Social Networks

Children and Youngsters / Online safety / Social Networks

Social networks are websites where people can register and create an individual profile and then contact and communicate with others (friends, relatives, schoolmates or acquaintances). There are several ways of communicating within the network: in diaries and blogs a person can express his or her views, he or she can create interest groups, exchange photos, upload audio and video files, send letters, etc.
The most popular social networks in Latvia are Draugiem.lv, Face.lv, Orb.lv and One.lv. These websites have become increasingly popular among people of different age groups.

There you can meet not only other children and adolescents, but also adults. Remember though that one individual can often have several registered profiles. And it is easy to pretend to be someone else online!

10 Recommendations for the Safe Creation of an Internet Profile and Safe Chatting 

  1. Before registering in any portal, ask yourself why you want to do it. Find out more about the current topics in the portal! People have different interests and behaviour, so there are some portals that you probably should not join.
  2. Before adding your profile to a portal, get acquainted with the terms and conditions of this portal.
  3. Create your profile carefully - the more anonymous you are, the less interesting you will be to people with bad intentions. Remember – it is quite easy to reach a conclusion about your personality even from superficial facts.
  4. Your profile in a forum is available to the public. Therefore, if you do not want everyone to know about your after-class activities, your address or mobile number, consider whether you should write such information in your profile.
  5. Think whether you want to insert your photo in the profile. It can encourage a person with bad intentions to start a conversation with you.
  6. Think whether you want to display your private photos or facts that may offend your parents and friends in the portal. Think whether your family or friends would like strangers to have access to their private information. Ask your friends and parents before publishing anything.
  7. Do not lie to anyone about your age. Thus you can deceive other members of a chat. Besides, if your lies get discovered, the administrator may delete your profile from the portal.
  8. Chat, send letters in the portal or send e-mail messages only from the computer of a reliable friend or an adult. Other people, who may be chatting using the same computer, may find out more information about you than you would like them to do.
  9. Think before deciding to meet somebody from chat or an e-mail friend whom you have never met before. If you still decide to meet this person, do it in a public place during the daytime. You should have an adult or at least a friend accompanying you. Inform them about your relationship with chat members. You can never be sure whether an Internet chat-friend is telling about the truth about himself or herself or whether he or she has any intentions that can threaten your life or health. Your chat-friend may say that he or she is 12 years old, but actually he or she may be 40 or 50 years old. Listen to your intuition and consider how open your chat-friend seems to you.
  10. If your chat-friend or an e-mail friend gets aggressive and rude, offends you, threatens, expresses proposals of a sexual nature, makes you feel insecure, insistently invites you to participate in some event or “simply to meet”, stop chatting with this person and inform administration of the portal, reliable adults or the police.

10 Features of a Potential Predator

There are several traits that are characteristic to a potential predator and his or her attempts to seek a victim. Be cautious in any of the following situations:

  • If somebody starts an “innocent” chat with you and asks for your private information.
  • If somebody shows an increasingly conspicuous interest in you and your everyday life, asks about your feelings, inquires whether you feel unhappy and lonely or asks if your parents pay enough attention to you.
  • If somebody wants to know whether you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and asks whether you are alone during the daytime unaccompanied by friends and relatives.
  • If somebody asks what you look like and what you wear at school and in bed. If somebody requests you to send your photos.
  • If somebody wants to keep your relationship “secret” and asks whether you can be trusted with a secret and whether you are reliable.
  • If somebody takes an extraordinary interest into you, compliments and supports you, but refuses to speak about himself or herself. If somebody tries to make you feel sorry for him or her by telling how lonely he or she feels and praises you for your mercy and ability to understand others. Study the profile of your “friend” – probably the list of his or her chat-friends consists only of “friends” of a certain age group or gender.
  • If somebody promises to give or gives you gifts, although you are not close friends. In the same time this “somebody” can get angry and peremptory.
  • If somebody wants to chat with you at a strange time, for example, before bed-time.
  • If somebody asks and writes about something that makes you feel uncomfortable, is interested in your sexual experience and wants you to visit pornographic portals. If that person speaks about his or her genitals, shares his or her fantasies, talks about sex and offers to “play exciting games”.
  • If somebody has found out something about you that you have never told him or her.

Remember! You should already become serious and wary if even only one of these points “comes true”!

More on social networks

Both globally and in Latvia there are hundreds of different social networks and this number is tending to increase. All social networks can be sub-divided into four main categories - source: http://arturs.jaffa.lv.

  • Open social networks, such as Myspace where everyone can register, leave a comment in the profile of any user and participate in almost all activities and where all information is available to public (except for personal correspondence and some other exceptions).
  • Limited access social networks, such as Facebook (partly) where a comment in a user's profile or next to a user’s pictures can be posted only by people whose friendship the user has accepted, or such as Draugiem where almost no information is available to unregistered users.
  • Micro blog-type social networks, where a comment in a profile can only be posted by the blogger himself or herself; the most popular examples currently are Jaiku.com and Twitter, where people relate their everyday activities, as well as the new star - Pownce.
  • Services with the functionality of a social network which is not their main function (flickr.com, digg.com, etc.) and where registered users can send each other messages, allow or restrict a particular group of users to comment their pictures or other activities; unlike the first two categories where all other options are additional functions and functionalities (picture posting, blogging, etc.), this is not the main function of this service.

Different Opinions on Social Networks