Social networking and the world of web 2.0 occupy a curious space in the media and in social commentary.
MySpace, Facebook and more recently Twitter have been darlings of the press, while being lamented as the new satans by those such as the Catholic Archbishop in Britain citing the detriments of social networks.
However, with the rise of YouTube and Facebook as category killers in their respective classes of online video and social networks, people are starting to get a better sense of what the world of web 2.0 is about and the benefits these services bring.
Thanks to the proliferation of these two services, the internet is becoming a little more mainstream and the community fear of the web is dropping.
Private research that I have been privy to in recent times clearly demonstrated that safety and trust are still major barriers to uptake of internet services but this fear is far greater in those who were not users of internet services such as banking, online shopping and social networking.
I formerly held the position of director of safety for MySpace Australia, a role that gave me unique insights into online safety, particularly as it related to young users of social media.
However, the issue of online safety in social media is bigger than the issue of protecting children online. Business owners and leaders also need to consider the impacts of social media.
I believe there are two key areas that businesses need to consider in the social media space: protecting your brand and your intellectual property and the use of social media in the workplace.
Every company will have a different position on whether access to social networks should be blocked through the corporate infrastructure; each needs to consider the cost of cutting access to an important information stream to their workers and what can be a valuable marketing tool, against such risks as lower productivity and becoming a victim of crime through the spread of malware.
Many businesses that block access through the corporate networks previously would have dealt with some of these problems but the proliferation of personal communication devices such as the iPhone will increasingly allow workers unfettered access to the internet during work hours on work premises.
This increasingly common situation will revisit upon workplace policy makers concerns that were previously addressed through network blocking, such as lower productivity and heightens some other risks, such as the intentional or inadvertent leakage of trade secrets.
If a company allows access to popular social networks and user-generated content sites they should articulate a fair-use policy for their workers. Every company needs to think seriously about a workplace policy even where they don't allow corporate network access to such sites, but allow workers to hold personal internet-enabled devices in the workplace.
Why? Imagine the following scenario in the context of your business and ask yourself - could something like this happen to my company and how much could it cost me? Given its popularity let's focus on how innocent tweets could cost you.
Scenario: The travelling CEO
The chief executive officer of publicly listed mining company, XYZ Pty Ltd, based in Brisbane, is an avid user of technology and likes to keep abreast of what is happening in the technological and social media realm. He prides himself on the ability to keep abreast of what's going on in his industry and among his peers through Twitter. He has an iPhone and regularly updates his account wherever he is;
On July 1, he attended a meeting at the head office of a competitor to discuss an impending merger between the two companies.
There was speculation in the media that a merger was in the wind, but that had little basis and no official announcements were made to the parties such as the Australian Securities Exchange;
On arriving in Perth at the competitor's head office, the CEO tweeted that he was at a work lunch. Innocent enough. What he forgot was that he was using an iPhone Twitter application that had a geo-location service to pinpoint him to the lunch's address for all on the internet to see;
A savvy finance journalist who has followed the CEO on Twitter made the connection between the Perth location and the recent speculative media regarding XYZ. He filed an article reporting that the CEO was lunching at the rival's headquarters, quite possibly to discuss a merger, causing the company's share price to spike.
Markets regulator the Australian Securities and Investments Commission noticed the price spike and issued XYZ with a price and volume query for possible contravention of ASX-listing rules and possible breaches of the Corporations Act.
The chief executive like most social network users, probably considered himself savvy enough not to tweet sensitive information but failed to think about the broader implications of the service he was using; something that could catch nearly anyone, even those with expert knowledge.
The danger is only going to grow given the rise in popularity and use of mobile internet and services such as Twitter.
This may seem far-fetched but there are some well-documented instances where Twitter caused problems.
Read on to discover how a US Congressman risked his life and national security in Iraq earlier this year ...
A clear and tweeting danger
On February 10, the media carried a story with the headline "Twittering US Government official endangers lives in Iraq".
Peter Hoekstra, a senior member of the US House Intelligence Committee, tweeted his arrival in Baghdad via his Blackberry with the post: "Just landed in Baghdad. I believe it may be first time I've had bb [Blackberry] service in Iraq. 11th trip here."
