Facebook Fails to Act on Child Pornography

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) have claimed that Facebook knew about pages on the site containing illegal child pornography but failed to report them to authorities (The Age). This follows from a successful AFP operation which resulted in 11 offenders being arrested in Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada - 3 people were arrested in Australia (AFP Media Release) . Offenders had allegedly created fake accounts to post and view sexually graphic images of children.  One of those arrested in Australia told police that he had sent at least 10 messages to Facebook. Facebook had responded by removing the content and deactivating accounts but had failed to pass the information on to authorities (The Australian). Despite its alleged failure to cooperate with authorities over illegal child pornography, Facebook are still not indicating whether they will station a liaison officer in Australia (as reported in The Age). A later report on ABC Radio PM indicated that the AFP and Facebook were agreeing to cooperate but that the details of this arrangement were still not clear.

As a result of these police operations, two men arrested in Victoria include a 33-year-old due to appear in Melbourne Magistrates Court on October 6 and a 18-year-old due to appear in Geelong Magistrates Court on September 24. An Illawarra man is due to appear in Wollongong Local Court on October 14 (Bigpond News).

Facebook have consistently adhered to their policy of accepting no responsiblity for the actions of its users – even when this includes illegal behaviour – beyond providing mechanisms for other users to report misuse. At least now it seems that Facebook may have been embarrassed into taking a more responsible stance.

Articles on Facebook at Sapidblog can be found by following this link:

http://sapidblog.wordpress.com/category/social-networking/facebook/

Swans Win!

Click on the image to go to the Swans home page for the full story.

Yeh! I was there at the Gabba when the Sydney Swans won against the Lions with Tim, Sara and Desi – courtesy of tickets from my brother! The result was in the balance at half-time 41-40 but a strong 3rd quarter put the Swans in the ascendency, despite a short-lived resurgence from the Lions early in the 4th, the Swans won by a wide margin (106-68). The Swans now play a home final against Carlton.

Funny, it was all about the Sydney Rugby League when we were growing up and my brother played League when he was younger. Dad and Mum were solid followers of the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks and St George Dragons, respectively, but things change. Once my brother became a trainer with them, it was all about the Sydney Swans AFL.

My Brothers in Town

Baby Abigail at 5 months

My brother is in town today with the Swans  for the game against the Lions this weekend. We were able to get together at the Thai Rose restaurant at Woolloongabba. The Thai Rose was a good suggestion by Jason and Mel and John got to meet his grand-niece Abigail (now nearly 5 months) for the first time. We also enjoyed the food and the river-ferry ride back to John’s hotel afterwards.

SapidBlog has moved to WordPress.com

Owing to constant feature shinkage at Edublogs.org we have moved SapidBlog to a new home at WordPress.com. We were among the earliest supporters of Edublogs.org but of late they keep removing features from the free blog and putting them into the paid blog feature list. Eventually, we lost the capability to even save our blog to a backup  file without paying for it and decided that enough was enough.

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Social Networking Safety

After my posting yesterday about the Facebook Troll that was charged, I thought that I should post more positive information today about social networking safety. There are some great rules for parents about socializing network usage by their teenage children at the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec14.shtm. The US FTC also run the Onguard Online safety site which features some interactive online games to help educate tweens and teens about their online safety.  These games seem both fun and challenging for 14-year olds and up. The game illustrated below is about  choosing your online friends safely. Tim (aged 16) thought it was “orright but pretty common knowledge.”  Give it a go and see what you think  (it might take a minute or so to load). There are numerous other interactive online quizzes availble at the  Onguard Online safety site for you to try as well: topics include phishing, identity theft, malware and spyware, laptop and wireless security and others (the “Friend Finder” interactive game will appear in the space below).

Facebook Troll Charged

Jessica Cook, 22, pleaded guilty earlier this week in Gympie Magistrates Court for helping to create a fake tribute page on Facebook for murdered Sunshine Coast woman Justine Jones and posting hate messages along with pornographic and offensive images (as reported in more detail in the Courier-Mail). The fake “tribute” page was created under the false name of Wendy Woods and she had apparently boasted about the media attention that she was receiving (as reported in The Gympie Times) .

The magistrate said that the case was “absolutely sickening” and warned that “heavy hand of the law will come down on you.” In this case the heavy hand of the law amounted to a  three-month suspended sentence,  a good behaviour bond and being banned from using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. If she re-offends she’ll lose her $3000 bond.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/facebook-troll-jessica-cook-pleads-guilty-to-defacing-a-tribute-page-to-justine-jones/story-e6frfrnr-1225900174784#ixzz0yTxFsoVf

Importantly, this represents a warning to everyone using social media that they had better be aware of their personal safety while online because there are predators like this out there, all too ready to take advantage of you.

I think that this case also demonstrates that I wasn’t over-reacting when I deleted my Facebook site earlier this year or in making the numerous postings on Sapid blog concerning desecration of Facebook memorial pages:

http://sapidblog.wordpress.com/category/social-networking/facebook/