It really isn’t of a great Surprise that the U.S. Supreme Court recently voted that children could not be punished for the malicious content they posted on a Facebook page about their principals and teachers, most of society doesn’t quite put the value on just how harmful online content can be. It’s not just the few that commit suicide when they encounter cyberbullying that need to be protected, but all populations.

According to the following articles, countries such as China, are filing complaints and suits against companies such as Google and Facebook to help them prevent the content that is received by their country. Yes, here in the United States we like our free internet and will fight diligently for it as seen by last week’s online display of distaste for the PIPA and SOPA proposed bills that were recently before the US Congress. Copyright bills, SOPA and PIPA were designed to address the protection of copyrighted content from being illegally shared, especially by foreign websites, and by allowing the government to censor entire sites for content that could be deemed illegal. According to the laws, anyone found uploading copyrighted content could be held liable for infringement, up to and including singing someone else’s song in a funny video between friends.

What’s all the fuss about content you may be asking? Well, content, specifically and especially, user-generated content is a lot of content that we are talking about.

Everything from what a business shares on their blog, to the content that gets put out as news, to the content children create and share on social networking sites is predominantly unmonitored and the internet is the free-for-all for words, images and videos that someone somewhere created. Think of how many letters are in this blog, or how many images or on your Facebook page? What about the content when you do a Google search? Not all content is created equal with all populations in mind and not all content is up for grabs, but where’s the middle ground to it all? How can Janet Jackson be guaranteed that her songs won’t be stolen and remade by a 13 yrs. old aspiring pop star? How can the writers of the Simpsons relax when people are copying their designs for learning how to draw cartoons?  Worse yet, how can Nike rest knowing that their logo is badly placed on a half naked young woman’s rear-end? And who’s responsible when content goes wrong, the site owner that allowed it to be published, and the person who uploaded it or ISP that provided the means? And with so much content, who’s sorting it anyway? Well some sites already check content before it’s posted, and some websites use their subscribers to let them know what’s happening, and then some websites share content that is completely unmoderated. Tunes, text, pictures, and videos, every second someone’s creating and uploading something.

Here’s a good visual provided by Go-Globe.com Web Technologies about what happens with the Internet in 60 seconds!

by GoGlobe Web Technologies

I am sure that no one could have imagined that social media sites would turn into a place where teenagers throw morality out the window in exchange for a digital hug, or a meeting place for organized crime. Yet, every day a quick Google news search relays stories about just those types of stories and more. A most recent story discussed how Facebook was the site used by 200 or so teens that decided to physically fight at the town mall where pictures and videos were taken and then shared on other websites such as YouTube. Point-Click-Share

I am both shocked and upset at the lack of responsibility in stories such as this. It’s not hard to imagine that large websites have some millions (if not billions) of messages, images and videos to scan for appropriateness and then its not hard to imagine that if all 200 kiddos had phones with internet capabilities, just how fast they are able to post. However, as a parent, I have to worry. If in the event my children and I were present at a mall and this happened, I am not sure where that would leave me. Would I stand there and watch horrified? Would I be one of many that ran for cover? Would I attempt to break any of them up? What about my own children? Young teenaged boys, someone could have mistaken them for participants. The questions just don’t end for me.

How about parents? Organizing such a large event to be taken place had to have taken some time and effort. Of those 200 kids, how many of them posted the information on Facebook? How many of their parents were their child’s friend on Facebook and how many of them were aware? Should the parents be held liable? After all, the parents gave them the access to the site by giving them access to home computers, cell phones and personal devices. I shudder to think about how this isn’t the first time Facebook or Twitter type sites have been used for arranging such activities and I shudder to think of how little parents know about social networking sites.

Know your networks and what is possible. What can be shared and with what limitations and who’s moderating the content?

Facebook – Images, videos, instant messages, emails, personal information, support for specific activities and sites, minute to minute sharing of content.

Moderation of Content – Peer reporting.

Twitter – Images, videos, private messages, personal information, support for specific activities and sites, minute to minute sharing of content.

Moderation of Content – Peer reporting.

YouTube – Videos, private messages, personal information, support for specific activities and sites, minute to minute sharing of content.

Moderation of Content – Peer reporting.

MySpace – Images, videos, private messages, personal information, support for specific activities and sites, minute to minute sharing of content.

