 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Aloha and bienvenido to Hispanic Hawaii and Richard Concepcion. Today's guest is Carmen Bell. She is a social media consultant and the owner of MLA Hawaii. She's here to help us to understand the good, the bad, and how to protect our children from social media. Carmen, bienvenida al programa. Welcome to the program. Aloha, Richard. Thank you for having me. Alright, it's good to have you here. Let's start the program by asking you to tell me a little bit about yourself, what you do for the community, and why you become a social media consultant. Absolutely. About four years ago, I decided to leave the finance sector and branch over to the marketing consultant or social media marketing consulting. After working with several non-profit organizations here locally, I was able to learn a lot about how to marry a lot of the social media and the different platforms available with a lot of the local businesses and also non-profit organizations. I was fortunate enough to work with several that deal with a lot of issues here locally, and I was able to also help them branch out and give a lot of exposure to their brand. So you also help an organization with Latin connection and Hawaii Latino Feel Festival? Absolutely, yes. I came to Latina in retiring here in Hawaii. I really wanted to give back to my community, not only the Hawaii community, but also the Latino community here in Hawaii. So it was very important for me to work with a lot of these organizations and helping them in any way that I could, especially with what I'm good at, which is through the social media and helping them with their brand. Well, we have a lot of questions for you. Before we start those questions, I want to go over the internet safety and want to learn a little bit about the data that we have there. We have here a presentation that talks about different data. We had 90% of the teams have used some form of social media. 75% have a profile on social networking sites. More than half of the American teams visit social networking sites every day. 17% of the teams say they have been contacted online, but someone that they didn't know in a way that they made them feel scared or uncomfortable. Also, 30% of the teams say they have received online advertisement that was inappropriate for their age, and 39% of the teams admitted to lying about their age to gain access to the website. So with that information, can you tell me a little bit what is good and bad about social media? Absolutely, it is very important. With social media, it is such a wonderful resource. Not only for a brand or a company, but also for their users. So many people today, they are able to have an unlimited amount of exposure through social media. And being able to do it in a very responsible way, it can result very profitable for their business, and it can give them an exposure that they wouldn't be able to just have locally. However, the downside to that is also the exposure. Just not being able to just put so much information out there in the social media as well as the people that you have as part of your brand. A lot of brands today, they have children. There's a lot of promotions for the children. There's a lot of organizations that children are a part of. So as a brand, as a company, as an organization, there's a lot of responsibility to make sure that they are protected. Not only because they're part of the brand, but because they're minors. So it is important to use these resources responsibly. I think it's one of the children who benefit by being able to keep in contact with families and friends. And also, they can share ideas and use their creativity. But what is really bad about social media? To start off, there's a lot of potential for cyberbullying in social media as well as predators or people that are contacting your children, especially minors. So it is very important to keep that in mind, especially if you are trying to use social media as an exposure for your child, if you want your child to be into modeling, if you want your kid to be into acting. It is wonderful. It's a wonderful tool to use. However, it could really be dangerous because you're putting a lot of the information about your child or a child that you represent onto the World Wide Web. And it could be a little scary. So I guess my best advice is just be careful. Make sure that you're reading and you're doing your due diligence to make sure that their information is protected and they are protected online. You mentioned about cyberbullying. Tell me a little bit about that. Cyberbullying is pretty much bullying on the Internet. It could happen through social media. It can happen just comments. Kids can read very negative comments. Anyone has access to your child when they have a profile online. So cyberbullying, anyone can come and just make them feel uncomfortable. Maybe perhaps there's some stalking for teens. It could be really scary if not monitored. Wow, that's difficult. Let's talk a little bit about the Internet safety on laws. We have here different information. The first thing I want to talk about is what is COPA? It's Children's Online Privacy Partition Act. It protects kids younger than 13 years old when they engage in online activities. Also children personal information without a parent knowing or permission. They cannot sign in or get the ability to use the Internet or be part of the social media. Also parents need to provide consent. And this consent is just not verbally needed to be written. And also the different companies that provide social media they cannot collect more information what they require. So going over the Internet safety law what else can a parent do to protect their children? I absolutely, there's many platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. They have a lot of privacy policies and safety policies in place. You can read them looking through your settings of each