Speak Spanish Britishly

Retrieved at: https://www.facebook.com/speakspanishbritishly

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

You Need To Get Off Facebook

Labor Students,

Have you got a Facebook account? Or Twitter? or Tuenti? Maybe you have an account in some or all of them. Do you spend too much time on the social networks? Actually, do you waste your time on them? Are you learning anything from your social network? Do you get any profit from them?

Maybe these questions had never even occurred to you. Or maybe they had because you've experienced this uneasy feeling 'I really ought to be doing something else but I'll log off in just a sec'. That is why we would like to offer you some answers. Watch this video carefully and THINK!

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Stop Cyberbullying

`

What is cyberbullying, exactly?

"Cyberbullying" is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying.

It isn't when adult are trying to lure children into offline meetings, that is called sexual exploitation or luring by a sexual predator. But sometimes when a minor starts a cyberbullying campaign it involves sexual predators who are intrigued by the sexual harassment or even ads posted by the cyberbullying offering up the victim for sex.

The methods used are limited only by the child's imagination and access to technology. And the cyberbully one moment may become the victim the next. The kids often change roles, going from victim to bully and back again.

Children have killed each other and committed suicide after having been involved in a cyberbullying incident.

Cyberbullying is usually not a one time communication, unless it involves a death threat or a credible threat of serious bodily harm. Kids usually know it when they see it, while parents may be more worried about the lewd language used by the kids than the hurtful effect of rude and embarrassing posts.

Cyberbullying may arise to the level of a misdemeanor cyberharassment charge, or if the child is young enough may result in the charge of juvenile delinquency. Most of the time the cyberbullying does not go that far, although parents often try and pursue criminal charges. It typically can result in a child losing their ISP or IM accounts as a terms of service violation. And in some cases, if hacking or password and identity theft is involved, can be a serious criminal matter under state and federal law.

When schools try and get involved by disciplining the student for cyberbullying actions that took place off-campus and outside of school hours, they are often sued for exceeding their authority and violating the student's free speech right. They also, often lose. Schools can be very effective brokers in working with the parents to stop and remedy cyberbullying situations. They can also educate the students on cyberethics and the law. If schools are creative, they can sometimes avoid the claim that their actions exceeded their legal authority for off-campus cyberbullying actions. We recommend that a provision is added to the school's acceptable use policy reserving the right to discipline the student for actions taken off-campus if they are intended to have an effect on a student or they adversely affect the safety and well-being of student while in school. This makes it a contractual, not a constitutional, issue.

If you want to know more, click on the following icons:

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

NY Times: Parents Struggle with Cyberbullying

The following article by JAN HOFFMAN was published on The New York Times online last Friday 4th December:

As Bullies Go Digital, Parents Play Catch-Up

Ninth grade was supposed to be a fresh start for Marie’s son: new school, new children. Yet by last October, he had become withdrawn. Marie prodded. And prodded again. Finally, he told her.

“The kids say I’m saying all these nasty things about them onFacebook,” he said. “They don’t believe me when I tell them I’m not on Facebook.”

But apparently, he was.

Marie, a medical technologist and single mother who lives in Newburyport, Mass., searched Facebook. There she found what seemed to be her son’s page: his name, a photo of him grinning while running — and, on his public wall, sneering comments about teenagers he scarcely knew.

Someone had forged his identity online and was bullying others in his name.

Students began to shun him. Furious and frightened, Marie contacted school officials. After expressing their concern, they told her they could do nothing. It was an off-campus matter.

But Marie was determined to find out who was making her son miserable and to get them to stop. In choosing that course, she would become a target herself. When she and her son learned who was behind the scheme, they would both feel the sharp sting of betrayal. Undeterred, she would insist that the culprits be punished.

It is difficult enough to support one’s child through a siege of schoolyard bullying. But the lawlessness of the Internet, its potential for casual, breathtaking cruelty, and its capacity to cloak a bully’s identity all present slippery new challenges to this transitional generation of analog parents.

Desperate to protect their children, parents are floundering even as they scramble to catch up with the technological sophistication of the next generation.

Like Marie, many parents turn to schools, only to be rebuffed because officials think they do not have the authority to intercede. Others may call the police, who set high bars to investigate. Contacting Web site administrators or Internet service providers can be a daunting, protracted process.

