Will Twitter have a dark side?
Posted by Louis Venter on 30 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Social Media
As a parent, I have heard all the stories of dodgy Facebook friend requests to teenage girls and the cyber-bullying that can go on without anyone knowing about it except the victim. These stories are becoming disturbingly prevalent. Facebook, however, is on an invite only basis and these “friends” are easily deleted with no further harm done.
Twitter on the other hand exists in a social free-for-all and while I am an avid fan, I’m not sure how I would feel about my kids using it. Call me paranoid but knowing anyone can find out about their movements, likes and dislikes without being opt-in scares me.
I follow a number of people that I have never met, but following their tweets enables me to establish a sense of closeness, almost to the point of intruding into their lives.
Is there a real threat to children and teens? IMHO, yes, as parents are probably oblivious to their kids’ Tweets and the openness of the network. You can block access to your Tweets but how many parents will enforce that? As most kids will aim to get as many followers as possible, controlling who follows your children will be nigh on impossible.
Lets play the scenario forward to a potential child abduction. With Twitter information the “person” will:
- have a picture
- know the child’s movements
- know their moods, interests and who their friends are and other info
- know information about their parents and school
- have historical information about them
And all of this on a free for all basis, doesn’t it scare you? It certainly scares me.
Personally, I hope we never read the headline “Twitter use leads to child abduction” but the cynic in me says its only a matter of time.
March 30th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
hmmm, it almost seems the world complains because children spend more time behind pc’s or on cellphones that we are breeding a generation of anti social people, that cannot interact within normal society without a “poke” or a “tweet” to someone either under an alias or as themselves, Alter ego’s etc. Now we go and try promote more anti social behaviour by showing them how to be anti social? My word
Not sure i would support my child spending large amounts of time on twitter, VS tossing them outside to play in the sunshine and make friends face to face