The Lori Drew trial is set to begin this week, and it is a travesty that this trial is even taking place. The basic facts of this case are that Drew was the mother of a teenage daughter and she created a fake MySpace profile for a fictional teen boy to befriend a classmate of […]
Category: Social Media
Posts about Social Media by Professor Daniel J. Solove for his blog at TeachPrivacy, a privacy awareness and security training company.
Facebook, Myspace, and College Admissions
Last year, I noted that employers and others were increasingly looking at applicants’ social network website profile pages in their hiring decisions. Apparently, now college admissions officers are also using social network sites like Facebook and MySpace to make decisions on applicants. According to the Wall St. Journal:
Politics in the Age of MySpace and Facebook
Recently, I was interviewed for an article in the Globe and Mail about the young teenage father-to-be involved in the media circus surrounding vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s pregnant teenage daughter. I believe that the media should restrain itself from prying further into Palin’s daughter’s private life, as well as that of the father-to-be. He […]
More Misguided Responses to the Megan Meier Incident
Last week brought the unfortunate news that Lori Drew was indicted for a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for her ill-conceived hoax on Megan Meier. According to an MSNBC article:
Does the Roomates.com Case Affect CDA § 230 Immunity for JuicyCampus?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (en banc) has just issued a very interesting opinion interpreting a federal law providing immunity from liability for online speech — the Communications Decency Act (CDA), 47 U.S.C. § 230. The case is Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com, LLC, 2008 WL 879293 (9th Cir. April 3, […]
Facebook Banishment and Due Process
Recently, I was talking with David Lat, author of the blog Above the Law, and he was complaining about being banished from Facebook. David was an active user of Facebook, and he suddenly and inexplicably found himself banned from the site. Facebook didn’t supply him with any reason.
Facebook Applications: Another Privacy Concern
Recently, I’ve been complaining about Facebook’s mishaps regarding privacy. Back in 2006, Facebook sparked the ire of over 700,000 members when it launched News Feeds. In 2007, Facebook launched Beacon and Social Ads, sparking new privacy outcries. An uprising of Facebook users prompted Facebook to change its policies regarding Beacon. For more about Facebook’s recent […]
Who Is Googling Whom, and For What?
PEW Internet & American Life Project has released a new report on online privacy called Digital Footprints by Mary Madde, Susannah Fox, Aaron Smith, and Jessica Vitak. The report provides some very interesting statistics. 1. People are starting to google themselves. According to the survey:
Responses to Blog Reviews of The Future of Reputation: Part III
In this post, I’ll be responding to a few more reviews of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet. This is the third installment (for more responses to reviews, see Part I and Part II).
The Woes of Web 2.0
From CNN comes yet another story about people who disclose too much information on their blogs and social network websites: