On my into work yesterday morning I was looking around the carriage of the Jubilee train and observing the many different types of people … it struck me that this was the equivalent of a social network – many people in one place who don’t know each other but are sharing the journey together.
Looking around there were some who like real trouble makers and one could tell by their ‘energy’ they were positively looking for any reason to kick off.
This is being translated online by the rise of cyberbullying… which is a really horrible trend. With most kids owning mobile phones the level of bullying has really increased and become incredibly invasive in a person’s life. It’s public humilation delivered in a very personal way for all to see and even in the sanctity of a person’s home.
Then I thought, wouldn’t it be great I thought if there was a way for social networks to be able to run psychology tests on the behaviour patterns for potential bullies. With the amount of tests I’ve done in the last few days I wonder why I never did them before …. for myself. They’re quite revealing and whether one likes the mirror reflecting the self on the other side of the test, it does make one sit up and take note.
So with these tests in place, social networks can start to protect young people online through the behavioural patterns and can flag up potential dangers and problems before they really escalate into something which could end with a child attempting to kill themself. It’s very big brother in theory but as Facebook have just announced they are going to start to sell the behavioural patterns of their members to advertisers … hmmmM!
No idea how this is going to work, or even how legal it is at the moment, just be good to have more structure in place in the online world which can start to identify the bullying characteristics.
I’ll mention this to Dominic Sparkes at Tempero, a moderating agency and see what he thinks. Be certainly a good conversation because he’s one of the leaders in the field and has recently hosted an evening about Children’s Safety Online for the brands and advertisers to see where and how children can be vunerable online.
1 response so far ↓
Dom Sparkes // February 9, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Hi Caroline,
Thought I’d jump in
It’s a really interesting area this and I have two very different points of view.
On the one hand cutting down bullying activity is a must and behavioural pattern analysis could be the way to go. That said, is there a practical privacy issue in that the thought police could be swooping in on us at the mere thought of something innappropriate.
BT’s Phorm trials went down like a lead balloon but perhaps when we’re dealing with children, invasive protection is needed, despite the potential privacy issues. I’m not a parent yet but I would fight the human rights brigade if it meant providing a safer environment for kids online.
A step in the right direction is being able to stop the behaviour and at least be aware of it and there are a few technologies starting to appear in that area. The folks at Crisp Thinking have developed a tool that ‘learns’ grooming behaviours for example and the system highlights potential issues to a moderator. The beauty of this kind of system is that it can track behaviour over long periods – which can be difficult for us humans but it then allows us to make the final decision on what action to take.
Stay tuned for my ever changing views on protection vs privacy!
Cheers
Dom