Digital Tattoo: for MOSAIC

Editor's Notes

1. So what do we know about tattoos? They can be a creative expression of ourselves as individuals… They can be beautiful (in the eye of the beholder)…[click]
2. We’re here today to tell you about our project at UBC , the Digital Tattoo. We like the metaphor of a tattoo because the information you put online is just like one. highly visible hard to remove an expression of yourself to others (for better or worse!) In one workshop we can really only explore a small sample of the issues surrounding online participation. We’d like to begin by reflecting on your own digital identity from a personal perspective. We’ll then provide some context for why this project was started and why we feel it’s important to share the information with you. Then we’ll considering some specific scenarios/groups and the issues that might be particularly relevant for these individuals. I’m Jen Goerzen, an MLIS student at UBC’s School of Library, Archival and Information Studies. I have been working as a student coordinator on the Digital Tattoo project for the past 2 years. Please don’t hesitate to stop me for any questions/comments that arise throughout the session today. Your input and discussion are often the most important part!
3. How many of you think you have an online identity of some kind? Do you have a social networking account (i.e. FB, mySpace, LinkedIn)? Some have more impact than others… and the policies and automated settings continue to change for privacy, rights to photos & media, etc. Could you accurately say what the current default settings are for the social networking sites you use? What about their policies for using photos and other media you post?
4. How many of you have a gmail account? Do you blog or tweet? Have a cell phone? Do you text with it? Ever bought anything online? How about a Netflix account? iTunes? Amazon?  Many of these are optimized for collecting data about you creating a profile that allows companies to taylor their advertising toward your interests? (eg. Ever noticed how the ads on your Gmail account reflect the content of your emails?) Do you love the convenience or does this occasionally concern you? What about your younger brothers and sisters? Parents? Grandparents? You have a digital identity, some of which you control and some of which is controlled by others.
5. Raise your hand if you have ever searched your own name online? (just with Google or using other tools like pipl.com?, spezify?, etc.)
6. We interviewed students on campus and asked them what we’d find out about them online. This video is a good reflection of the typical responses we get in UBC student workshops… [click to play]
7. Here’s what you might find out about me… Mostly to do with my work for DT. 2 nd one is classic racy Facebook photo of someone else with the same name. Does it matter? Can I defend this? As a future graduate in search of work, should I be concerned about this? Would someone mistake this for me? Last one is my academic work from an online course I took. If we ask students to publish their academic work online does this have long-term consequences (good or bad)? Is this work recognized/judged as part of a learning process?
8. Here’s some of the context info for why this project started… We’ve all seen the upsetting stories about cyberbullying, the lack of judgment used when folks first started using Facebook to broadcast their social experiences, etc. Just because people have the skills to use new technologies doesn't mean that they fully understand the implications of their actions.
9. I’d like to highlight the last one in particular because we are currently in a time where policy and law has not caught up to the distribution methods we now have available (whether we’re talking about copyrighted content or sexting, which when involving minors can result in child pornography charges). So these issues can be very serious. With stats like these, there is a tendency to assume that youth are cavalier about what they’re doing online but recent studies actually indicate: ” Young adults have an aspiration for increased privacy even while they participate in an online reality that is optimized to increase their revelation of personal data.” (Hoofnagle, King, Li & Turow, 2010, p.20) (eg. Dana Boyd gives the example of mommybloggers who record embarrassing details of their children’s lives online and then criticize youth for not caring about privacy.) In spite of the concerning stats above and the ongoing education that remains necessary… according to the latest Pew Internet research report (May 2010), young Internet users are actually becoming the most vigilant population in restricting access to personal information. “ It’s not that they don’t care, it’s just that they don’t know.” We need to teach youth to “self-reflect before they self-reveal.” The question then is…what information do people participating/interacting online really need to know?
10. People need to know that being online is essentially being in public regardless of the passwords, email accounts and privacy settings we think are protecting us. Take protective measures, yes, but consider whether you ultimately want to share information publicly before posting anything, anywhere… This is especially true of anything we do online that is hosted on a server in the US because of the USA Patriot Act. (i.e. In the USA, there are cases of people not getting hired due to information on their Facebook account, regardless of the degree to which their privacy settings were set). So people need to consider “who” they are interacting with online? There is potentially a vast audience for our contributions and that audience is essentially…
11. … anonymous. We don’t always know who is viewing the information we share online and what their intentions are for using that information. Ask yourself for a minute why someone might search for you online? (eg. Before presenting at a library conference, I looked up many of the registrants ahead of time, mostly just to get a sense of which library environments were most represented (public, academic, etc.). I stated that I’d found out that various details such as where people lived, worked, their hobbies, etc. and asked how it felt to know this? If anyone felt concerned that I may know things about you that are really “none of my business”?). Body language in the room visibly changed. Unfortunately, the illusion of anonymity also leads some people to behave and interact online in ways they wouldn’t face-to-face. Eg. We’ve all heard disturbing stories of cyberbullying, read media coverage of controversial stories related to Facebook, and seen the stats on sexting. Although the media focuses its attention on them, we also know these behaviours aren’t limited to young adults. (eg. Dana Boyd states “politicians may complain that they're being unfairly watched, but they're also unfairly watching.  Politicians may complain about privacy invasions involving targeted marketing, but they're using the same techniques in their efforts to fundraise and attract voters.  Every coin is two-sided.”) Most forums we use also have an invisible audience, one with a specific purpose. Usually, it’s to collect data about your online activity in order to advertise and sell a product. All too often, we fail to read the fine print on these sites and we willingly share/upload content without really knowing how it can potentially be used. So we definitely need to consider “who” we interact with when we choose to participate and contribute online?
