Regardless of the website’s privacy policy and settings, any information put on a online social networking site carries the risk of leaking out to the world, and the wrong people. Websites compete to keep users’ information as safe and secure as possible, yet users and parents worry about how information put on profiles is used and shared. Are young teenagers who have online profiles in as much danger of online predation as people commonly think? What decision making skills and maturity level are appropriate for someone to be socially safe online? And how have today’s sites approached some of our biggest concerns about privacy and safety?

One social networking privacy issue that most college students are familiar with is the effect an online profile can have on their employment. Ever since the Internet has become widespread, employers have searched the names of prospective employees on Internet search engines to perform background checks. Now that social networking has become common for college-age students, some employers also look at their employees’ online profiles. In the worst-case scenarios, employers see photos of prospective employees doing irresponsible activities or using inappropriate language on their profiles, and thus refuse to hire them. Such a scenario happened to two students with online profiles in June 2006. In extreme cases, employers use information found on online profiles as grounds for firing employees, such as this bus driver in Texas in May 2006.

MySpace profiles are by default public and can be viewed by anyone who searches for a person’s name. Facebook profiles are private to search engines, but are often open to networks that an employer has access to.

Children and teenagers who create social networking accounts without learning about the risks and limitations of meeting people on the Internet risk being harassed or stalked by other users. A typical teenager may experience fluctuations in self-esteem and distancing from their parents, and online predators take advantage of these vulnerabilities to gain the trust of teenagers. While most online friendships are safe and valid, there are several documented cases that end in cases of statutory rape: a 14-year-old Texas girl was a victim of a sexual predator, and filed a lawsuit against Myspace.com in June 2006.

Another social vulnerability that is brought out by social networking, particularly by children, is online misbehavior. Online social behavior differs from social behavior in the physical presence of others; social inhibitions do not affect people as strongly when they communicate online. Due to this phenomenon, the Internet has been a common means for online bullying. Parents and teachers feel the need to supervise children’s online usage and prevent them from getting into risky social situations, but if children participate in social networking sites which are heavily based on social communications and pressures, it becomes much more effort to directly supervise their behavior.

There are legal concerns apparent in children’s online behavior: the Internet is considered to be as much of a public space as a playground is. In this regard, parents and school supervisors are responsible for overseeing children behavior on the Internet. Proponents of child participation in social networking argue that being part of a social networking site at a relatively early age helps children prepare themselves for a digital future. Opponents argue that children cannot be expected to maturely participate in social networking until teen age, and that potential victims of online bullying should not be expected or pressured to be part of a space where they would not be comfortable.

The U.S. Congress has passed legislation to address the risks of data sharing and online predators present in social networking sites. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 requires children to be of age thirteen or older to submit personal information online, such as a name or address. In some cases a child may submit information with the assent of a parent, but in general this prevents children from becoming registered members of websites such as social networking websites. This law was generally met with agreement; non-child-oriented websites had little interests in a younger audience which would have to be moderated and restricted.

A U.S. law proposed recently to address the issue of online predators is the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) of 2006. This law attempted to require U.S. schools and libraries with publicly funded Internet service to block social networking sites, in order to prevent students from using social networking sites in a potentially unsupervised environment. It was met with praise for attempting to protect children, but criticism for a harsh, broad restriction of a potential educational and communicative tool that students could otherwise benefit from. The law did not pass in 2006 and remained under review.

Finally, a broader law still in the stage of proposition has emerged recently called the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act (Library of Congress link). In addition to the goals of the DOPA, it requires higher standards for communication services to report child pornography, and makes it unlawful to knowingly buy or sell personal information about a child under the age of 16. These proposals are mostly reasonable ways to protect the information and safety of children, yet they show a very restrictive view towards the Internet, strongly in contrast with many social networking sites’ ideals of information freedom. There may also be some unclear definitions and loopholes, as explored by this blog critic.

Smaller-scale policies towards social networking sites exist as well. As the story on employment reported, most employers don’t use online profiles when considering job applicants. Employers may have de facto or written policies to not judge their employees by online behavior, understanding that personal life is separate from professional life and any outstanding flaws will be apparent in an interview.

Another small-scale policy is individual schools pursuing Internet safety programs. School districts such as this one have individually created courses and workshops, sometimes for students and sometimes for parents, to educate about net safety so that they can make their own judgments about safe site use and practices. This solution of a tech literacy and safety program is very viable for individual schools and districts to pursue, and helps individual parents and students get closer to the truth about social networks, whether they are safer or more dangerous than they previously thought. This builds safe and strong Internet communities from the ground up, rather than doing so from the government down via harsh, broad restrictions.

When MySpace opened, its profiles were by default available to the public, which was a benefit for its earliest profiles, bands who wished to promote themselves and their music. But as MySpace gradually grew in population and features to the huge social network website it is today, the site got a lot of media coverage as a haven for online predators who had easy access to the public profiles as their victims. MySpace responded by emphasizing its users’ option of restricting profile access to friends, and required its youngest users (age 14-15) to register with private profiles. In addition, its youngest users cannot be found by adults in its user search tool. Dealing with online predators has become one of the main focuses of MySpace’s development this year, including collaboration with U.S. agencies that collect data on sexual predators.

On Facebook, users are part of networks such as college, high school, work, or regional networks, and users cannot view the profiles of other users outside of their network unless they become Facebook friends. Because Facebook originated as a college social networking site, it has followed this private network model ever since it opened to Harvard students in February 2005. The site continues to organize itself with the network model, and prides itself on many the many levels of privacy it offers for every site feature (pictured to the right). This model helps prevent online predators from getting personal information about users before contacting them.

Over the past few years, in light of these issues and otherwise, large social networking sites have developed privacy and/or safety resource pages. One example is Xanga’s safety portal, which has been active since May 2006. Such pages teach users how to look out for risks of online predators, information theft, and cyber-bullying. Most have pages geared towards teenagers, the consumers; towards parents, and even towards law enforcement. These pages are also an effective basic resource for these groups to learn about Internet safety issues, and combined with a school-based safety course could provide a thorough, balanced-perspective training on Internet issues.