How Much Wood can A Woodchuck Chuck?

After seeing the video that's been circulating around about a 20-something social media activist who catfished girls around the country on Facebook posing as a cute guy their age, I took a look at Sweetpea's Instagram account.  These girls had agreed to meet up with this fictitious boy after only a week of fb conversation, despite their parents (who were in on the sting) assertion they were sure their kids would never do something that stupid.  The videos showed three girls, the youngest 12, either getting into a van with this 'boy', opening the door when their parents were asleep, or meeting up alone in a deserted park.
     I was planning to show Sweetpea this video but first I wanted to see just who were friends were on Instagram.  She doesn't have Facebook but also does Snapchat, 'for the funny morph pictures', she told us.

           Inspiration. Dalmatian just might be my spirit animal.

     It had been a while since I checked in to Instagram and since we are following each other I didn't even have to go on her phone.  That's when I found out she had 180 followers and was following about the same number.  Yikes!
     When she got home that afternoon I sat down with her and showed her the video.  She kept making disapproving noises when the girls agreed to meet someone they had never actually seen in person. She sounded good, but then again that's what the parents of these victims had thought, too. Then I asked her to open Instagram on her phone and go through her list with me.  She had to tell me whom each and every one of the 180 followers were.  I couldn't believe she had gathered that many connections in the eight months since we'd given permission.  And this was only after weeks of discussion and some heavy negotiating on our daughter's part.  She knew the risks and that we would be checking without notice to make sure she was abiding by our rules.
     Except I'm not sure what rules we gave her.  Hmmmm.
Which points out the obvious flaw in our parenting boundaries.  Since we have no idea what it is like to grow up with the abundance of social media connections, we assume she would behave as we have, like adults.  But then again, I've been caught out more than once with privacy issues on Facebook myself.

I admit that I felt a wave of sympathy for  my 12-year-old when she had to go through the entire list with details on each connection and I was impressed that she could, without exception.  She was understandably nervous but obliging when I randomly checked on some of their posts.  So far just selfies, pet photos, and the kind of inspirational sayings kids at her age pass around, like, 'you have to grow through dirt to flower'.  But it did lead to a much longer talk about what it means to have 180 people as a community who stay in constant but often distant contact.  Friendly connections do not replace face-to-face gut instinct and time to get to know someone in a safe environment. There are some things that never change and I think Sweetpea got the message.  Never agree to meet somewhere with any one of those 180 'friends' whom you do not see on a daily basis and/or we haven't met.  And never alone.  Keep us in the loop, because we will not interfere except to counsel and monitor. Although this isn't an issue now, once she hits high school, going to Starbucks to meet up with friends will inevitably happen and we have to break through her assumption that the veil of intimacy is just that -  a digital creation without a reality check. She doesn't know 90% of these kids to any great depth and some of them have graduated into high school and their world view and needs are outpacing hers.

I love and cherish my daughter's curious mix of naivete and skepticism.  She's been known to pepper me with doomsday whatifs that defy logic but I hope she keeps these in mind when a cute boy whom she has on her list starts sending more than pet photos.  The rules may not change but Sweetpea is swilling around in her hormonal soup, so this soon to be 13 year old has one foot in childhood and one in quasi-adulthood, making a mess of her brain.  Dangerous times when we remember how much we thought we knew at her age.  Perfectly normal, but still risky.

oops someone just sent me a cat video.  Gotta go.