12. Finally, we should be aware that our online content is essentially permanent. “ This is not only due to caching (i.e. Wayback Machine) but because… All content in a digital space can be moved freely around the Web. This "cut and paste" culture allows rapid and widespread sharing of information, and it also means that photos, emails, IMs, comments, and more can be taken out of context and used in ways that the author didn't intend”. commonsense.org
13. We also want to move past the cautions, to remind folks that participating online presents fantastic opportunities for those who are well-informed. Click One: Access to Information and furthering education Topics can be explored deeply. We can “go around the world with the click of a mouse”. Learning can happen with a diverse community (I.e. online learning facilitates sharing perspectives from people all over the globe). Click Two: Connect and Collaborate We have become a culture that values networking – now more than ever. It's not what you know, it's who you know. In fact, one of the most valued professional skills is the ability to form, manage, and nurture a team. The skills learned on social networking sites, blogs, etc. – like how to communicate appropriately online, provide constructive feedback, and build groups of people with common interests. There's also the element of global connectedness, which is new to this generation. They're able to easily connect with people from around the world and learn about different perspectives. Click Three: Community Support The Internet can be a very positive tool for building community. We have the opportunity to explore interests and find a community of like-minded people that can provide support. Example: Earthquake in Japan Shy people in the offline world can create a new persona and be part of a group of friends/community online. (adapted from commonsense.org) So in spite of all the cautions we highlighted, we’re not recommending that people stop contributing online. There are fantastic opportunities to share and publish information, to learn and to collaborate… and the Digital Tattoo project is also about highlighting these opportunities.
14. Based on your own personal experiences, do you agree with these stats? Immigrants in Canada and several other countries have high levels of home computer use (Veenhof 2006b). Recent immigrants are also more likely than Canadian-born individuals and other immigrants to use the Internet to communicate with their family and friends. The 2003 General Social Survey on social engagement found that 56.0% of Canadians aged 25 to 54 who immigrated to Canada between 1990-2003 used the Internet in the previous month to communicate with friends, compared with 48.1% of Canadian-born individuals. Similarly, 55.9% of recent immigrants used the Internet to communicate with family, compared with 42.6% of persons born in Canada (Schellenberg 2004; see also Table 3 from an earlier section of the current study). An earlier study based on data from Statistics Canada’s 2000 GSS also found that foreign-born Internet users were more likely to use email on a daily basis to communicate with relatives and friends than those born in Canada (Dryburgh 2001). There are likely a number of factors related to recent immigrants’ elevated use of the Internet for this purpose. For instance, the Internet represents a cost-effective way for immigrants to communicate with family abroad. Also, recent immigrants have, on average, relatively high levels of education—another factor associated with elevated use of the Internet (Schellenberg 2004). 1 The East York interviews conducted by NetLab provide a case study illustrating this phenomenon (Kayahara et al. 2005). 39% of the interviewees were immigrants and almost half of them had immigrated to Canada in the last 5 years. For nearly all of the recent immigrants, using the Internet to connect with friends and family back home was a top priority. The Internet has been more useful for maintaining ties than for making new ties in Canada. This is not specific to immigrants, for the East York study revealed that less than 1% of all close personal ties were formed on the Internet alone (Wellman and Hogan et al. 2006). Immigrants found the Internet particularly useful for gathering information about Toronto, and choosing to migrate to it instead of other cities. However, the study found that once they arrived, like most Canadians, immigrants still made new ties through old means. Recent data from Statistics Canada’s 2007 Canadian Internet Use Survey (CIUS) detail some of the other differences in how immigrants (and, in particular, recent immigrants) use the Internet compared with Canadian-born persons. Table 1 compares the online activities of Canadian-born home Internet users with two groups of immigrants who also used the Internet from home: those who immigrated to Canada prior to 1997, and those who immigrated in 1997 or later. 2 Recent immigrants and Canadian-born persons were equally likely to use the Internet for a number of communication-related online activities, but recent immigrants were more likely to make telephone calls online and to use instant messaging. Compared with Canadian-born individuals, recent immigrants also showed elevated use of certain types of cultural information online. For example, three-quarters (75.0%) viewed news or sports information online, compared with 62.1% of Canadian-born home Internet users. Recent immigrants were also active in using the Internet to download music, movies or television programs and listen to online radio. **Discuss example of Loon Lounge (on hand-out) as a social networking site for new/prospective immigrants. What are the benefits? Cautions?
15. Part of your journey in a new country likely includes searching for a job. Consider the potential implications of these stats. Do you think about this when you participate online?
