Collaborative Thinking

Deciphering Social Identities

If you're voting for SXSW sessions, I'd enjoy seeing this session be accepted:

Understanding Lies, Deception, and Truthiness in Social Media

Your vote:

Yes No

Event:

Interactive 2010

Level:

Beginner

Type:

Panel

Category:

Community / Online Community, Online Relationships, Social Issues, Social Networking, User Generated Content

Organizer:

danah boyd, Microsoft Research / Harvard Berkman Center

Questions:

1. How, why and when do people provide inaccurate information online?
2. What are people's intentions and goals when providing inaccurate information online?
3. How do these practices differ across race, gender, and age?
4. How do these practices differ between online dating sites and social network sites?
5. How do privacy concerns shape people's practices with regard to inaccurate information?
6. How do legal structures like COPPA and TOSes motivate people to lie?
7. Why do developers need to understand people's motivations for providing inaccurate information?
8. How can developers work with users to balance their goals and the sites' goal for accurate information?
9. How is marketing and advertising affected by the practices of deception?
10. When is inaccurate information advantageous?

Description:

If you take most social media profiles at face value, you might assume everyone's from Lake Wobegon. Profiles are often filled with inaccurate (or perhaps deceptive) content. This panel will examine how, why, and when people lie and who (if anyone) they might be trying to deceive.

SXSW 2010 PanelPicker - Understanding Lies, Deception, and Truthiness in Social Media

Social Networking & Identity: A Cautionary Tale

Interesting article, worth following some of the links for additional reference information:

Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security - Knowledge@Wharton

A generation is growing up with social networking web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, casually posting accounts of their lives for their friends -- and the world -- to see. Few of these users realize that the information they post, when combined with new technologies for gathering and compiling data, can create a fingerprint-like pattern of behavior. The information provides opportunities not only for legitimate business purposes, but also for the nefarious aims of identity thieves and other predators, according to faculty at Wharton and elsewhere.

"The way privacy has traditionally been defined is being challenged," according to Wharton legal studies professor Andrea Matwyshyn, who earlier this year organized the Information Security Best Practices Conference at Wharton. Among other topics, the conference addressed security and safety issues raised by the social networks.

Research on online social networking and how it may alter privacy norms is just beginning, according to technology observers. "Our kids today will give everything [in terms of personal information] away, but it's not at all clear how this will shake out in the long run," says Wharton marketing professor Peter S. Fader. "Privacy is a moving target."

Researchers say that privacy thresholds vary by individual and that those boundaries are being tested by social networking. It is hard, they say, to pinpoint the exact impact of social networking on the web. However, it is clear that individuals are increasingly using these sites to keep in touch with friends, find jobs and enhance their careers. Social networking sites drew 139.8 million visitors in April, a 12% increase from 124.4 million in March, according to comScore, a service that measures web traffic. The April survey found that MySpace led the category with 71 million visitors, while Facebook attracted 67.5 million, and Twitter drew 17 million -- an 83% increase.

Leaving 'Friendprints': How Online Social Networks Are Redefining Privacy and Personal Security - Knowledge@Wharton

Lotus Connections Widgets But Not OpenSocial

A variety of iWidget widgets available in the catalog - after you read the 5900+ word licensing agreement - it's pretty straight-forward. But I'm looking for a statement of direction on OpenSocial.

Also, in the Twitter widget -I read this, "When prompted provide your Twitter account information.This will be stored into Notes account preferences and will be a one time setting." Which leads to a question - will people be comfortable providing their employer/enterprise applications with personal passwords for accounts they use on a personal basis? What happens if the Twiiter account is hacked - does the employer bear some risk if the passwords are vulnerable (not managed as peers with enterprise passwords). More questions rattling around in my head than benefits...

Do you like the widgets that are available on Lotus Connections in the Greenhouse, like the Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and Twitter widgets? Want to deploy them on your own servers?? Now you can!

Lotus Connections iWidgets are available on the Lotus Greenhouse catalog for download.  To download these and other exciting extensions to Lotus and WebSphere Portal products, simply visit the Business Solutions catalog in Lotus Greenhouse --> http://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog

After accepting the license agreement, anyone can download the widgets and deploy them in their own Lotus Connections environment.

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