chantal from Module 1? She participates in several blogs and social media websites. She follows the blogs of people in the marketing industry, where she hopes to work after she graduates. She also uses LinkedIn to connect with people in the marketing field and is hoping to apply for an internship through someone she met on the site. Chantal uses Facebook to keep in touch with her friends and connects with several classmates she met in her college courses through Ashford Café. These classmates are single moms, like herself, and they understand the difficulties of attending school while caring for children, so they have created a type of online support system for themselves. Let’s look at some specifics regarding blogs.
4.2 Communicating Through Blogs
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Blogs allow people to publish photos and chronicle trips or life events and are accessible to billions of people.
Blog is a word created using the b from the word web and the term log, and refers to a discussion or informational website where you can usually post comments or questions and responses to the comments or questions of others on various topics. The first blog made its debut around the year 2000, and by the end of 2011, a national survey firm reported that 181 million blogs could be found on the web. These numbers included 6.7 million people who publish their blogs as websites, altogether known as the blogosphere, and another 12 million people who wrote their blogs on social networks (Nielson Company, 2012).
Blogs are a form of social networking, where you can connect with people who have interests similar to your own or exchange information and learn from others. WordPress, Blogger, Quora, and Tumblr are
four popular blog sites. These blogs often have a combination of serious and more trivial topics. Tumblr (2016), for example, explains the content of its website this way: “Stories, photos, GIFs, TV shows, links, quips, dumb jokes, smart jokes, Spotify tracks, mp3s, videos, fashion, art, deep stuff. Tumblr is 244 million different blogs, filled with literally whatever” (para. 2).
Some personal blogs are like a diary; people use them to chronicle a trip they are taking or to update people about family events. Blogs are also used by political candidates and state and local governments to reach out to constituents and gather opinions on important issues. Clubs, businesses, and other organizations use them, as well, to report on their activities or share information they believe is important to those who subscribe to the blog and follow it regularly.
The terms and conditions of many blogs require people to use their own names, which can open you up to personal safety risks if others do not agree with your opinions. Other blogs allow users to remain anonymous, which can also be dangerous because some people are willing to say things anonymously that they would not say if their name was attached to the comment. A good rule to follow for posting comments on any type of blog is not to say something online that you would not say if you were talking with someone face-to-face.
Decades ago, when many people kept diaries, they poured their deepest thoughts and desires onto the pages, but the diary had very secure privacy settings. The book had a key lock, there was only one copy, and the copy was usually hidden somewhere, away from prying eyes. Of course, web blogging is entirely different, since it is accessible to billions of people.
Thus, the first thing to remember is that what you write will likely be accessible by someone forever. This means that something you might casually compose and post at a younger age might resurface when you are looking for a job later in life. Employers often scour the web to learn about you as a person. To make sure they do not find anything unsavory about you, keep your posts clean and appropriate.
Second, even if you use a pseudonym for your blog, it does not mean you are completely protected or private. If the pseudonym is ever connected to your real name in any online activity, it becomes quite easy to match your online posts together. Similarly, any photographs of you with a pseudonym can be associated with photographs with your real name, because photographic face recognition software is advancing very quickly and may soon replace a password as the way you log in to a computer.
Third, by providing personal information about yourself in a post, you may inadvertently make yourself a target. For example, let’s say your friend writes a post about his surprise 30th birthday bash last Saturday. He posts pictures of the gorgeous decorations his friends and family put on the outside of his house, as well as the new car he bought for himself. He has now publicly announced his birth date, provided information about what his neighborhood looks like, and given out his license plate number, all of which may put him at serious risk for both identity theft and robbery. Let’s hope his next post isn’t about an upcoming vacation, because then everyone will know when he won’t be home to safeguard his house.
Fourth, there are privacy controls you can use while blogging. For example, you can set your blog to remain private and allow only people you know to read it (such as family or classmates). However, keep in mind that if any of these accounts are compromised and a password is hacked, all of your posts could suddenly become public.
Just because you have to be aware of privacy issues does not mean you cannot have fun and make productive use of the web to connect with other people. One way to do this is through social media, which is discussed in Section 4.3.
Think for a moment about the people in your life. They typically fall into two groups. The first are your friends and family, with whom you share your innermost secrets, dreams, desires, and aspirations. The second group of people you associate with are your colleagues and acquaintances at work. Of course, many of them might become friends, too, but in general, you share different aspects of your life with them. For most of us, these two main groups define most of our daily interactions. Today, through social media, we can stay connected with these two primary groups. Just as in face-to-face conversations, what we choose to share with these two groups may be very different, so you will want to ensure that what you share on social media is appropriate for each audience.