When parents know the aggressor, some may contact that child’s parent, stumbling through an evolving etiquette in the landscape of social awkwardness. Going forward, they struggle with when and how to supervise their adolescents’ forays on the Internet.

Marie, who asked that her middle name and her own nickname for her son, D.C., be used to protect his identity, finally went to the police. The force’s cybercrimes specialist, Inspector Brian Brunault, asked if she really wanted to pursue the matter.

“He said that once it was in the court system,” Marie said, “they would have to prosecute. It could probably be someone we knew, like a friend of D.C.’s or a neighbor. Was I prepared for that?”

Marie’s son urged her not to go ahead. But Marie was adamant. “I said yes.”

Parental Fears

One afternoon last spring, Parry Aftab, a lawyer and expert on cyberbullying, addressed seventh graders at George Washington Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J.

“How many of you have ever been cyberbullied?” she asked.

The hands crept up, first a scattering, then a thicket. Of 150 students, 68 raised their hands. They came forward to offer rough tales from social networking sites, instant messaging and texting. Ms. Aftab stopped them at the 20th example.

Then she asked: How many of your parents know how to help you?

A scant three or four hands went up.

Cyberbullying is often legally defined as repeated harassment online, although in popular use, it can describe even a sharp-elbowed, gratuitous swipe. Cyberbullies themselves resist easy categorization: the anonymity of the Internet gives cover not only to schoolyard-bully types but to victims themselves, who feel they can retaliate without getting caught.

But online bullying can be more psychologically savage than schoolyard bullying. The Internet erases inhibitions, with adolescents often going further with slights online than in person.

Read the full story: 

• 1 
• 2 
• 3 
• 4 
• 5 
• 6 

NEXT PAGE »

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Newsy: The Queen is Friendless on Facebook

Her Royal Highness is on Facebook, but you can't friend her. You can only "like" her.

How would you like be friends with the Queen? Correction, you can’t be friends with the Queen, but you can “like” her. The British monarch now has a Facebook page. 

So what happens if you “like” her? New York’s News 12 has the details on exactly what you’ll find: “Britain’s Queen has launched a series of official pages offering the website’s 500 million users daily updates on her engagements, the royal household has said. The 84-year-old British Monarch will be featured in videos, photos, news items. Users can leave messages or comments for Buckingham palace on the site and find out details of royal events close to their home.”

And who knew the Queen could cause such frenzy on the web – The U.K.’s Telegraph says people were waiting for exactly 8 AM when the page went up to “like” the monarch: “There will be a public list of friends of the page, prompting a race to become the first to press the ‘like’ button on Monday morning.”

So the Queen has a public page for everyone to see. But the anchors on Fox Business joke about what she might have on her private page – and who she might be friends with if she were accepting friends:

ANCHOR 1 - “Has the queen reached out and befriended others? Who do you think she would?”

ANCHOR 2 - “I don’t know if she has yet or not. I’m sure Prince Charles has his own Facebook page”

ANCHOR 1 - “And then does she have a private page and a public page? Can you imagine the pictures on the private page?”

ANCHOR 2 - “They will put pictures on there –“

ANCHOR 1 - “But the public page.”

ANCHOR 2 - “Yeah well of course. Of course there’s not private page with the Queen.”

HRH has been creating something of an image makeover in the last couple of years – A writer for CNET says that started after Helen Mirren played her in the critically acclaimed movie “The Queen”. Since then, she’s been trying to reach out to the lowly masses: “I fancy, though, that the queen's advisers ought to loosen her reins just a little. The queen's deep fondness for horses and other farm animals surely makes her a prime candidate for FarmVille. Please imagine the astonishment among the populace to discover that Britain's queen is looking after her donkeys just as well as you are.”

But The Stir is a little critical of the set-up, saying the page is pretty much a love-fest toward the monarch with no room for criticism or any kind of negative public opinion: “… her ’about me’ warns ‘Please note that any offensive comments will be deleted.’… With no sign that Facebook will add a dislike button anytime soon… it's one place where her royal majesty can continue to receive all the thumbs up she needs to make her feel like a queen...”

So what do you think of this latest technology venture? Will you like the Queen?

Writer: Alyssa Caverley

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Newsy: Facebook Places: Critics Weigh In

Facebook is hawking its latest add on, a location-based app called “Places.” It lets users post their location like a status update.