of them. One of them for example, let's say Facebook. Facebook has a lot of private policies where you could either disclose the information to the public. You could keep it private to the friends that you have. You could keep it private to the followers that you have. There's different things where you can have friends where you can share a little more information with them and you can share different kind of information with your followers. Other platforms such as Twitter, they have policies in place where you can report anyone that you feel is harassing you or they don't necessarily need to be doing it to you. If you feel someone is making comments that can be a little bit discriminating or it's not making people feel comfortable you can always report them and then they will go ahead and do an investigation and perhaps this person's account will be either suspended temporarily or permanently. It's really important to just kind of go back to the settings of all these different platforms and see what policies they have in place that you can use to protect yourself and the account of your child if you have a child who has an account. And it's also very important for the parents to get involved. Talking to one of my viewers, she mentioned that her age was always trying to type Lego and she misspelled and it came out with Lego. And so many different websites that is pretended to be like and also pornography material. How can parents prevent this kind of situation at home? Well, for starters, as far as computers and what your children are able to access online you can always do the settings on your own personal computer at home and make sure that the kids don't have access to certain sites or don't have access to certain social media platforms or pages. Something else that you can do to protect your children is kind of, you know, talk to them. Talk to them about the different things. If you see something like this, click out. Don't click on if someone, you know, if something pops up, don't click on it. Even if it says, hey, you can see, you know, this cartoon for free. Don't click on that, you know, just kind of talk to your kids a little bit, educate them about the different things that could happen online or to come and find you and then you would tell them, hey, that looks fun. You know, I mean, that's just to name a few, you know. That's a lot for a parent. That's a lot, yeah. All right, let's talk about what is sexting? Well, sexting is pretty much just sending any pornographic pictures through a mobile device. However, through your mobile device nowadays, I mean, you have access to the internet, you have access to Facebook and Instagram and all these different social media. So it could be dangerous because not only you are exposing or this picture that you're sending is not only being sent to the other person that, you know, they can, that you're sending that text to, but that person could take a screenshot of that and they can put it online and they can share it and it would be viral within minutes. So it's really scary. You know, you have to really keep in mind what it is that you're putting out there, even if it's just a simple text to a friend. And that's staying online forever, right? Absolutely, absolutely. And this is one of the big things between teens. I mean, teens can find themselves sexting. And, you know, parents, these are things that you need to, you know, you need to try to either talk to your children or just kind of be alert that it could happen, especially when they become teens, you know, they could do it for, you know, attention. They could do it to a boyfriend or because they like a boy and they want to go ahead and send him something cute, you know, that they feel they will attract the boy to them, pure pressure as well. It's no different than the, you know, the issues that they have at school, you know, with girls, you know, the attention that they want to have, you know, attract boys and everything like that. So do you think people today, they are desensitized to all these different things they see on the website? I think so. I think so, definitely. I mean, when it comes to social media, I mean the possibilities of being able to just expose everything, everything that you have or everything that you know or putting information out there for everyone to see. It's a scary thing. Let's talk about some of the consequence and concern for the parents. Can you tell me some of that? Yeah, as a mother of teenagers, myself, I was from my child, my children being 13 years old. I mean, they wanted to have, you know, because all the kids were doing it. They wanted to have an Instagram. To get to your pressure, right? Absolutely. They wanted to have an Instagram. They wanted to have a Facebook. For me personally, it was just with everything else when you have a teenager, it's just compromise. Okay, you want to have an Instagram account, I want access to that account. You know, I want you to link that account to my email or perhaps follow me or let me follow you so that I can see what you're posting, so that I can see who you're interacting with. It's important for a parent to take, you know, this, just like you would when your children are at school and, you know, they want to do certain things. It's just kind of take that initiative to get involved and make sure they're doing it safely. Well, for those parents that they don't know, here's another statistic. There is nine out of 10 teenagers, you know, those photo of themselves. And nine out of 10 provide the real name or the addresses where they live. And also eight out of 10 reveal their birthdays. And seven out of 10 teenagers, they provide the information where school they go to and where grade they in. What is it dangerous about providing all this information? It is dangerous. I mean, it's no different than pretty much just handing someone, you know, your birth certificate if you think about it, you