Dozens of social media or social networking sites can be found on the web for connecting with friends and family. Some of the most popular sites are Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat. For expanding your business contacts, LinkedIn has become the most popular networking site. The social media sites used most often by adults from 2012 to 2014 are shown in Figure 4.1.
Figure 4.1: Social media sites, 2012–2014
Many people use a variety of social networking sites to stay connected with friends, family, former classmates, and colleagues.
4.3 Communicating Through Social Media
From “Social Media Update 2014,” by M. Duggan, N. B. Ellison, C. Lampe, and A. Lenhart, 2015 (http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014 (http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/01/09/social-media-update-2014) ). Copyright Pew Research Center. Reprinted with permission. More recent data can be found at http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-me- dia (http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/social-media)
Social media websites generate massive volumes of data, including text, photos, and videos. Studies show that more than 300 million photos are uploaded daily to Facebook, 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and Twitter receives almost 400 million tweets per day (Tsukayama, 2013). The International Data Corporation estimated that in 2011 the equivalent of 200 billion 60-minute high- definition movies were created—a number that would take one person 47 million years to watch (as cited in Heisterberg & Verma, 2014).
Social media is a wonderful way to stay in touch with your fellow students as you continue your degree program. You won’t always be in the same classes with people you meet now, and you may want to stay connected, grow your friendships, and help each other in the future. Social media can also facilitate social learning. Some theorists believe that learning takes place in a social context, and the influence of our peers is an important form of learning. Like all forms of communication, however, it is important to be respectful of others on social media.
To get a general idea of how these collaborative sites operate and how they and other social networking sites can affect your privacy, let’s look at three examples: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Twitter is an alternative to posting long entries on a blog and allows you to post short statements about what you are doing or thinking at any given time of the day. You have a maximum of 280 characters for each post, which is called a tweet. Visit http://www.twitter.com (http://www.twitter.com) to explore the social media platform.
Given how short they are, who would care about these tiny tweets? You may be surprised. In early 2012
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As a registered Twitter user, you can send 280-character tweets to Ashford University classmates, celebrities, or any of the social media site’s millions of users.
Twitter was generating excitement over who would become its 500 millionth user. Twitter can be used to share interesting places you found on the web, ideas you have, a life event (someone tweeted at the altar as he was about to kiss his bride), a frustration, or a question. Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them.
But Twitter is for more than just sharing personal details. Twitter can help you connect specifically to people who most interest you. You can follow other people's posts, create and participate in polls, and track celebrity posts. (Singer Katy Perry was among the first to have 100 million followers on Twitter.) You might use Twitter as a way to get to know your Ashford University classmates better outside of class. Through the Ashford Café, many students establish relationships and use Twitter to keep in contact throughout their college programs.
Twitter also has a practical benefit for businesses to promote their products, for theologians to discuss faith, and for scientists to announce their latest discoveries. Twitter has been used to organize gatherings, sometimes called flash mobs or tweetups. If you wish, you can have conversations about specific subjects using “hashtags.” A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#) and is used to identify, describe, and organize messages on a certain topic. You can add hashtags to your own tweets or click on hashtags in others’ tweets to see all the tweets on that topic. For example, if you wanted to make a comment about the Super Bowl, you might include #SuperBowl in your tweet. If you wanted to see what other people are saying about the Super Bowl, you might click on #SuperBowl in someone else’s tweet (or in Twitter’s list of trending topics) or search for #SuperBowl using the search bar. Some have used Twitter to encourage political engagement and social activism: Hashtags such as #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and #MAGA (Make America Great Again) have been used to facilitate discussion, diatribes, and debate.
What you may not know about Twitter is that the site automatically includes location data when the Twitter setting geotagging is enabled, which is a feature that allows a website to identify information about your location. In 2013 a University of Southern California graduate student built an application that analyzed more than 15 million tweets over a 1-week period. The study revealed that 20% of tweets revealed the users’ locations, and the information was publicly available. The researchers found that even when users chose to disable this setting, many revealed their location by name-dropping something such as a restaurant or through metadata in photos (Gates, 2013). Metadata might be defined as “data about other data.” For example, metadata might be information about a picture such as who took the photograph, where it was taken, a street sign, or other identifiable information in the photo itself. Corporations and intelligence groups use this information to create user or target profiles.
