Internet Safety

Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook have all announced that they will be sharing databases to prevent terrorist groups from using the sites to post content and recruit. "There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services," the companies said in a joint statement.

Given the recent discussions about the spread of fake news on social media, critics hope this new collaboration could potentially pave a path for the companies to work together on other initiatives going forward. The problem of false news raises questions about the potential role these companies should play in battling that content. Some feel these companies have no business being arbitrators of the news or what’s right and wrong — and it would be easy for the companies to keep themselves removed and escape all responsibility in the matter. However, because of their outsized influence on today’s web, these companies are beginning to wake up to the fact that they will be held accountable for the content shared on their platforms considering that content has the ability to influence everything from terrorist acts to how people perceive the world on a global scale.

Have you seen a pop-up alert saying your computer has been blocked and you need to call an 800 number to unlock it? What can you do to avoid this kind of scam? First, to get rid of the immediate problem, either close the pop-up window or if that doesn’t work, force-quit the browser: Hit the Command, Option and Esc keys on a Mac or the Ctrl, Shift and Esc keys in Windows, select the browser, and click “Force Quit” on a Mac or “End task” in Windows. Then read “Don't let sketchy pop-up ads scare you” on the USA Today site to understand more about where these scams come from and how to minimize your risk .

Social media is one of the biggest challenges for cybersecurity in the education sector, according to a report from Wombat Security Technologies. The report found that education professionals missed about one-third of assessment questions related to safe social media use. This serves as a good reminder for parents that they should take an active part in helping kids stay safe online and in using social media properly, and not entirely depend on schools to cover these kinds of topics.

When you think of digital safety you probably think about cyberbullying, identity theft, and hackers... but what about the online dangers your children are exposed to through the data that is collected about them at school? To learn more about how this data is collected and used, take a look at the article How Companies Learn What Children Secretly Want to help safeguard your kids and understand the targeted marketing that is going on while children do their schoolwork.