Moderation of Content – Peer reporting.

Just a few sites, but monitoring is important folks. No one wants to hinder anyone else’s privacy, which is the typical argument for monitoring digital activities, but if someone had been aware and notified officials, then perhaps some of this could have been prevented. Or if social networking sites had filters in place that caught the language and images that were shared, the site wouldn’t have been able to be used as an organization spot. Children are being hurt and parents possibly being charged for the damages their children have caused. Additionally, what about the bystanders that were or could have been hurt?

Know your networks and their networks. Know their activity and until social networking sites move in the direction of strict child protection, then use what tools are out there for monitoring activities.

Mall of America boosting security following violence Monday

Posted by: Thomas Lee Updated: December 27, 2011 – 11:01 AM

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/136262693.html

It’s as easy as EyeGuardian for Facebook……….

Your EyeGuardian for Facebook Teammate, Stephy

EyeGuardian was present for the Federal Trade Commission’s workshop on facial recognition software. Discussed in the workshop were several topics such as facial recognition for advertising, safety and the implications of using it in public places. I have to admit that, the technology showcased was quite impressive. Using facial recognition, companies are able to scan a person’s face and determine whether a human is female or male and then showcase products based on the computer’s determination. Cars for men and bath products for the ladies were used as examples, however, according to the companies already using the technology, shoes, foods and many more products are able to be tailor advertised per gender. Along with advertisers were a few other companies utilizing the same digital eyes to scan a room and breakdown the inhabitants as to what percentage of the population is male and then female. The applications are interesting here too with many bar owners using this type of breakdown to give customers the best idea of club atmosphere available online before a person chooses to visit the establishment. Finally, one more interesting use for scanning human faces was a company helping the medical industry by determining a person’s emotional state judging by their expression.

ImageVision Facial Scan

However, attending this workshop brought to my attention that perhaps our subscribers aren’t completely aware of who we are and what we do in the visual recognition space. For informational purposes, here we go with a brief description of how we have applied visual recognition to your social networking world.

ImageVision is a visual recognition company that developed a revolutionary way to identify the content found in images and videos and then does so quickly. Whereas the above mentioned software focuses only on facial attributes, our software is trained to detect the human form including shapes, angles, curves and tones so that content can be easily be detected as body parts or inanimate objects. If you are a subscriber of EyeGuardian for Facebook, you will notice in your ImageWatch section of your dashboard we outline in red content that may be considered worrisome. Often, some are fine in content, but based on design, we are looking for curves or shape that might indicate more than the generic “mommy kissing baby” snapshots.

How ImageVision was able distinguish EyeGuardian from other social networking monitoring tools is that we are at the top of the food chain with using technological advancements for the safety and benefit of society. No other monitoring companies are able to identify the content in images and videos, whereas other companies are depending on humans to scan each image for the appropriateness of the content. Our scan allows parents to be flagged within hours or minutes versus waiting for weekly reports that may have all the images shared on a child’s Facebook or it may not. One teenager on Facebook for fifteen minutes could mean hundreds of images or comments shared. If there were an estimated 2.5 billion images uploaded to Facebook alone just last month, there aren’t enough humans to monitor the images shared effectively enough to offer any assurance for parents. Also, just providing a grading of a child’s content isn’t enough, which is all that some parental control software will provide. I’ve scanned my own content on such software and unfortunately, I don’t think the grade given was a good enough representation of the content shared on my page.

To our subscribers, everyday rest assure we are on top of the best technological capabilities within our space and we will continue to update, enhance and apply what we know to giving the best of parental controls whether online applications or mobile solutions. If you have question about how we do what we do for you, give us a comment, it’s always a pleasure to share with people about EyeGuardian. Remember too, we are parents and developed as parents.

Fun facial recognition facts!

1.  If ears are visible on a human face, 85% of the time the face is male.

2.  Some smartphones will soon include a facial unlock feature. If the person trying to unlock the phone matches the image set into the phone, the phone will unlock! If not, little ornery brothers will be thwarted from accessing their big sister’s phone.

3.  People aren’t as trained as well as machines for facial scanning and matching.

4.  Facial recognition software has been enhanced within the past decade due to digital cameras and social networking!

Your EyeGuardian for Facebook teammate, Stephy!