Fortunately, these researchers also developed a tool to give users the ability to review their own Twitter accounts, view their own risk, and manage it (see Strategies for Success: Keeping Your Location Private on Twitter). If the tweets have any location data in them, they will show up as points on a zoomable Google map, and users can retrieve information about where they were when they revealed their location. You can view these combined bits of location information, called your geosocial footprint, to learn about your past sharing habits and privacy. If you have a Twitter account, you can use this free tool at http://geosocialfootprint.com (http://geosocialfootprint.com) .
Strategies for Success: Keeping Your Location Private on Twitter
To avoid giving up too much information, an article in the Huffington Post, an online news aggregator and blog, suggests the following:
Check your Twitter account security and privacy setting to see if you have checked “Add a location to my Tweets.” If you have, uncheck that box and save changes or delete all location information on your account. On your Twitter settings page, view other applications you may have authorized to access your Twitter account, such as Foursquare, a social network website that helps users find places to connect with other people. You can revoke the authorization for individual apps, if you wish. Be careful when posting photos you take with your smartphone. GPS coordinates are usually embedded in the photo metadata, unless you disable geotagging on your camera. Be careful about tweeting an image that identifies you at a specific location (Gates, 2013).
Reflection Questions
1. What are some of the pros and cons of having GPS coordinates enabled on your camera? 2. What types of problems have you or someone you know had with unauthorized access to
your social media accounts? 3. What are some advantages of geotagging?
If you have not used Facebook, it can be difficult to understand. Using Facebook is not like transforming a paper diary into digital text and putting it on the web, as with a blog. Instead, it is an entirely new communication environment. Websites such as Friendster and Myspace originally defined this genre of web applications. Friendster no longer exists, and Facebook has now trampled Myspace to become the leading social networking site (Chaffey, 2016).
So, what is Facebook, exactly? Facebook (which can be found at http://www.facebook.com (http://www.facebook.com) ) originated in 2004. This free web application allows you to find people you know and request to add them as friends (“friend” them), allowing you to communicate and share information with each other. Each user gets a personal profile and “timeline,” where she or he can post public messages—called status updates—and share photos, videos, and web links. You can also post public messages on a friend’s timeline, comment and “react” to posts using emojis, and “tag” your friends in posts, which lets them know you’re posting about them. Your customizable news feed will highlight your friends’ activities for you, as well as upcoming events and other information.
But Facebook’s features do not end there. You can use Facebook to live chat, send private messages, organize events, create or join groups, live stream yourself or an event, follow pages that interest you, and blog. Regardless, it is important to remember that almost everything you do on Facebook is visible. If, on Facebook, you complain about your coworkers to your friends or disclose family secrets to your coworkers, everyone in your network can read it. Bad behavior on Facebook can have real-world consequences. For example, there have been cases of colleges rejecting a
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Facebook is one of the leading social networking sites; thus, knowing what is appropriate to share and how to maintain a sense of privacy is important.
Bloomberg/Contributor/Getty Images
LinkedIn is a great tool for connecting with other professionals, applying for jobs, or posting a job application through your business profile.
student’s application based on inappropriate postings on Facebook. Use your privacy settings to adjust what shows up on your timeline and who can see posts that you’re tagged in. Facebook also allows you to select your audience when you make a post—is your post for the broader public, only your Facebook friends, or only a few specific friends? Even so, as a general rule, it is good to remember that if you post something on Facebook, there are no secrets.
LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking website, has become the most popular networking site for expanding business contacts. In 2017 the website hit 500 million users, who hail from more than 200 countries (Darrow, 2017).
On LinkedIn, users create profiles and make connections with one another, which often represent real-world pro fessional relationships. They then invite people to join their network and introduce people in their network to one another to find jobs and arrange business opportunities. Employers also use LinkedIn to post job listings and find employees. Potential employees can use LinkedIn to apply for these jobs, and employers can review applicants’ profiles much like they would read a résumé. We will discuss how you can use LinkedIn as an employment tool in Module 8.
As mentioned earlier, you can sometimes take personal actions online without fully realizing the consequences of these actions. Once you know these risks, however, you can take steps to protect yourself. Let’s take a look at common ways many people often disclose more personal information than they should.
It may surprise you to learn that people you have never met may know where you live and how long you have lived there. They may also know your past residences, your phone number, your age and income, the number of children you have, their names and those of other relatives, the products you buy, the magazines you read, your political views, your hobbies, and the movies and games you enjoy.
Most of the people and companies who gather this information about you do not use it for fraudulent purposes. They generally use it to create advertisements or special offers for products and services you might like. They may also be political pollsters or campaign workers who use the information to solicit your support for their candidate, or they may be charitable organizations that want you to contribute to a cause you care about or supported in the past. However, they often entice you to disclose personal information by tying that personal information to the possibility of winning a prize or helping others by completing surveys. They may also play on your fear of not being able to return a product or obtain service if you do not register a product.
