eChatter

College Athletics Look at Social Media During Recruitment

High school sports are serious business, especially for those hoping to play (and get scholarship money) in college. While making sure you’re on your game at all times, it’s also important to make sure your online profile is top notch.

Athletes, and really all high school students, are educated on the importance of your social media profile – it can be very telling, and more and more colleges and athletic departments are looking at social media profiles before making decisions.

My daughter played for her high school’s softball team. They had an outstanding season, only to end the regular season with a really tough loss – honestly, they were robbed of the win by a bad call if you ask me. At any rate, I recall the coach specifically telling the girls, who post game were frustrated and upset with the outcome, to not take it online. They were reminded that they represented the school, even online, and to behave accordingly.

Needless to say, teenage girls are emotions. A lot of them. Two of my daughter’s teammates took to Twitter later that night to express their feelings about the game, the other team, and the umpire.

Imagine their surprise the next day at practice when the coach brought this up, complete with printouts of the girls’ tweets.

How can we help these students understand the reality of social media’s importance in depicting who they are as they get older and are trying to get scholarships, or into their dream college or job?

Kevin DeShazo, creator of Fieldhouse Media, founded a program to do just that – educate high school athletes about the importance of their social presence. In a recent article, high school coach Anthony Palladino shared this example of how social media can make or break a high school athlete’s college career:

“I remember one year we were recruiting two linebackers. Both were very talented, but we didn’t have room for the two of them. We checked out their social media. One was thanking people for going to the games, very polite. The other was very critical of coaches, teammates. That made the difference.”

Mr. DeShazo’s program seeks to educate athletes on how to engage on social media responsibly and in a positive way. As this becomes more prevalent, educators have also taken on this task.

As a parent and someone in the social media industry, my children are forever hearing from me about social media responsibility. While a parent’s words can fall on deaf ears sometimes, it’s important to be part of the education process. As a parent, what can you do?

Find out what your child’s school is doing to educate students on social media responsibility and best practices. Continue the conversation at home to reinforce it.

Take a look at your child’s social media accounts. Run a Google search for their name, or, better yet, get a social media background check. This gives you a good starting point for discussion – show your child how to make their sites more private and “clean up” any content as needed.

Have your child look at their social sites from an outsider’s viewpoint – if they were reading these posts from a stranger, what would they think of that person? It might give them pause if there’s anything concerning in their posts.

I’m impressed with Fieldhouse Media and their approach to educating student athletes. This is the type of mentoring and education that needs to be happening across the board. Even adults can learn a thing or two from social media education.

Cyber Bullying – First School, Now At Work Too?

We are all too familiar with accounts of cyber bullying among school students, but there is emerging data showing that cyber bullying is also becoming an issue in the workplace. Hard to imagine? Possibly.

I guess kids aren’t the only ones prone to turning to social media for ulterior purposes though. While bullying in the workplace has been around for some time, taking it to social media is emerging, and it’s important for HR departments and managers to be aware of and monitor.

Consider the recent news about the firefighter who committed suicide recently; while the investigation is not complete, there is speculation that workplace bullying that had gone to the internet was at least partially to blame. The video below talks about it in more detail:

How can managers and HR departments work to be aware of issues as they arise? There are some steps that can be taken to identify potential cyber bullying in the workplace:

Create a solid social media policy – ensure that harassment and bullying is clearly outlined, most notably including online/social media communication. The policy that you enforce should also spell out what constitutes cyber bullying; do not limit it to “social media” as that does not encompass all online activities, such as message board and forum participation, for example.

Create an anonymous forum or method of communication – this may be trickier, because it’s not always easy for victims to come forward if they feel they are being harassed or threatened. However, often times coworkers may be aware of what is going on in the workplace. Encourage employees to speak up in a completely anonymous fashion – create an online feedback system that is truly anonymous for employees to share any concerns or things they see/hear about among coworkers.

Monitor social media – while you can’t know where your employees are online, and you may not be aware of screen names (especially when they use pseudonyms online), it’s important to monitor online conversations around your company and employees, and even expand monitoring efforts to focus on location based content. Using the right tools, you can monitor public social content that is posted from within the workplace by creating a “geofence” around your building. The location based monitoring software will be able to collect and capture any social content being posted from the area.

While not foolproof, being aware of what’s happening in the workplace can help prevent or at least decrease the instances of workplace bullying, online and off. Keeping the lines of communication open, reiterating that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.