The Congressman's trip was to be kept secret and the media outlets that knew about the trip had agreed to keep the information confidential until he left Iraq. Hoekstra failed to consider the implications of his use of Twitter and had tweeted the trip in advance, and continued to post details about the party's itinerary every few hours, until the morning of February 6, when the issue was brought to his attention.
He placed himself and his entourage in danger by publishing his whereabouts. If insurgents in Iraq were avid Twitter followers of US House Intelligence Committee members, the information may have emboldened them to strike.
Both scenarios were fairly extreme examples of how Twitter and social media that encouraged the sharing of personal and/or activity information in the workplace were quite damaging. Another real, but lower-impact example, is found closer to home in the case of 'Fake Stephen Conroy', a Twitter personality who published satirical updates based on the activities and policies of the Federal Minister for Communications.
No one knew who the author of the Fake Stephen Conroy Twitter account was and speculation was rife until the owner tweeted his identity.
Internet sleuths matched the name with a listing on the popular professional networking site, LinkedIn, revealing a person with the same name holding a senior position in Telstra.
Fake Stephen Conroy was outed.
Not a good day for Telstra public and government relations I would imagine.
Many legal experts have given opinions that in most workplaces, employment contracts and company policies are unlikely to cover important aspects of employee use of social networking sites.
If employees are not made aware of what they are not allowed to do, they will possibly have a strong defence against termination, or any other disciplinary measure, citing lack of awareness of workplace conditions.
Employers need to keep in mind that unfair dismissal laws were strengthened in July, heightening the need for comprehensive workplace policies and education.
Putting the issue of dismissal aside, no company wants this kind of thing to happen through negligence, recklessness or innocent mistake.
They cost a business plenty; none of which is likely be recovered in a meaningful way through a dismissal (this only adds to the cost in monetary terms - and potentially moreso if an unfair dismissal claim gets up).
This is where responsible and forward-thinking companies will step up to the mark to engage in workplace education to minimise the damage that could be done by employees.
Businesses need to keep in mind that most of their employees haven't received any formal education about social networking or internet safety.
The alternative is to ban Internet access and personal communication devices with data capabilities and there are too many reasons to list why that is not going to happen in 99 percent of workplaces.
Protecting your brand and your intellectual property
The major and reputable social-media platforms take intellectual property breaches seriously but given their size they can't proactively determine the legitimacy of content posted on their platforms, or if it was created or posted by the relevant owner, so it's important that affected companies notify the social networks.
In some respects, brands may benefit from the multitude of fan groups or other endorsements of their brands that pop up on social media - or product placement that occurs in video content.
The US TV comedy sketch show, Saturday Night Live, classically always requested YouTube, MySpace Video and other internet video sharing sites to remove clips from their show until the Tina Fey video of her famous impersonation of Sarah Palin went so massively viral that it promoted the show, seeing an increase in the TV ratings for the show for the weeks following (some sources quote up to 23 percent).
Samboy Chips reappeared on Australian supermarket shelves wholly and solely as a result of a highly popular Facebook group titled 'Bring back Atomic Tomato'. As recently as last month, Chris Brown's track Forever has re-entered the global digital pop charts thanks to the viral video Jill and Kevin's Big Day.
Despite the benefits that some misuse of intellectual property brings to a brand, IP owners don't and won't necessarily always enjoy this kind of outcome when others use their product in their social network pages or hijack their user names.
If your business doesn't own the vanity URL or IDs to which they relate in MySpace, Facebook or Twitter then you should explore options to secure these or have them removed.
If your trademark or names haven't been claimed then your marketing department should be right on them.
There are more than 100 sites for which a business should apply rights to even if it's just to protect themselves from others appropriating them to the business owner's detriment.
Australian Vogue earlier this year engaged lawyers to have a fake Twitter account removed, although this kind of heavy-handed approach is probably not necessary in most cases.
The more reputable social networks such as MySpace, will do what they can to assist you with regards to any misuse of your IP; for most social media platforms misuse of intellectual property is a breach of their terms of use.
David Batch is a former director of safety for Australia and New Zealand at Fox Interactive Media, the publisher of MySpace Australia, and a former Australian Federal Police agent. He consults on IT security and trust issues for organisations such as the Surete Group. He can be contacted at batch@suretegroup.com.au
This is an edited transcript of a speech delivered to the e-Crime Symposium in Sydney earlier this month.
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