Before you participate in a sweepstakes, survey, “free gift,” or trial offer, make sure you know that the company sponsoring the sweepstakes is reputable. Do not respond to an e-mail message or click a link in the message unless you are sure the message is legitimate. If possible, go directly to the organization’s website to participate, rather than responding through an e-mail message or link. Also, read the terms and conditions of the sweepstakes or survey to determine what the company will do with the information it collects.
4.4 Sharing Personal Information on the Internet
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Be careful when listing your address, phone number, or other personal information on sweepstakes or contest forms. This information could potentially be shared with third parties.
Similarly, when you purchase products and the manufacturer asks you to register your product, either online or by mailing a registration card, determine if registration is necessary. To do so, consider the following three questions:
1. Is this information required for you to be protected by the product warranty? If not, the company may want the information to inform you of product updates or for marketing purposes. Decide if those are important enough reasons for you to register.
2. Is the information the company requests reasonable and related to the product you purchased? Look at the type of information you have been requested to provide and decide if you would be willing to share this information with family or close friends.
3. Can the information you provide be shared with third parties? Read the terms and conditions instead of just automatically clicking “I accept.” Make sure you fully understand what you are agreeing to. If the information will be shared with others, decide if you are willing for it to become public knowledge.
Sometimes the information we voluntarily provide online may actually be helpful to us, such as when a company learns that we subscribe to a certain magazine and sends us a promotion to save money when we renew our subscription. However, remember that electronic data can be permanent. We never know where this information goes, who will obtain it, how reputable they are, and what they might do with that information. So think carefully before clicking every sweepstakes, survey, or promotional offer presented to you.
Note that sweepstakes, surveys, and promotional offers are not the only methods criminals try to steal our information. Check out A Closer Look: Top Five Social Media Scams for other potential social media scams you might see.
A Closer Look: Top Five Social Media Scams
Social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook are great ways to connect with family and friends. However, it is important to be cautious about blindly posting on social media without considering possible consequences of what you reveal. Ideally, by learning more about ways your personal information can be used, you will make more informed choices about what to share about yourself and your family and avoid being the victim of a scam. Recently, the digital security company Symantec, makers of the Norton brand security programs, published the following list of the top five social media scams on social media websites (ClubNorton, 2015):
1. Chain messages. You have surely seen posts like this one: “Children in foreign countries desperately need shelter, water, or school supplies. A rich individual or large company will donate money if you retweet the post to five of your friends.” Don’t do it! Rich individuals do not need your support to donate, and reputable charities have their own fund-raising efforts. Messages such as this one are often gathering names of people to contact later for other reasons. Break the chain and don’t respond to or pass on these messages.
2. Requests for money.You are contacted by a friend or a relative who lost his wallet on vacation and needs money sent immediately. Or, someone “friended” you on Facebook and now has a problem she hopes you can help her solve with a financial contribution. Perhaps a message arrives from your bank that you must make an online deposit right away to cover an overdraft. These are all examples of stories thieves use to solicit money through social media. Never respond to online requests for money or information about
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As the name suggests, phishing requests try to get you to take the bait and hand over personal information.
your credit cards or other financial matters, even from people you know or companies you think are legitimate. Unscrupulous people can infect a computer with malware (discussed in Module 6) to steal e-mail addresses or social media contact lists by sending these messages. Contact the person or company by phone before you send any money based on a written message. Once you have opened a message like this, run a scan, using the security software we discuss in Module 6, to make sure your computer is free of any tracking cookies or other remnants of this type of scam.
3. Hidden charges. You come across a “free” personality quiz to learn which Hollywood celebrity you most resemble. You enter some personal information, including your cell phone number, and your next cell phone bill shows that you have signed up for a $9.95 monthly subscription to an online service that will send quizzes to you every month. Trial offers for products and services and supposedly free games and quizzes can pressure you to purchase other goods or result in unsolicited products arriving by mail that you did not know you ordered. Read all the terms and conditions carefully before you enter any personal information for what seems to be a free or inexpensive offer on any website.
4. Phishing requests. “You have to see these photos of you I found on social media!” Many of us would be tempted to click on the link in that message, which takes you to what looks like your Facebook or Twitter log-in page. There you enter your log-in ID and password, and a cybercriminal now has control of your account. This type of scheme is known as phishing (pronounced “fishing”). Don’t fall for it. Make sure you have installed Internet security software on your computer that defends against this type of attempt to gain your personal information. We discuss such software later in Module 6.