know. But you have, you as a user, you have the responsibility of what people are allowed to see. You know, when you go to your Facebook, you can actually click what things you want shown on your profile. I mean, you can click on someone's Facebook and you can just see their picture. You can't see nothing else on their page because they went through their settings early and they were able to click on exactly what they wanted exposed to anyone that finds them. My personal account that I have not my business, my personal account, you can't find me on Facebook unless you're friends of my friends. You can't find me through my email. You can't find me through my name. That's the way that I wanted my page, my personal page. So there's a lot of policies and there's a lot of guidelines in place that can help you stay protected. Well, that's great because how do you know that something that I learned today that made sure I go through all the settings and make sure that I get myself away from people researching me. That's perfect. So if I want to protect my child and I know that person, my child is 13 years old the regulations say after 13, you can go ahead and try to set an account with the parent permission. How can I monitor that my kids are using this internet at home and I probably don't even know about it? That's unfortunate. You can't find everything that your 13-year-old is doing. You can only do your best to make sure that they don't have access to that or if they have a page that they tell you and hopefully they will tell you that they have a page but it doesn't mean that you can do so much as a parent. They can use a computer at their friend's house and have a Facebook account that you will never know about or an Instagram account that you will never find. I personally, as a parent, I made sure that I spoke to my girls about the dangers of having these pages and the dangers that they were putting themselves in their home and their friends if they were sharing things they weren't supposed to if they were sharing every single location if they were allowing people to see all this information about them I'm here, you know, I'm over there she's over here. I mean it comes with big responsibility I think the best thing that I you can tell a teen is with a social media page it's like getting your first driver's permit a lot of responsibility you need to make sure that you treat it that way you need to make sure that everything that you do everything that you say, everything that you share you think about it and you make sure that you're doing it responsibly so there's gotta be some kind of communication there has to be agreement between you and your kids absolutely well Carmen I want to say thank you so much we're gonna take a quick break and message to you and we're gonna continue talking story after this wonderful message Welcome back to Hispanic Hawaii we're here with Condon Bell talking story and learning about social media the good, the bad and how we can protect our kids alright so we was talking about what parents can do to protect their children using the internet so can you elaborate a little bit more about that yeah absolutely I think the internet is a great resource for the children it's very educational it could really help them showcase any kind of talent that they have in an artistic way they can find friends with common interests also stay connected to family members I mean we live in an island right now a lot of our family members are in the mainland it's a perfect way to stay connected I really don't want people to feel like with everything that's going on in the internet be afraid to use all these tools to use all these resources steps that I would give the parents as far as to make sure that at least the kids stay protected or they can protect their children because a lot of parents they have pages for their children because they want their grandparents to see them growing up and they monitor those pages the first thing that I would say is to go through all these different platforms all these different places that you have these profiles and go over and look through the settings that you want to share Facebook has I'm sorry a setting where you can see what your friends see and what the public sees when they click on your profile I think that's great because it really allows you to see exactly what it is that you need to do to stay protected other points that I would give to parents is tell their children not to allow or not to accept requests from people that they don't know people that they've never met in person a friend that they've never met in school go to their profile see if they're friends with your friends sometimes it's a cousin that you saw in passing or that you met at the mall she just wants to be your friend that's okay but if it's someone that you go to and they're not friends with any of your friends I'd say another red flag that I would say is someone that does not have a lot of followers or not a lot of friends or they have a fairly new account a red flag for me and I speak to a lot of my clients about that they could be spam they could come and heard your account or they can be predators something else that I would say is sometimes kids being kids very innocent they would say something that can hurt someone's feelings or not knowing perhaps they can become the bully you know so I always say make sure you are mindful of what you say to others online if you don't want someone to say it to you don't say it to somewhere else online you know that's a good point absolutely so that's another point in front of my time when you do something on the internet on the website just to think about it what your grandmother would say I agree I think that would be a perfect way to look at it if your grandmother say that's not the right thing to do just don't do it yeah grandma's no best if that's not the right thing to do for sure well I want to ask you about some