Linda

Court documents say the gang members recruited teen girls through Facebook, DateHookUp.com, in schools, and on Metro busses. In the course of pimping and trafficking these girls, the court records charge these gang members transported them across at least 4 states.  If convicted, each could serve life in prison.

Gangs have been leveraging the internet’s power to glamorize gang life, recruit, coordinate, commit crimes, and brag about their crimes, for many years. To learn more about gangs internet use and prostitution/human trafficking see my extensive coverage in these blogs: 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment – Emerging Trends and The Internet,   Gangs use of the Internet and Cell Phones  and Human trafficking Top Initiative for Incoming NAAG President Rob McKenna

According to court documents, in this most recent case just outside of D.C. if the girls tried to quit, they were threatened and subjected to violent and frequent beatings and threats. The ring leader, Justin Strom, 26, allegedly choked one girl when she said she no longer wanted to engage in prostitution.

The affidavit shows that in another occurrence, Strom made a 17-year-old girl use cocaine, cut her on the arm with a knife and then forced her to have sex with him. The girl was

The gang members charged allegedly recruited at least 10 girls – most of whom are 15 and 16-years-old – over the last three years often telling the girls they were pretty and could make money by having sex with men. Many girls were required to have sex with gang members as an “initiation”. The girls allegedly would share the proceeds with the gang — sometimes $50 or $100 per customer — afterwards gang members would supply the girls with drugs and party with them, according to court records.then taken to an apartment, where she was forced to have sex with 14 other men. Strom allegedly collected $1,000 that night. Sometimes, girls were forced to go door-to-door soliciting men for sex. Two gang members drove her home, and according to the affidavit she was told she “got what she had coming” and that if she told anyone they would “come back and kill her.”

These arrests add to a string of prostitution and trafficking charges against gangs in the D.C. area; Members of the gang Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, also have been accused in federal court in Virginia of prostitution-related charges involving juvenile victims.

The Underground Gangster Crips have a long and violent history in Fairfax County, allegedly committing rapes, armed robbery and selling drugs, according to court documents.

Speaking about the case, U.S. Attorney Neil H. McBride said “The sex trafficking of young girls is an unconscionable crime involving unspeakable trauma. These gang members are alleged to have lured many area high school girls in the vile world of prostitution, and used violence and threats to keep them working as indentured sex slaves.”

Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II described the case as “every parent’s worst nightmare,” adding that it showed human trafficking can happen anywhere and is “a very real danger here in Virginia. By working together with U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride and our law enforcement partners, we will send a swift and strong message that this criminal behavior will not be tolerated in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Learn more in my posts Child Trafficking and the Internet and ‘Women to Go’ Shop Drives Trafficking Awareness in Israel; What You Can do in Your Community.

The sexual exploitation of women and children by gangs and other criminals isn’t just a problem in D.C., or L.A. or Chicago. The sexual exploitation of women and children as a revenue stream is occurring in towns and cities across the country. And every single decent person has a role to play – you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution when it comes to identifying and reporting the exploitation of women and children.

To get involved in the campaign against human trafficking, you can find more information and organizations in your area by searching online for human trafficking and your region. If you suspect someone is a victim of human trafficking, or you yourself are a victim, get help by calling the Human Trafficking Hotline 1-888-373-7888. Or Call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s hotline 1-800-THE-LOST.

Location of the NCMEC posters:

• http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/InnocenceLost_Ad_13yrs.pdf
• http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/Ad_Fists_8.5×11.pdf

Linda

The vast majority of people in every country oppose hate, hate groups, and hate crimes. Unfortunately however, the number of hate groups around the world is increasing. In the U.S. hate groups have surged by 54% since 2000 when there were 602 hate groups, to 1,018 official hate groups in 2011.

The rise in hate groups isn’t just an American problem; Germany, South Africa, France, Britain, and other countries also struggle with rapidly expanding numbers of hate groups.

To see and use this lesson, the companion presentation, professional development materials, and parent tips click here: Online Hate Crimes: Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?

Linda

Who says technology is hurting interpersonal relationships? New research shows that the “computer generation” no longer encompasses just the teens who grew up with technology. Seniors are migrating online like never before, which offers new channels for communication between the generations.

Whether texting, Skyping, Facebooking or emailing, seniors and youth have much to gain from each other. Read further for some surprising statistics on how seniors are increasingly embracing current technologies and finding new ways to communicate with their grandchildren and other youth. And, don’t miss out on tips to help deepen interaction between younger and older generations.

To see and use this lesson, the companion presentation, professional development materials, and parent tips click here: Connecting Technology Across Generations 

Linda

Why add someone? The most common reason is that you already know them. The most common reason to dump someone is offensive comments.

Some recent news articles – How Facebook Can Hurt Your Credit Rating, Privacy Fades in Facebook Era, and the recent FTC ruling against Facebook, Facebook Settles FTC Charges That It Deceived Consumers By Failing To Keep Privacy Promises – plus a new 30 minute school curriculum piece I just finished for ikeepcurrent may give you even more reasons to be selective when evaluating potential friends – because what they post may not only be rude, irritating or depressing, it may also harm your future.

Linda

The service commands 95% of all social networking time, a remarkable feat essentially accomplished in just 4 ½ years.

Facebook’s fortunes took off when the disastrous mismanagement of MySpace, horrific lapses in privacy and safety features (think of the news stories of early 2009 when MySpace had to acknowledge removing 90,000 convicted sex offenders) and tawdry ads placed on user’s pages disgusted their user base and marketers alike.

How much has Facebook learned from MySpace’s foibles?

