World Wide Watch: Students discuss harmful effects of technology misuse
By Jenna Spoont and Suproteem Sarkar, Managing Editor and Convergence Editor
Senior Meredith Hart* was only a sophomore when she stumbled upon nude images that an Internet user took of her on Omegle, a video chatting website, when she was just 13 years old. As her world crashed down and her peers ostracized her, Hart cringed at the thought of the one minute that altered the rest of her high school career.
Hart said that the pedophile impersonated a celebrity and she posed nude for him, unaware that he was taking pictures of her. About a year later, Hart searched her name on Google and found the pictures. Her parents contacted the police to try to take them off the Internet, but the pictures were later found by another student. News of the photos spread across the school and her classmates’ taunts eventually became so severe that she said she needed a security guard to accompany her to classes.
Hart said she began attending a boarding school at the beginning of her junior year, where she could get a fresh start and rebuild her reputation.
“Right now, I kind of learned that it’s not far in my past, but it’s far enough in my past that I can explain it to people and say that I’ve learned from it,” Hart said. “As I’m going off to college and everything, I just hope that it doesn’t come back, because that really does affect your reputation. And I’m trying really hard to get a good reputation back and it’s pretty much impossible.”
Hart said she wishes she had reconsidered the situation before posing in front of her webcam.
“If you think something doesn’t seem right, don’t do it,” Hart said. “Even if you have that slightest idea, because normally it will turn out in some kind of negative way. [Even though] it’s just a chance, it’s not really a risk that you want to take.”
Dr. Rob D’Ovidio, a professor of Criminal Justice at Drexel University, explained that any person who receives a nude picture of a minor can be legally responsible.
“It becomes incumbent upon [the individual] to notify the authorities in their school or preferably law enforcement, or preferably both, actually, that someone has sent them a text message or an email message with a picture of a naked minor or any type of pornography,” D’Ovidio said.
Sexting at ’Stoga
Senior Kurt Collinson* said that he has been sexting, defined as sending and receiving sexually suggestive texts or images, since seventh grade. Collinson said he does not see sexting as unusual in today’s society, and although he knows his actions are illegal, he hopes that he does not get into legal trouble.
“Kids are bored. Sex is more allowed now than it used to be. It’s much more public, it’s much more publicized on TV and all over the Internet,” Collinson said.
Junior Clayton Bolen* said part of the reason he began sexting was because of peer pressure.
“I just saw other people doing it,” Bolen said. “It’s kind of like one of those things where other people are doing it, so maybe I should be doing it too.”
Collinson said that sexting is laid-back and simple. A typical conversation starter would be along the lines of, “What are you doing, babe?”
If she says, “‘Nothing, I’m laying in bed,’ then you ask and you pretty much just say it, ‘Send me pics,’ and sometimes they do it, sometimes they don’t,” Collinson said.
In Pennsylvania, sending explicit pictures of minors is illegal. House Bill 815, approved by Gov. Corbett (R-Pa.) Oct. 25, made the penalty for consensual sexting by minors a third-degree misdemeanor. Transferring images with the intent to harass is a second-degree misdemeanor. For the first offense, offenders take educational programs and have charges dropped from their criminal records.
Despite the reduced penalty for consensual sexting, distribution of nude images of minors remains a crime. D’Ovidio said he advises minors to consider who may end up receiving photos that they send.
“There’s a perception that we’re safe and we’re secure when we communicate via mediated technology, such as computers or cell phones,” D’Ovidio said. “When we don’t have to face a person directly, and have that interaction, our inhibitions are reduced.”
Outlets for sexting include Snapchat, a mobile phone application, which enables people to send photos that will expire after one to 10 seconds. However, users are able to save the pictures by taking screenshots.
Hart said that people have asked her to send nude photos via Snapchat.
“No matter who it is, if they went to Conestoga and they were there at the time, I think that they feel that I’m open to [sexting]. It’s actually really insulting that people think that,” Hart said. “And I understand where they’re coming from, I really do. But it’s insulting. It’s kind of like, ‘Wow, that’s what you think of me?’ Because that’s not who I am.”
Chatroulette and Omegle are two websites based on video and text chatting. The slogan for Omegle is “Talk to strangers!” however the website disclaimer, updated Nov. 27, encourages users to “not transmit nudity, or behave in any other inappropriate way.”
Although Omegle does not permit minors to use the service without the consent of a parent or guardian and prohibits children under 13 from using the website altogether, D’Ovidio said that parents may find it difficult to enforce their children’s Internet habits.
“You can reach out to Chatroulette and have a random conversation with someone online and quite frankly, there’s a lot of pornography, a lot of viewing of people showing their private parts on those types of services,” D’Ovidio said. “Parents need to do a better role of controlling that and really take a step back in time and say, ‘I’m going to assert my authority and ensure that I know who my kids are speaking with.’ And recognize what that means is they’re going to have to play a role in their child’s virtual life.”
An illusion of privacy
Principal Dr. Amy Meisinger said that security will be a priority for the district as it implements its Bring Your Own Device policy next year.