of the application that is out there when kids are playing game in the computer and they have to provide the address and their location some of the application can tell you your location how can you avoid that well the only way that that can happen is if you have your setting on your phone or your computer where your location is on on that particular setting if you look for parents if you look through the phone of your kid and you see that they're sharing their location under their facebook application turn it off they won't be able to find them if they're doing it through their twitter turn it off or you know that's the perfect way for no one to locate them they won't be able to locate them if their location setting is not on their device so that'll be something to look into for sure let's talk about youtube I've seen a lot of kids in youtube that participate in or the mother or the father use in the kids in youtube to create a channel what is your recommendation for parents that want to do that absolutely I would say be that person that monitors that account you know as a parent is no different than protecting them at home protecting them you know at the park protect them online that you monitor the people that send the messages you monitor the comments that they receive and if it becomes too much you know you're a parent and I'm sure let's say you're managing your child's you know your children's accounts or your children's business or if you know your child is a model or something and you're managing their career hire someone hire someone that will take the responsibility to go in and you know go through these messages the pictures are not being copied and exposed on another different website that is their job that's what you will be paying them to do so what is your recommendation building trust between yourself and your children in order for them to ok I want to trust my mom and dad to look at my website or looking at you know the different pages that I'm visiting any recommendation on that it all depends on the parent how it is addressed in order and the child how it is received my personal experience with my teens it was pretty much being very open in my mind if they want to have a profile then they're want to you know start becoming adults you know they want to take that responsibility so ok be very open and be like this could happen you could be contacted by a predator you could be contacted by a guy that is not really that guy you know just be very open with them and if they're a lot younger monitor their account for them you know and until they're of age and then you can just you know tell them a little bit more but it's no different than anything else that you try to do with your kid you know try to tell them you know how to use it responsibly or how to build that trust you know like I said just make sure you tell them the do's and don'ts and the consequences you also work with many different organizations here in Hawaii and some of these organizations they have to deal with kids and parents and they do marketing for you know for the community what advice do you give to any one of these organizations they deal with those kids and marketing kids within the community? Yeah absolutely for starters I wouldn't want them to feel discouraged with everything that is going on in the social media because it's really important if there's children that are part of your organization it's people would want to see that people want to see that the kids are getting involved in their community what I would tell them is to always make sure that they have the parents permission with everything that they do that you know has to do with minors make sure that the parents are aware that they're using their picture or that the parents are aware that they're using their story always make sure that the parents are giving you some kind of permission it's preferably written using these pictures and that you're promoting something that has to do or they're using your children's information Let's go back to cyberbullying if my child feels like somebody is harassing or is bullying my child how can that child stop that just block that person completely or approaching in a different way calling the police what would it be the first step? the immediate and the quickest step would be blocking that person you tell your child I'm sorry don't get exposed don't expose yourself I'm sorry to this kind of bullying block this person this person obviously doesn't have your best interest in mind the next step if it continues do your research is it a classmate is it a neighbor perhaps come and address with a school or address with the parents if it's someone that you've never met if it's someone that your kid accidentally befriended online then that's when I would say contact the authorities so they can do a thorough investigation let me ask you this is your opinion do you think the school you provide some kind of curriculars or class to teach about kids using the internet I think that would be amazing if the school could do that I think that would be great because it's such a big tool that schools use it you can protect your kid at home online but what if they're using a computer at school so I think it would be important for the school and it would be great if the school could provide that kind of information or that kind of add that to their curriculum for sure alright we're running out of time I want to say thank you so much for coming to Hispanic Hawaii and helping the Latin community to understand you know social media the good the bad and how we can protect our kid and that kind of stuff thank you so much for having me Richard and happy new year oh happy new year to you feliz año nuevo alright I want to say thank you so much for watching Hispanic Hawaii and don't forget that you can rewatch this program at thinkpechawaii.com and many other programs within our community thank you gracias hasta luego