Should Schools Monitor Social Media  For Threats? 

More and more schools are now hiring online security companies to scan social media for threats…take Orange County Schools for example. They just hired a social media investigation company who will monitor public social media content, flag possible threats and notify school officials of threats against school students, staff, and events, according to an OCS press release. The service, which will cost the school district about $10,000 a year, will look for keywords in social media that may post a threat to students, staff, or the local community.

Orange County Schools’ Superintendent Todd Wirt said students, parents, and staff are acutely aware of the need for implementing as much safety and security as possible in the school community. “When we find ways to secure our schools – whether it’s building safety measures into our schools or responding to online threats – we want our families to know that the safety of our students and staff is the top priority,” Wirt said.

The OCS statement said an administrator would conduct social media screening, review any red flags in context to determine the “type and severity” of any potential threats, and start working with law enforcement. OCS officials did not say what constitutes a threat, how data will be stored, or what role law enforcement will play.

With the 2017-18 school year going on record as the deadliest school year in decades, school leaders are trying to figure out how to prevent more school tragedies. The need to protect the lives of students and teachers has caused school districts to examine a number of solutions, including the increased monitoring of online threats, social media background checks, and consulting with social media intelligence experts.

These programs look for keywords that indicate threats of violence to others or self-harm. Those in favor of the program say that such measures reduce threats and prevent potential suicides, however, critics of social media screening point to possible violation of privacy concerns, potential human rights violations, and the possible misuse of such monitoring by schools to target students of color.
But in the war against potential threats, monitoring of keywords in public posts may be a way schools can be proactive. As Stephen Halkiotis, the chairman of the Orange County Board of Education said in response to criticism that the service is an invasion of privacy, “I think you give up your privacy when you decide to put your heart’s feelings, whether they’re positive or negative, on the Internet.”

The Cons:

Social media can contribute to psychological trauma and other challenges. Potential risks include the following.

• Cyberbullying or other online conflicts
• Quick and widespread communication of crisis-related rumors, false information, or
embarrassing and inappropriate information
• Potential for triggering crises, increasing perceptions of threat and fear, or creating crisis
contagion
• Affects privacy
• Potential for overuse or as a consistent substitute for face-to-face socializing
• Time consuming for educators, parents, and other caregivers to learn and monitor

The Benefits:

While social media screening can bring about challenges that are concerning, social media is a reality that is here to stay. Educators are encouraged to understand how social media can help prevent and respond to crisis risks by addressing the following:

• CRISIS PREVENTION
• Helping to create an extended sense of community or culture
• Encouraging positive behavior, responsibility, and healthy relationships in schools, homes,
and in the community.
• Conducting online surveillance (e.g., monitoring crisis warning signs or threats; for example,
Facebook has partnered with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to create a suicide
reporting mechanism).

• CRISIS INTERVENTION
• Quickly communicating accurate information following a crisis.
• Rapidly dispelling rumors or other false information.
• Evaluating individuals who may be affected by a crisis situation
• Quickly disseminating information about how others can access mental health resources
following a crisis.
• Quickly coordinating crisis response efforts.

• Create and/or understand social media policies. Schools and community organizations are
encouraged to create and communicate social media policies. Parents, caregivers, and others in
the community can familiarize themselves with such policies.

• Prioritize ongoing social media training, both formal and informal. Research related to how
social media and crises interact is limited. Social media platforms and applications also
evolve quickly. Stay informed about current social media being used by youth and adults in
your community. Youth in the community can take on the role of cultural brokers by informing
educators, parents, and other adults about what and how social media are being used.

About Us:
We have been mining social media since 2007 for our clients. By utilizing best in class software programs, we offer a service called eChatter.
eChatter works with you to obtain your objectives in a fast, accurate and reliable facet. By keeping our strengthened principals, yet evolving with this industry, we lead in social media monitoring. Since 2007, we have been dedicated to providing our customers with the most authentic data.

We offer:
• Deep Web Scans
• Jury Vetting
• Jury Monitoring
• Quick Scan

www.e-chatter.net
(866) 703-8238

Fake Accounts on Social Media

Facebook admits to as many as 270 million fake or clone accounts

Have you ever had your friends tell you they received a new friend request from you? And then you think…wait, I didn’t send that! You’ve most likely been cloned on Facebook. And you’re not alone.

All these accounts belong to customers of a company named Devumi that has collected millions of dollars in a shadowy global marketplace for social media fraud. Devumi sells Twitter followers and retweets to celebrities, businesses and anyone who wants to appear more popular or exert influence online. Drawing on an estimated stock of at least 3.5 million automated accounts, the company has provided customers with more than 200 million Twitter followers, a New York Times investigation found.

Fake accounts, deployed by governments, criminals and entrepreneurs, now infest social media networks. By some calculations, as many as 48 million of Twitter’s reported active users — nearly 15 percent — are automated accounts designed to simulate real people.

In November, Facebook disclosed to investors that it had at least twice as many fake users as it previously estimated, indicating that up to 60 million automated accounts may roam the world’s largest social media platform. These fake accounts, known as bots, can help sway advertising audiences and reshape political debates. They can defraud businesses and ruin reputations.

Devumi’s founder, German Calas, denied that his company sold fake followers and said he knew nothing about social identities stolen from real users. “The allegations are false, and we do not have knowledge of any such activity,” Mr. Calas said in an email exchange in November.

The Times reviewed business and court records showing that Devumi has more than 200,000 customers, including reality television stars, professional athletes, comedians, TED speakers, pastors and models. In most cases, the records show, they purchased their own followers. In others, their employees, agents, public relations companies, family members or friends did the buying. For just pennies each — sometimes even less — Devumi offers Twitter followers, views on YouTube, and endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional-networking site.

