Facebook recently launced a new tool called Groups that enables users to create mini social networks within a Facebook user's list of friends. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the impetus for groups was to make communicating with your friends on Facebook more like talking with them in the real world."
Facebook Groups was created not to mimic real world communication but to better enable Facebook to monetize your personal data. Many Facebook users have hundreds of Facebook Friends. However, Facebook does not know what a user's true relationship is with each of its Facebook friends. A user's Facebook Friends may include: high school friends, college friends, graduate school friends, co-workers, family members, strangers, associates, significant others, ex-friends, ex-significant others, etc...
According to a recent PC Magazine article, a Facebook spokesperson stated "[w]e made the decision to allow Group members to add others to the Group in order to make the product simple, and because it resembles something we all understand: adding one of your contacts to an e-mail thread." An e-mail thread may be more analagous to unsolicited junk mail (snail or email) than a real group. In addition, opting-in instead of opting out would have made the product simple for users because opting out forces users to take steps that are not user friendly.
If Facebook wanted to make its new Groups feature mimic real world communication it would have enabled users to individually opt-into Groups instead of making users opt-out. Making users opt-out instead of opt-in has the potential to create some unintended legal issues for some of its users. For example, what if a boss or family member or friend reviews a Group page and found out you were a member of a Group that had some sort of stigma?
In my opinion, Facebook made groups opt-out instead of opt-in to better collect and then sell your personal data to marketers. Facebook is on a furious pace to monetize its users' data to demonstrate to prospective bidders for its future IPO Facebook's monetary potential. If Facebook cares about its users' privacy it will change its Group's feature to be opt-in instead of opt-out. When was the last time you had to opt-out of going to dinner with a real group of friends? To go out with a real group of friends you must opt-in. Therefore, I challenge Facebook to correct this major oversight to its new Group tool.
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
Showing posts with label New York Social Media Law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Social Media Law. Show all posts
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Latest Cyberbullying Tragedy May Trigger Congressional Action To Address Social Media Law Issues
Cyberbullying has once again gained national headlines due to the recent tragic case of Tyler Clementi. To summarize this case, Clementi was a freshman at Rutgers University who committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. Clementi was apparently extremely distraught because allegedly his roommate and another student utilized a webcam to stream onto the Internet Clementi being intimate with another person.
The students who allegedly set up the webcam that captured Clementi without his conset have been charged with Invasion of Privacy. Unfortunately, there is usually a lag between the rapid pace of new technology and the law that governs the use of new technology. In the case of civil and criminal digital crimes this lag is substantial.
This past July, I wrote about cyberbullying because a new Georgia law aimed at curtailing cyberbullying may have some unintended 1st Amendment related consequences. While I believe that Georgia's cyberbullying law has the right intent I do not believe it will withstand constitutional scrutiny for the reasons I stated in that post.
Unfortunately, it has taken another cyberbullying victim to get the attention of Congress. Over the past several years, there have been several high profile cases of cyberbullying. Earlier this year, Phoebe Prince was the poster child for cyberbullying. Now Tyler Clementi. I would hate to see another person's life cut short because they felt their life was over because of content that was uploaded about them online.
Currently, 45 states have some type of anti-bullying law. Even with all of these laws on the books this problem still persists. I believe education at home and in the schools is the best first line of defense in combatting cyberbullying. However, it appears that this may not be enough to deter this destructive activity.
Therefore, I would be happy to assist Congress in drafting a national anti-cyberbullying statute that would balance the need for 1st Amendment protection along with the way information is spread in the Social Media Age along with the need to protect cyberbullying victims. If Senator Lautenberg's office is interested in my assistance his office may contact me directly at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
The students who allegedly set up the webcam that captured Clementi without his conset have been charged with Invasion of Privacy. Unfortunately, there is usually a lag between the rapid pace of new technology and the law that governs the use of new technology. In the case of civil and criminal digital crimes this lag is substantial.
This past July, I wrote about cyberbullying because a new Georgia law aimed at curtailing cyberbullying may have some unintended 1st Amendment related consequences. While I believe that Georgia's cyberbullying law has the right intent I do not believe it will withstand constitutional scrutiny for the reasons I stated in that post.
Unfortunately, it has taken another cyberbullying victim to get the attention of Congress. Over the past several years, there have been several high profile cases of cyberbullying. Earlier this year, Phoebe Prince was the poster child for cyberbullying. Now Tyler Clementi. I would hate to see another person's life cut short because they felt their life was over because of content that was uploaded about them online.
Currently, 45 states have some type of anti-bullying law. Even with all of these laws on the books this problem still persists. I believe education at home and in the schools is the best first line of defense in combatting cyberbullying. However, it appears that this may not be enough to deter this destructive activity.
Therefore, I would be happy to assist Congress in drafting a national anti-cyberbullying statute that would balance the need for 1st Amendment protection along with the way information is spread in the Social Media Age along with the need to protect cyberbullying victims. If Senator Lautenberg's office is interested in my assistance his office may contact me directly at www.shearlaw.com.
Copyright 2010 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC. All rights reserved.
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