“You can now say, ‘I’m here’ and you know, if people want to join you, they can. It’s a great way to let your friends know in kind of a lightweight way if they want to come and meet you.” (Facebook)

Facebook is hawking its latest add on – a location-based app called “Places.” It lets users post their location like a status update – and connect to nearby friends. Despite plenty of competing apps like Gowalla and Foursquare already on the market – Computerworld says Places still has potential: “Facebook offers one clear advantage over the competition: Critical mass. With more than 500 million users around the world, chances are your friends are on Facebook, and they're not on competing location-based services.”

A tech reporter for CNBC also notes Facebook’s size – saying it could be a blessing or a curse: “It means everyone, including all 500 million of Facebook’s users, had better start thinking about the implications of a future where friends, businesses and others can pinpoint your location.”

According to a tech expert on Tampa Bay’s WTVT – businesses already have big plans for Places users: “You’re in the supermarket and you pass by the barbecue sauce. It might flash up on your phone: Buy this barbecue sauce and you get $1 off, like an instant coupon because they know you happen to be standing in the barbecue sauce aisle.”

But a writer for Business Insider is more worried about annoying cousins than barbecue coupons clogging up his news feed: “No offense to certain distant relatives or distant in-laws, but we don't really care or need to know if you're at the grocery store in California. And frankly, sometimes we don't want you to know where we are.”

Finally, on ZDNet, a writer says some of Places’ features could become problems when it comes to your privacy: “…guests at a party at my home could turn my home address into a public ‘place’ on Facebook….I also didn’t like the idea of letting my friends ‘tag’ me at their locations. …Yes, I have to give my permission first and yes, I can also ‘untag’ myself - but who wants to be a party pooper like that?”

Places is a free add-on available for iPhones, iPod Touches and Androids. So do you plan to use Places?

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Newsy: Internet Addiction in Teens Linked to Depression

Researchers are still not certain whether unhealthy Internet use leads to depression or whether it’s the other way around.

A new study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine suggests that teens who use the Internet obsessively are much more likely to suffer depression. But experts are still unsure which comes first — depression or Internet addiction.

We’re analyzing coverage of the study from The Daily Telegraph, KYW-TV, Time and MSNBC.

Researchers looked at more than a thousand teenagers, none of whom suffered depression at the beginning of the study. The Daily Telegraph explains the make up of the teens under study and how scientists characterize obsessive Internet use: “Just over 6 percent of the teenagers were found to be pathological users of the Internet, because they said they felt depressed, moody or nervous when not on the Internet, but this disappeared when they were back online.”

After nine months, researchers found that these teens were two and a half times more likely to be depressed. On Philadelphia’s KYW-TV, Pediatrician Robert Bonner explains how obsessive Web use can affect teens: “They were depressed much like somebody who is addicted to drugs or alcohol. The use of the Internet is much like an addiction. It looks like when the activity takes over the majority of the teenager’s time, when they’re away from it, they have the need to get back on it, and if they are unable to continue with the Internet activity, depression starts to come in.”

But not all experts agree that depression is caused by too much time on the Web. TIME Magazine speculates that some users might become addicted to the Internet because they are already depressed: “It could also be, as past studies have found, that people whose Internet use reaches pathological levels are somehow already predisposed to depression... and that they turn to spending time online when they are unhappy.”

Regardless of which health problem leads to the other, experts encourage parents to keep an eye on how much time teens spend in isolation on the Internet, watching TV or playing video games. Pediatric psychologist Margaret Richards shares advice for parents on MSNBC: “They really need to make sure that they’re still involved in other activities, like sports or clubs or going out with their friends so that they’re still getting that social interaction.”

So what do you think? Are teens really spending too much time on the Internet? Or does this study focus too much on a small number of teens who are truly addicted to the Web?

WRITER: Jessica Stephens

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Newsy: 100 Million Facebook Profiles Leaked to the Public

Personal details from more than 100 million Facebook profiles have been made public after a security consultant Ron Bowes 'harvested' the data and made it available for download.

“A hundred million. That’s how many Facebook users profiles are now available to download to anybody. The security consultant who hacked the information says, he did it to show that Facebook settings are confusing and comprimise user information.” (Fox News)

Never before has so much personal information been available in one publically available spot.