While Facebook has largely avoided the label of being a haven for sexual predators, they have been slow to provide consumer with customer support or assistance, and they have trampled consumer privacy so many times that last month’s FTC charges against the company for deceiving consumers by failing to keep their privacy policies is but one incident in a long line of penalties and fines Facebook has faced for their practices. Of note is the $9 million dollar fine levied by the Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s office in 2009, the Facebook Buzz debacle, and the current demand by European countries for changes, see Europeans calls on Facebook to adapt data-privacy changes to comply with local laws.

It is tempting to believe that Facebook is an unstoppable juggernaut, but that may change if another, more respectful alternative comes along.

Linda

Asked which single website or online resource they couldn’t live without, only 3% picked Facebook, while 11% said Wikipedia and 36% said Google.

As for the most important software and applications for college students? Unsurprisingly, word processors are the most vital to 76% of students, but email came in second with 66% of students – so much for the theories that youth aren’t emailing. Scan the infographic to learn more….

Via: Online Colleges Guide

Linda

Interesting stats (subject to change by the time you look at them!):

• Avg. time spent on Facebook per month – 17 hours and 33 minutes
• Videos watched on YouTube per day – 2 billion
• 119 Million Tweets sent per day
• 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.
• 1.2 Million Editors edit 11 million articles per month on Wikipedia
• The online dating industry is worth $4 billion worldwide
• Your facebook profile is worth $91

Have fun exploring.

Linda

And (Gasp!) Groupon is actually strengthening their privacy commitment to consumers, giving users more control over their privacy settings, and making their policy easier to understand.

It is a sad reflection on the internet industry that the respect Groupon shows their consumers is noteworthy, and it highlights a very clear gap that consumers generally have failed to appreciate.

There are two types of internet companies – those that respect you, and those that don’t.

Companies that respect their consumers work hard to give you full control over the information they collect and store about you. They are respectful of how they share any information about you and selective in choosing the companies with whom they share your information.

Respectful companies make it easy to understand their privacy policies and terms of use, notify you in advance of any significant changes to their terms or services, make it easy for you to remove your information from their sites and put strong measures in place to secure your data. Learn more about how respectful companies behave in my blogs Your Internet Safety and Privacy Rights – Standards for Respectful Companies, and Privacy Policy Changes – Some Companies Get Notification Right.

Conversely, companies that change their terms of use and privacy policies without notice, add features that impact your privacy, security or safety without notice, that default (or later change) your settings to public, or are careless in their protection of your information, show their true colors^[i].  These companies often find themselves in the crosshairs by privacy advocates, the FTC, and even Congress.  These companies knowingly exploit you and your information for their next buck.

Why use a company or service that doesn’t respect you?

Figuring out which companies respect your privacy, security, and safety isn’t rocket science – my bet is you’ll know within 5 seconds of apply some basic criteria to sort the companies you use into respectful vs. disrespectful buckets.

Why use a company that doesn’t put you, the customer, first when respectful companies can be found in every category of online service? Though they may not be the most popular choice today, you have the power to change that.

If enough people ask themselves why they’re staying in an abusive relationship with a company that doesn’t put them first two things will happen. The most popular companies will quickly become the ones that put users first, and disrespectful companies will quickly change their tune and show greater respect in order to avoid collapse.

Understand the power you command in the internet economy.

What value does a social network, a search engine, a dating site, a shopping site, a gaming site, etc., have if it has no users? None, zip, zero, nada.  To understand this, look at the fate of MySpace. The once “unbeatable” social network bought by News Corp. for $580 million in 2005, was dumped last week for $35 million because most users left.

In no other venue do consumers wield as much power as on the internet because in the internet’s business model you, the consumer, are the core commodity. Without consumers there are no advertisers. No shoppers. No information exchanges. No matter the current size of an internet company, if users leave the company is effectively dead.

Right now, the public remains a sleeping giant, but naptime is over.

If you want a better internet experience, if you want to be respected, protected, secure and in control online it will only come by rewarding companies that do the right thing. Make a commitment to only use companies that treat you as the valuable commodity you are, with the respect you deserve, with the controls in your hands (not theirs), and shun sites that fail to measure up.

Make companies earn your business. If even 5% of internet users demanded respect, the internet world would stand on its head to provide it.  The power is in your hands, which sites will you use?

Linda

With 700 million users – and the parents of users – valiantly trying to keep up with Facebook’s ever shifting exposure tactics (a.k.a. their privacy policies) checking the Always up-to-Date Guide to Managing your Facebook Privacy by Whitson Gordon should become a recurring monthly calendar event.

I’m serious. Given the rate of new feature rollouts/information exposure opportunities, a once-a-month check to ensure you aren’t sharing as much as Facebook would like needs to be as automatic as paying your bills.

If you’re a Chrome user, you’d be wise to also consider downloading the free Internet Shame Insurance app created by another Lifehacker, Adam Pash. This tool “adds privacy reminders to Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail to help you avoid the most common online communication faux pas. The extension sits in the background and springs into action only when you’re about to post a status update or reply all.”

My only point of disagreement with Gordon’s Always Up-to-Date Guide is with the sentence ,“Despite plenty of user complaints, Facebook still hasn’t caught on to the “opt-in” philosophy”. This isn’t a dull-witted or slow moving company that still hasn’t caught on to respecting consumer’s privacy. Rather it’s a company who knows damn well the wishes of its users but blatantly chooses to ignore these in favor of more revenue.

To learn more, see my blogs Privacy Policy Changes – Some Companies Get Notification Right and Your Internet Safety and Privacy Rights – Standards for Respectful Companies.

Linda