“Social media is a virtual world that is filled with half bots, half real people,” said Rami Essaid, the founder of Distil Networks, a cybersecurity company that specializes in eradicating bot networks. “You can’t take any tweet at face value. And not everything is what it seems.”

Buying Bots

Most of Devumi’s best-known buyers are selling products, services or themselves on social media. Some claim to buy followers because they were curious about how it worked, or felt pressure to generate high follower counts for themselves or their customers. “Everyone does it,” said the actress Deirdre Lovejoy, a Devumi customer.

While some said they believed Devumi was supplying real potential fans or customers, others acknowledged that they knew or suspected they were getting fake accounts. Several said they regretted their purchases.

“It’s fraud,” said James Cracknell, a British rower and Olympic gold medalist who bought 50,000 followers from Devumi. “People who judge by how many likes or how many followers, it’s not a healthy thing.”

Several Devumi customers acknowledged that they bought bots because their careers had come to depend, in part, on the appearance of social media influence. “No one will take you seriously if you don’t have a noteworthy presence,” said Jason Schenker, an economist who specializes in economic forecasting and has purchased at least 260,000 followers.

Devumi also sells bots to reality television stars, who can parlay fame into endorsement and appearance fees. Sonja Morgan, a cast member on the Bravo show “The Real Housewives of New York City,” uses her Devumi-boosted Twitter feed to promote her fashion line, a shopping app and a website that sells personalized “video shout-outs.”

While Devumi sells millions of followers directly to celebrities and influencers, its customers also include marketing and public relations agencies, which buy followers for their own customers. Phil Pallen, a brand strategist based in Los Angeles, offers customers “growth & ad campaigns” on social media. At least a dozen times, company records show, Mr. Pallen has paid Devumi to deliver those results. Beginning in 2014, for example, he purchased tens of thousands of followers for Lori Greiner, the inventor and “Shark Tank” co-host.

Mr. Pallen at first denied buying those followers. After The Times contacted Ms. Greiner, Mr. Pallen said he had “experimented” with the company but “stopped using it long ago.” A lawyer for Ms. Greiner said she had asked him to stop after learning of the first purchases.

Still, records show, Mr. Pallen bought Ms. Greiner more Devumi followers in 2016.

Think you’ve been hacked? Check for this:

Your name, birthday, email or password has been changed
Someone sent out friend requests to people you don’t know
Messages have been sent from your account, but you didn’t write them
Posts are appearing on your timeline that you didn’t post

To secure your account:

Go to Settings – A new menu will pop up. Choose Security and Login, then Where You’re Logged in From. A list of all of the devices that you’ve logged into and their locations will pop up. If there is a login you don’t recognize, chances are you may have been hacked. If you see anything that isn’t you, click Not You? on the right side of the log. Then click Secure Account. Facebook will then walk you through the steps of securing your account after running a diagnostic on your account.

About Us:

We have been mining social media since 2007 for our clients. By utilizing best in class software programs, we offer a service called eChatter.

eChatter works with you to obtain your objectives in a fast, accurate and reliable facet. By keeping our strengthened principals, yet evolving with this industry, we lead in social media monitoring. Since 2007, we have been dedicated to providing our customers with the most authentic data.

We offer:

· Deep Web Scans

· Jury Vetting

· Jury Monitoring

· Quick Scan

www.e-chatter.net

(866) 703-8238

Parents: Have You Heard of Finsta?

If you’re scratching your head wondering if this is yet another social site to keep track of, don’t worry, it’s not. Well, not really.

Finsta is just another way teens and young adults are getting around public social sites. Finsta is simply another name for “fake Instagram.” Basically, this is a second Instagram account people (usually the younger set) will create with a name that’s not easily identifiable where they typically post things that they wouldn’t want Grandma or Aunt Sally to see.

Is it a bad thing? Not necessarily. Some teens create finsta accounts simply to post things they don’t want their parents to see, or pictures that are not filtered and “at their best” but they hold some humorous value they want to share with a select few, but it may not be risque or “sketchy” posts. In other cases, it can be used for less than desired activities, such as posting racier pictures or sharing risky behavior, or, even worse, being used to harass someone online.

To get a better sense of understanding why some choose to “finsta”, you may want to read this insightful article written by a teen that talks about why they choose to create finsta accounts.

How do you know if your teen has a finsta? There may be a few ways to find out:

Take a look at their followers: often times teens will follow their finsta account and won’t be as creative as they think they are with a user name for the fake account. One example would be a girl named Julia Luckett creating a finsta user name of JulieInABucket. Other times they will use a picture of themselves as the profile picture on their fake account.

If they’re a younger teen, take a look at their Instagram account on their phone. Most times, since Instagram allows multiple accounts to be created, the teen will simply create a second account under the same email and/or mobile number. In this case, if you look at their user name at the top of the page, you’ll see an arrow next to it – that can be used to see if there are multiple accounts created. If your teen is more savvy, they may create a second account with a “throwaway” Gmail account that you may or may not be aware of. In this case, it may be more difficult to ascertain their finsta account.

If you use a regular social monitoring service, be sure to include all known email addresses and phone numbers. Don’t forget to include old email addresses, school email addresses, land lines, and all cell phone numbers (even old ones). Providing this information when using a social media monitoring service will be helpful in identifying all social accounts for your teens.

Not only does social media change constantly, but so do the way teens use it (and find workarounds in using it in different ways). It can be challenging to keep up with, but worth it in so many ways. While finsta is fairly new, it won’t be long before the next new site or way to use a site pops up. When it does, we’ll be here to tell you about it.