Or, so says, secruity consultant Ron Bowes who gathered all the personal data of 100 MILLION Facebook users stuff they hadn’t protected and put it in one easily available download.

Lots of people have availed themselves of that information.

We’re analyzing coverage of this very public listing - from Fox News, The BBC, the Herald in Scotland, Tech Crunch and Thinq.com.

Pictures, birthdays, nicknames, pals. You name it. Bowes gathered it and posted it online, whenceforth it was then re-downloaded time and time again. Bowes defends his actions, telling the BBC... "I am of the belief that, if I can do something then there are about 1,000 bad guys that can do it too. I believe in open disclosure of issues like this, especially when there's minimal potential for anybody to get hurt.”

Indeed, much of this information was already public. Just not all in one place. Facebook is investigating if that any laws were violated in gathering the information. But a privacy expert says, Facebook is the one to blame -- not the researcher. Scotland’s The Herald interviews Simon Davies from the watchdog Privacy International... “Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it.”

But what about personal responsibility?, asks TechCrunch. If you don’t want everyone in the world, including the bad guys to see your stuff take the time to set your privacy settings, like, now.

“These kinds of security breaches will only encourage more hackers desperate for attention. Now would be a good time for Facebook to set their default search to “Friends Only.” Why? Because most people aren’t quite aware that check mark next to “Everyone” includes a hacker who can grab your personal info, package it up and sell it to the highest bidder.”

Yeah, says the UK’s Thinq.com. Time to fetch, buy, or just plain get -- a clue: “....perhaps the existence of a stalker's online black book might finally persuade less security-minded Facebook users to get their arses in gear.”

Oh, and by the way, if you want back the privacy Bowes took too late. Even if you change your privacy settings now, it’s still on the download.

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Filtering Facebook Friends

How do you filter Facebook friends to cause the least offence and maximize privacy?

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Newsy: Philly Tackles Flash Mobs

Philadelphia is divided over what authorities are calling a violent flash mob phenomenon, where thousands of teenagers organize via social networking: Philadelphia police are blaming flash mobs for mayhem on the city's streets -- where as many as 3,000 teenagers organized via social networking.

Now, the City of Brotherly Love is divided over who's to blame for what started as performance art -- but in Philadelphia took a violent turn.

CNN reports flash mobs were first started as pranks, where large groups would organize a harmless spectacle --like mass pillow or snowball fights: "They call it flash mobbing. Usually through Facebook or Twitter. A whole bunch of people get together. Sometimes it's to support a cause, sometimes it's just to show the power of social networking, just for fun."

But it's not all fun and games in Philadelphia, where three teens will stand trial in a January death police blame on flash mobs.

Philadelphia's ABC affiliate talked with a teen psychologist who blames the violence on a perfect storm of impulsive social behavior.

DR. MICHAEL BRADLEY: "We're seeing these kinds of bizarre expressions of teen impulsivity, bad judgment, inability to understand consequences of their actions with the new technology which allows them in a New York minute to express these things in very dangerous ways."

But The New York Times suggests there could be deeper social reasons underlying the violence: "Most of the teenagers who have taken part in them are black and from poor neighborhoods. Most of the areas hit have been predominantly white business districts. ...Mayor Nutter, who is black, rejected the notion that race or the city cut in services was a factor."

Fox News reports city officials are pointing the finger at parents.

REPORTER: "They will be held responsible for their children's actions."

MICHAEL NUTTER: "Take control of your kids. It is not government's responsibility to raise your child."

REPORTER: "They are also considering making free transit passes for students invalid after 4 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. to control teenagers' ability to ride downtown."

But Philadelphia's CBS affiliate talked with students who say any proposal that punishes all teens isn't fair: "Every student is not a bad student. Every teenager is not a bad teenager. And some teenagers just go down South Street just to have fun, not to be disruptive or destructive. 

Philadelphia authorities have enlisted the help of the FBI in 24-hour monitoring of social networks.

So, Labor students, what do you think about all this?

Writer: Newsy Staff

No copyright infringement intended. For educational, non-commercial purposes only.

Think before you post

Once you post your image online, you can't take it back. Anyone can see it: family, friends... anyone!
Remember: Think before you post.
...and think twice if you are going to post someone else's photos!

Even not so friendly people: