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An American teenager has been sentenced to 15 years in jail after posing as a girl on Facebook to blackmail seven classmates into sex.

Anthony Stancl, 19, of Wisconsin, was accused of tricking more than 30 male classmates into sending him naked photos of themselves.”

These numbers come for a larger report, The Democratization of Online Social Networks by Amanda Lenhart.  You can see her presentation here.

The conversation followed the expected path for a few minutes with comments such as these.  “We should live with integrity and be faithful witnesses wherever we are.”  “If we behave one way at church and differently in the community we provide fuel to the naysayers who claim the Church is just a bunch of hypocrites.”

Then someone said “On Facebook you have to be the same to everyone, you don’t get to pretend to be one way with one group and another way with another group.  They are all just friends.”

I think there is some truth to that.  Especially if you have not customized your privacy settings.  The privacy settings will let you control what friends and friends of friends can see.  It will even let you set up groups of friends such as “church friends” and “work friends” and have different settings for each group.  However, I doubt this is common practice for most casual Facebook users.

I thought about this issue when I setup my page and wondered if I should have a profile for work and a profile for church.  I quickly decided that was way too much trouble.  I don’t even want to take the time to set up different groups of friends.  I then thought I would use linkedin for work related social networking.  That too became too much trouble.  I settled on letting Facebook be the only social networking site that I regularly update and check.

Some of my work friends may not care about what I’m doing at church, and vice versa, but it is all part of who I am.  I do try to always remember my first rule of social networking.  “Never post anything anywhere on line that you don’t want EVERYONE to see.”

By the way, Facebook is changing its privacy policies and settings to make it easier to share your information with everyone.  Be sure you know what you are doing before you check the new box that says “Share with Everyone.”

If the pastor is deeply involved with the church website, email, computers and network, it is important to make sure all the knowledge doesn’t leave with the pastor.

Here are some things to have in a good transition document.

1. Email – usernames, passwords, account numbers

2. Web Hosting – account numbers, usernames, passwords, procedures for updating, when the bill comes due and who it is paid to

3. Computers – usernames, passwords, file structure organization, warranties, backups (where stored)

4. Networks – switch and router addresses, switch and router configuration backups, passwords, wireless configuration and encryption

5. Misc. – Usernames and passwords for Facebook, blogs, photo hosting sites, and other online sites that are in the church’s name

Having a good record of these things helps ease the transition and avoid those late night calls to the former pastor because no one knows the password to update the church website!

I pray a blessing on all the UMC churches and families who are experiencing transitions this month.

“My name is danah boyd and I am a Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. I recently completed my PhD at the School of Information (iSchool) at the University of California (Berkeley). My research examines social media, youth practices, tensions between public and private, social network sites, and other intersections between technology and society.”

danah recently spoke at the Penn State Symposium for Teaching and Learning with Technology.  Thankfully, she posted a rough draft of her comments here.  I encourage you to give it a read.  It will help you understand the appeal of social network sites to teens.  Some of the points I found particularly interesting follow.

1.  Teens are still doing the same things teens have always done.  The gossip, flirt, hang out, bully, and joke around.  The difference is now they can do these things online instead of just in person or on the phone.

2. Online “friends” on social networks are definitely not the same as personal friends.

3. Social networks produce “invisible audiences.”  This means the things we put online may be viewed by audiences other than the ones we originally intended.

4. All social networks are not created equal.  danah describes some very intersting differences in the adoption of MySpace and Facebook.

I know many Churches, mine included, have jumped right into using a Facebook group, but some may have reservations.  If your Church has reservations or concerns, this document may help you.

The Church and Facebook