5. Hidden URLs. People would rather copy and paste a short URL than a long one, and some social media sites such as Twitter limit the number of characters in links you post in messages on the site. For these reasons, online URL shortening services are popular today. These services allow you to input a long URL and then convert it to a much shorter one. For example, the URL to find San Diego, California, on Google Maps is http://www.google. com/maps/place/San+Diego,+CA/@32.7421459,-117.1435718,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x80 d9530fad921e4b:0x0d3a21fdfd15df79 (http://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Diego,+CA/@32.7421459,-117.1435718,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s 0x80d9530fad921e4b:0x0d3a21fdfd15df79) . Using one of these services, the URL can be shortened to http://bit.ly/1KHhoDZ (http://bit.ly/1KHhoDZ) .
In this example, the shortened URL eliminates all the information that helps you identify the site. For this reason, shortened URLs can be used by scammers to redirect you to an unsafe website. You can recognize shortened or hidden URLs by the name of the shorter service (bit.ly in the previous example) or by the seemingly random mix of letters and numbers at the end. Be careful of clicking on these URLs, unless you trust the sender. Twitter users post these links frequently. Learn to recognize the parts of a URL shown earlier in this module and be aware that you will not know the actual destination of a shortened URL.
In Module 6, we will discuss the importance of installing Internet security software on your computer to guard against accidentally installing malware on your computer if you click on a malicious shortened URL.
Reflection Questions
1. Have you encountered any of these online scams? How did you react? 2. After reading about common social media scams, will you change any of your online
behaviors? If so, which ones?
Summary & Resources
Module Summary By joining the vast global community of Internet users, you become a digital citizen. As with any community, digital citizens have both rights and responsibilities. These include the following:
Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology. Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and productivity. Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning. Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship. (ISTE, 2007, p. 2)
As a digital citizen, you also respect copyright laws and refrain from practicing plagiarism. Finally, you employ online etiquette by being polite, professional, and considerate of others when using digital resources.
While the web is a wonderful tool for learning, sharing, and interacting with others, nearly everything you write online is public. This is especially true when you are expressing yourself in a blog or on social media, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. It is important to familiarize yourself with the privacy settings in each platform you intend to use, understand who will be able to read your posts, and use online etiquette when sharing your ideas and opinions.
Having an online social life also means taking responsibility for the information you share and ensuring that it isn’t used against you. By understanding the risks of providing personal information through sweepstakes, surveys, free offers, and product registrations, you can avoid being a victim of identity theft or computer viruses.
Critical-Thinking Questions 1. What are your responsibilities as a digital citizen? 2. What are the consequences of committing plagiarism, and how can you avoid it? 3. How is a blog different from a personal journal or diary? 4. What are some of the positive aspects of using social media? 5. How can you ensure that your professors or future employers won’t discover anything
damaging about you online? 6. Describe a situation in which you or someone you know was a victim of an online scam or had a
problem due to something he or she posted on social media.
Key Terms Click on each key term to see the definition.
blog An online journal or personal writing platform.
blogosphere The worldwide community of bloggers.
collective intelligence The ability to collaborate with others on the web.
digital citizen A person who participates productively, safely, and responsibly in today’s technological society.
flaming An increasingly intense and vicious online debate.
flash mobs Similar to tweetups, gatherings of people organized through social media.
geosocial footprint The location information revealed by users through social media.
geotagging A feature that allows a website to identify information about your location.
hashtag On social media, a word or phrase preceded by a pound sign (#) and is used to identify, describe, and organize messages on a certain topic.
global village The shared human connection through technology.
metadata Big-picture data that is compiled from many smaller data points; often used by corporations and intelligence groups to create user or target profiles.
online etiquette Polite and professional behavior that is appropriate when you use digital resources.
phishing An attempt to obtain sensitive information from another computer user, often for malicious or fraudulent purposes such as identity theft, by masquerading as a trustworthy source.
plagiarism The use of someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (non-common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.
recycling The act of submitting a paper written by you for another Ashford University class. This is not condoned unless you have permission from your instructor and clearly indicate that the paper was submitted previously for another purpose. The university’s policy on recycling is detailed in the “Student Responsibilities and Policies” link in the classroom.
social learning Learning that takes place in a social context through the influence of our peers.
social networking A method of building networks or social relationships among people who share common interests, backgrounds, or activities.
tweetups Similar to flash mobs, gatherings of people organized through social media or, in this case, Twitter.
Flashcards for Key Terms
An online journal or personal writing platform
Tap card to see term 👆
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