“We know how important your digital dossier is in the next steps that you take as students,” Meisinger said. “Employers look at this, college admissions offices look at these things—they’re Googling you, they’re looking at Facebook, they’re looking at Tweets, they’re looking at all these things. So our goal is to educate the students so that you present yourself in the best light and that you don’t get yourself in a situation where you would close doors for yourself.”
Conestoga educates its students about Internet security by incorporating digital citizenship lessons into research projects and holding an annual program by Katie Koestner, a national expert on student safety and teen relationship culture. She spoke to seniors Dec. 14 about date rape and underclassmen Dec. 17 about Internet safety.
“If you make that choice [to sext], you’ve got to own the responsibility of what comes with it,” Koestner said. “It’s not as simple as flirting in the privacy of behind a closed door with someone you like. You’re definitely flirting in a really public place. So imagine whatever you’re doing with technology, could you do it in the middle of the football field in front of everyone else?”
Locally, Radnor High School faced a sex video scandal Nov. 15 when a student allegedly stole another student’s cell phone and distributed a video of students engaging in sexual activity.
Meisinger said that if an incident were reported on school grounds, the administration would take part in the investigation. However, if a student or family member reports an off-campus incident, the district refers them to the police.
Senior Anna Grosul faced an unpredictable incident after she posted a non-incriminating photo of herself and senior Robin Luo onto her Facebook timeline. One of her friends, Siv Zamani, created a “meme,” an image or video that is passed electronically on the Internet, that ended up on the homepage of Reddit after it received more than 200,000 views.
“People I didn’t know at all, I’ve never met in my life, like people from Texas or Georgia, were just commenting on my picture, like ‘she looks like she’s 12’ or ‘she’s not attractive,’ and that was just not something that I wanted,” Grosul said. “I didn’t ask for their opinion, they don’t even know what I look like in person. It just really hurt my feelings.”
Grosul resents the fact that she did not have any control over Zamani posting the picture on Reddit, even though she “wasn’t doing anything bad in the picture, it was just the writing on top of it.”
“It was really scary because it was all just for fun, we make memes all the time,” Zamani said. “First it felt amazing to be on the front page of Reddit because that’s been on the bucket list for a while, and I got that. But then when [Grosul] called [about the meme], I got very scared very fast because I wasn’t trying to do anything harmful.”
Grosul understands that users sign privacy contracts on Facebook, but, “I just think that there’s nowhere to hide anymore,” she said. “Sometimes, I’m scared if I even just post a picture of my face that it would just turn into something that it shouldn’t.”
Luo considered the risk of colleges seeing the picture, but said he understands the repercussions that arise from posting a picture on Facebook.
“Facebook is an open website where if you post a picture, people are allowed to take that,” he said. “But it [made] me feel like my privacy was invaded.”
A parent of a Sandy Run Middle School (Upper Dublin, Pa.) student reported a similar Facebook privacy breach Nov. 30. Pictures of girls from the school were posted on a website containing photos of other minors. The photos, non-suggestive in nature, were placed next to links for pornography websites.
D’Ovidio advises people to speak up if they do not want images of them shared on social media websites.
“Be cognitive of the fact that those pictures can wind up in the hands that you don’t want them to be in,” D’Ovidio said.
Sophomore Cameron Moore said he does not use Facebook because he realizes the potential downsides of posting personal information to social media.
“I don’t have a Facebook account because I just don’t want that information out there,” Moore said. “Anyone can see it no matter how embarrassing it is, and from what I’ve seen of Facebook, people take whatever liberties they want.”
However, despite the potential drawbacks, Luo noted that the Internet can also be used to one’s advantage.
“You can choose what you do on the Internet, so unless you want to do bad stuff, like post a picture in an inappropriate way, then that’s your decision,” Luo said. “But most of the time you can use the Internet to your advantage.”
Rebuilding a reputation
Hart said that she has become more cautious since the photos leaked.
“Normally if you think twice, you catch yourself from making a mistake that could cost you something big in your life,” Hart said.
Hart said she is making an effort to inspire people at her new school about the dangers of the Internet. She has become stronger since the incident and is trying to educate other young women about online privacy. She said that she plans to base her senior presentation on what she learned from that one minute she spent on Omegle.
“I’ve matured a lot. I know how to handle so much more,” Hart said. “You can throw any situation in front of me and I realize that it’s okay because everything will get better. The second that that happened, I thought that I was going to fall off the face of the earth. But now that I’ve been able to handle that, you can throw whatever you want at me and I can take care of it.”
Collinson said he became more careful with his sexting habits after hearing of the Radnor scandal, but will not stop sexting altogether.
“I’ll definitely think twice about it, without a doubt,” Collinson said. “But I’ll still do it.”
Bolen said he stopped sexting after realizing how it could affect peoples’ reputations.
“I’ve actually become a lot more faithful as a Christian, and that’s kind of done it,” Bolen said. “I’ve seen things like the Radnor scandal and I realized that I shouldn’t be putting these