16. Should employers search applicants online as part of the hiring/interview process? Dana Boyd (2010) “ there’s no clear delineation of social and professional spheres.. folks have continuously talked about how we need to teach people to not share [online]. Those warnings haven’t worked. And for good reason. What’s professionally questionable to one may be perfectly appropriate to another. Or the social gain one sees might outweigh the professional risks … It’s far too tempting to jump on the Internet and try to figure out who someone is based on what we can drudge up online. This might be reasonable if only we were reasonable judges of people or remotely good at assessing them in context. Cuz it’s a whole lot harder to assess someone’s professional sensibilities by their social activities if they come from a world different than our own.”
17. A 2009 survey from leading job networking site CareerBuilder.com that found nearly half of employers use social networking sites to screen job candidates , more than double the amount from 2008. The survey of more than 2,600 hiring managers revealed that 45 percent of employers used social networking sites to research candidates and 35 percent of employers rejected applicants based on what was uncovered on social networking sites. Of these 35 percent: 53 percent cited provocative/inappropriate photographs or information. 44 percent cited content about drinking or using drugs. 35 percent cited bad-mouthing of previous employers, co-workers or clients. 29 percent cited poor communication skills. 26 percent cited discriminatory comments. 24 percent cited misrepresentation of qualifications. 20 percent cited sharing confidential information from a previous employer. 
18. Allegations of discrimination are one critical area where employers can find themselves in hot water when utilizing social network sites for background screening. Employers may be accused of disregarding candidates who are members of protected classes by passing over the online profiles of people based on prohibited criteria. Once employers are aware that an individual is a member of a protected group, it is difficult to claim that they can “un-ring the bell” and forget they saw such information. Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, it is against the law for any employer or provider of a service that falls within federal jurisdiction to discriminate on the basis of: Race , National or ethnic origin , Colour , Religion , Age , Sex (including pregnancy and childbearing), Sexual Orientation , Marital status , Family status , Physical or mental disability (including dependence on alcohol or drugs), Pardoned criminal conviction Another issue facing employers using the Internet to source is authenticity. In other words, if negative information about a candidate is found on the Internet or a social networking site, how is the employer supposed to verify that the information is accurate, up-to-date, authentic, and if it even belongs to or applies to the candidate in question? Another problem concerning Internet sourcing and screening yet to be fully explored by the courts is the issue of privacy. Contrary to popular opinion, everything online is not necessarily fair game. Certainly, people choosing not to adjust their privacy settings so that their social network sites are easily available on Internet searches may have a more difficult time arguing that there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. However, the terms of use for many social network sites prohibit commercial use and many users literally believe that their social network site is exactly that – a place to freely socialize. The argument would be that in their circles it is the community norm, and a generally accepted attitude, that their pages are off limits to unwelcome intruders, even if the door is left wide open. After all, burglars can hardly defend themselves on the basis that the front door to the house they stole from was unlocked so they felt they could just walk in.
19. This now infamous picture has had lasting reprocussions for these individuals (and their families, networks). There are hundreds of other similar examples. A search for “Vancouver riot” on Flickr reveals more than 10,000 entries.
20. The VPD have reportedly received more than one million photos and tips from people who took footage during the Vancouver riots… Here’s just a handful of relevant quotes drawn from local press on the topic: This massive online reaction to the Vancouver riots is unprecedented and called “potentially as groundbreaking as WikiLeaks” “ The mob mentality has moved into cyberspace for the first time.” “ Many of the comments are horrific, threatening things that these people might not normally say.” “ There is a profound disconnect between who we are online and in life. We are still learning how to be cyber citizens.” A photo of a person, or a joke posted on Facebook, could be taken out of context. “This could ruin people’s lives even if they are cleared in court." -from http://www.globaltvbc.com/Vancouver+riots+2011+Crown+look+potential+charges/4976048/story.html
21. On the other hand, there has been an equally impressive number of posts supporting those who volunteered to clean-up after the riots.
22. Here’s just a few examples of the efforts of Vancouver citizens to clean-up after the riots, or to share messages of support for the work of these volunteers and to apologize for the sad events that took place.
23. We’ve all seen examples of both poor and admirable behaviour online. Mistakes are made by youth and adults alike. Others offer inspiring examples for using digital tools for learning, working and sharing in unprecedented, positive ways. As new Canadians, many of you have likely thought hard about what it is to be a citizen. So what does digital citizenship look like for you? (Invite brief responses) Earlier this year Trend Micro held a competition to create a video educating people about staying safe and secure online and using the Internet responsibly. The Grand Prize Winner was “Where Are You?” by Mark C. Eshleman and featuring Tyler Joseph The creators had this to say about their video, “The internet has such a big impact on young people and if we were going to make a powerful video, we wanted to tackle what seemed to be the biggest issue: being a good online citizen. We wanted to reach out with a positive message and do it in a creative way. We can only hope that "Where Are You?" will make someone rethink their online life.”
24. Please take a couple minutes to give us some feedback about today’s workshop. The survey URL is https://www.surveyfeedback.ca/surveys/wsb.dll/s/1g1130 or you can access the link from the workshops page on the Digital Tattoo website.