A Tale of Two Social Media Privacy Concerns

As social media continues to evolve, and its use becomes more than just sharing status updates, privacy concerns continue to rage on. There were two items in the news that related to privacy, but have very different concerns and implications.

Microsoft vs the US Government

The first news item is more well known to the general public – Microsoft filed a lawsuit against the US government for violating first amendment rights. There are two pieces to their claim:

Current law states that a consumer’s account can be viewed without communication to that person that it is being looked at, which violates Microsoft’s first amendment rights. The law states that notifying the subject of the search can put the investigation in jeopardy.

The company claims that cloud storage, while on the internet essentially, is still considered personal storage and should be treated as such.

The company claims that personal data, including emails, is private and users should be notified before they are looked at by the government or anyone else for that matter.

Local Police Department Monitors Social Media

In other news, the Oakland Police Department came into the limelight for purchasing social media software that allows the department to monitor social media content published online in an attempt to monitor criminal/drug/gang activity, investigate potential suspects, monitor protest activity, and other similar tasks. They came under fire for a few implications of their recent purchase:

By making this purchase without it being public knowledge, it infringes on the community’s right to privacy.

By monitoring social content, it may make citizens wary to post on social sites, thus inhibiting their right to free speech.

There are concerns that the monitoring will not be limited in nature, allowing law enforcement to monitor all forms of social content.

Privacy concerns from two angles – is either okay?

These are two very different matters, but neither seems overly concerning, at least in my opinion. The main difference between the two cases is that the Microsoft case focuses on private data while the Police Department story focuses on public data. Two very different things here.

As for Microsoft, I am more concerned with that as it relates to private communications; while there is nothing the government would read on my own email accounts, I am not comfortable with the idea that they can check in at any time. If I were a potential terrorist, then I believe that I lose that right to privacy. As long as this mandate is not abused, I think it’s a fair law and unfortunately Microsoft should abide by the government’s ruling to not communicate to a user that they are looking into their email communications. Again, only if it is not abused.

The police departments have a whole other issue, one that I fully support. Why? Because monitoring programs such as the one highlighted in the article are only able to capture public data – that is, social content that is posted on your site where your privacy settings are not set up properly. These types of monitoring programs cannot collect direct or private messages on social sites, and cannot capture data you post on a social site that you have set to be completely private.

This is a lesson that is taking an extremely long time to learn across the board – if you post public information, it is just that – public. It is there for the world to see, so there is no valid reason or civil liberty that is being taken away. To address the concern that if law enforcement is monitoring social media, people will feel as though they cannot freely post: I don’t believe that will ever be an issue. After all, those who are involved in illegal activity certainly aren’t too concerned with their online image or what they post, and aren’t worrying about who is monitoring. For the rest of us, we have nothing to worry about. If you’re really concerned, then it’s a good time to make sure all of your social content settings are as private as possible, and then remember that if you’re posting content on blogs, message boards or forums, it’s there for the world to see.

Move Over Breathalylzer….Meet The Textalzyer

It was just a matter of time….

New York has proposed a bill to utilize a new tool that is currently in development – it is referred to as a textalyzer, which is along the same lines as a breathalyzer. The bill proposes that law enforcement would be allowed to use this textalyzer at the scene of accidents to determine if the driver(s) were texting while driving.

According to the news outlets, the textalyzer would not share the content of the texts or any other personal information; it would simply be used to determine if the driver was texting while driving. Of course this has raised privacy concerns – there has been a question of if it will actually be true that no personal information will be made available with this tool – but given the reality of distracted driving, this should not be a real consideration in whether or not the bill is passed.

If passed, a driver could run the risk losing their license if they refuse to allow law enforcement to scan their mobile device. When the textalyzer is used and the driver is found guilty of distracted driving, they could face a penalty of having a suspended license for 12 months on the first offense, and up to 18 months’ suspension if it happens twice in a five year period.

Personally, I think this textalyzer should be expanded to include any online activity while driving, such as browsing websites, conducting internet searches (even if they are voiced activated), and it’s possible that this is the intent but is being referred to as a textalyzer since it will look at metadata (essentially text) on the phone.

Of course it is expected that lawyers will have a field day with this if it in fact comes to fruition. I can imagine they would fight it based on it being a new technology and questioning its accuracy, reliability, etc, and potential privacy issues if they can find a loophole there. I think this is a great tool for law enforcement to have on hand, and if this bill passes I think it will help more than cause issues. It will take some time to figure out from a legal standpoint of course, but the benefits definitely seem to outweigh the risks involved in introducing such a tool.