Privacy: Don't Mention My Name, Please

I've been learning more than I should at this late stage about the risks of being on Facebook.  Like most of my friends and family I use it as a convenient way to share photos without giving much thought to what would happen if the site went kaput and there were no books of photos to archive our lives as they used to.  We would all visually disappear because there is nothing left but x's and o's.  But this is just one thing to ponder. Backup?  It's all digital too, so we are in danger of cheating our ancestors of some pretty interesting stuff. The other worry I have is how much I reveal in this digital community.  If I was thinking about having a boob job I wouldn't put it on Facebook but in some way I admire someone who puts it all out there. I just wonder if ads for plastic surgeons would then start popping up, or Facebook's latest trick, the 'suggested content' which is really their way of circumventing ad blocker apps that some users have installed.  Either way, they have my number and I'm trying to limit just how much they know about me but it may be a losing battle.
     After viewing the Edward Snowden biopic, Citizen Four, I am assuming everything I write on this blog, and on Facebook is being stored, inventoried and perhaps accessed one day if it's useful to someone.  Both are a publishing medium, and as a resident of a small town, I am used to having limited privacy and find it a bit puzzling that the general public is surprised they don't have any either.
     Ahh, the Village Life vs. Urban Anonymity which has proven to be a fallacy.
     For most of our human history we were all known quantities - our lives, children, marriages, disagreements, status, income and habits were pretty much fodder for casual conversation in our small communities - if we had opinions they were shared in public meetings or got out around town via conversations at the market.  Everyone knew everyone - back in the day this was a fact of life.  Big cities sprung up and our growing ideal of privacy became possible through urban anonymity. Before the advent of e-communication and the internet there was a golden period where we assumed we could move about freely with very little observation or connection and this lifestyle solidified into our concept of privacy when, as a recent UK poll indicated, a significant number of us admitted to ducking into our homes quickly to avoid small talk with our neighbors.  Hence the empty streets with people who had no idea who shared their fences, or any concept of connected community, other than water-cooler talk or focus groups at work.  Eventually there wasn't anyone who cared about anyone else within view, it was just assumed we would look after ourselves, thank you very much.  And as intrusive as data gathering has become, the last bastion of anonymity may belong to the trolls who are mostly hiding behind fake names. Bullying, swearing, threats, and fact-denying opinions abound on posts and twitter feeds, but they are often unattached to a real person willing to stand up and take responsibility for them.  Below is a great article by Joel Stein on this phenomenon.

In my small town I've been involved in several social and political workgroups and I can tell you we are a tiny and familiar minority.  Most people don't attend neighborhood watch or council meetings,  don't get involved in political campaigns, most shop where they don't see another familiar face, no-one sees the ice-cream, soda and candy bars purchased in a moment of weakness. Now we find out, damn it, that someone is actually paying attention.  Maybe not our neighbor, but others who are gathering us like data bits and making significant connections.  Its a sure sign of our times that these connections are driven by capitalists just trying to make a buck.  They seem to be the ones who care the most about who we really are.  They know you are a size 14 and not a 10, they know you read gossip about celebrities and not the New York Times, planning vacations and visiting dating sites: they aren't judging.  In fact they eagerly embrace everything about you with the appetite of a whale scooping up thousands of tasty krill. Unlike the neighbor who disagrees with your politics, or the size of your car, or your use of lawn fertilizer, the most active gatherers of your every idiosyncrasy, the very fundamental of who you are as a unique person, are mostly just trying to get you to buy more stuff.

The fact that the government has jumped in to the data-gathering business shouldn't have been a big surprise.  The technology was there, and very tempting.  They claim they don't have time to parse the billions of information they've stored, and I tend to believe them.  Only because the gears of bureaucracy grind away so inefficiently and we have eager whistleblowers like Citizen Four, WikiLeaks, Anonymous, all the way down to the local level that its just impractical to think they are watching our every move like the drone cameras in 1984.
     But that doesn't stop us from trying. Only recently the City Councils of Palos Verdes and Manhattan Beach have floated the idea of putting cameras at the entrances to their communities to snap pictures of every license plate that comes through.  This is supposedly in response to a rise in crime, something they assumed would stay where it belonged in the poorer neighborhoods.  What's the point of having a wealthy enclave if you can't keep out the raiders at the gate?  As impractical as this idea is, I admit to a certain mirth knowing that they can't escape the realities of crime no matter the illusion.  It's just getting to be too small a world again, despite our best efforts to pretend otherwise.

How Trolls are Ruining the Internet, by Joel Stein

Citizen Four is available on Netflix.