The past couple of weeks the Danish social network site for teenagers, Arto, has repeatedly appeared in the news media. This is due to the fact that a journalist from the Danish tabloid newspaper Ekstra Bladet created a false profile on Arto where she pretended to be a 13 year old girl and got into contact with a number of older men. During a year the undercover journalist communicated through MSN Messenger with four older men (from the age of 35 - 72) who all had a keen interest in meeting the girl IRL. The correspondence between the men and the apparent 13 year old girl had many sexual undertones and some of the men openly indicated that they wanted to have sex with, what they believed was, the 13 year old girl.

When the physical meetings were finally arranged the news paper revealed the truth and the following days they published a number of articles where they - one by one and with video documentation - exposed the men as predators and child molesters.

We have previously seen similar stories in the Danish news media, and the purpose of this blog post is not to comment on these specific news stories, which are part of the ongoing moral panic, which I commented on in an article I wrote in October 2006. However, the public debate that follows sensational cases like these is interesting. (more…)

Arto recently launched “Arto Idol” as part of their social network site. Here the users can participate in an online talent show (similar to “Scenen er din”, “American Idol” or “Britain’s Got Talent”) within six categories. Each month the site will elect the 10 best participants in the competition.

It is possible for the users to comment on each other’s videos - very much similar to YouTube. What strikes me so far is that the users comment really positively on each other’s videos. This is similar to the positive and loving atmosphere that can be found in their use of the picture galleries or in their profile texts (as I have written about in this article). I will definitely keep an eye on this new initiative. Does anyone know of something similar in other countries?

Check out Arto Idol here.

What does it mean to be a friend online? As I have pointed out in an earlier blog post and as I stressed during my AoIR-presentation last week, the concept of friendship has changed. Young people do call their contacts on social networking sites ‘friends’ (or at least Danish youngsters do) - even though the majority of their online relationships or the hundreds of people on their friend lists more resemble acquaintances. This, of course, has to do with the fact that social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Arto use the metaphor of ‘friending’.

Because of the possibility to ‘friend’ every Tom, Dick and Harry it has been suggested that a new trend on anti-social networking is seeing the light of day. My friend Anders Olsen just pointed me towards an article from LabConfidential that mentions an emerging resistance against the concept of friendship on online social networking sites. The Danish article refers to this article from The Boston Globe on anti-social networks on Facebook etc. The article reads:

Now that Internet users have forged online relationships with the people they like, they can turn their attention to shaming the folks they hate.

With Enemybook, a new program that runs on the social networking site Facebook, you can connect to people you loathe, display their photos and evil deeds, and give them the virtual finger.

Enemybook is one of several new online applications developed by computer-savvy twentysomethings who say they are tired of bogus online friendships. In a dig at the notion of virtual networking, they hope to encourage people to undermine, or at least mock, the online social communities sites such as Facebook were designed to create.

Besides Enemybook the two articles also mention Snubster, Hatebook, IFHY (I Fucking Hate You), NoSo (No Social) and isolatr as anti-social networking sites or applications.

I must admit that I had not heard of half of these sites, but I find the resistance against (the popularity of) online social networking interesting. Does anyone know of any Danish examples? I know that the Danish site Narto (now Narro) started as an opposition to the hugely popular Danish Arto, even though it is not an anti-social networking site per se, but advertises on the front page with the phrase: “If you are too annoying for any other social networking site, then create a profile here - and feel much worse” (my translation from Danish)”. According to the site itself, it has more than 50.000 users (Arto has app. 600.000).

My new paper “Kærlighed og venskab på Arto.dk” (”Love and friendship on Arto.dk”) is now available online. The paper is part of the newest issue of the Danish journal “Ungdomsforskning” on young people’s different rooms or spaces. I recommend the other articles in the issue which are all very interesting.

You can download my article here.
Or read the whole issue of “Ungdomsforskning” here.

I just wanted to share some preliminary findings from the online questionnaires that I am working on with The Danish Media Council for Children and Young People. In the questionnaire aimed at children and young people between the age of 12 and 18 we ask them what the best message they have received at a social networking site is.

The majority of the youngsters say that a guest book message with the words “I love you” is the very best message they have ever received. Such messages most often come from close “real life” friends or boy- or girlfriends.

This is very much in accordance with the results from my Arto-study where I identified a strong love discourse between “offline” friends. By the way, I have an article about that very subject coming up in the Danish journal “Ungdomsforskning“. The article is called “Love and friendship at Arto.dk” and I will remember to write a post once it gets out.

Today I gave my first “real” lecture as a PhD Student at the University. The students were from 6th semester at Communication Studies and the subject was social networking sites (with Arto as case), moral panic, virtual ethnography and Nexus Analysis.

If you are interested in these subjects you can check out my PowerPoint presentation from the lecture which is available for download here (unfortunately, it is mostly in Danish, but there are many pictures and social networking examples :-)).

Concurrently with social networking sites and services becoming increasingly popular the notion of ‘friendship’ is changing. Many of the large social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Facebook and Arto are using the friendship metaphor in relation to the contact lists. This means that the word ‘friendship’ has a new meaning online and rings more hollow than in its original sense.

Even though you have to be accepted as a friend from the other part, it is quite easy to collect many friends (since almost everyone wants a high number of friends). As a result young people often have more than 100 ‘friends’ on their friend lists. Then, what do they do when they want to signal who their actual or ‘real’ friends are? (more…)

Last year I read a post on Michael Zimmer’s blog about a new social networking service called Fake Your Space that offers purchase of fake and hot friends for MySpace profiles in order to seem popular. Yesterday the Danish online magazine Computerworld.dk spotted the website and wrote an article about it. Today I was interviewed by the Danish radio P3 (P3 Nyheder) and the newspaper dato about what I think of the service and why friends are so important on social networking sites.

First of all, I think that the profiles the site offers are so clearly fake and model like that other users would probably be sceptical of the users who have bought the fakers and listed them as friends. Also, other people’s friend lists are often used to find new friends. What happens when someone tries to add one of the fakers to their own profile? (more…)

Recently, I wrote an article for the Danish magazine Månedsmagasinet Skolen about how to see through fake profiles on social networking sites like Arto . The article was part of a special theme issue on internet safety published on Safer Internet Day 2007. The whole magazine is available for download here.

This is a massage in a faker’s guest book on Arto. It says: “We piss on fakers”. As the picture and the statement show the fight aganist fakers is really strong on Arto.

As part of Safer Internet Day 2007 which was celebrated all over Europe today I participated in a ‘Blogathon‘. I wrote a blog post about being private online which I will post here as well:

Keep in mind your online identity

Have you ever thought about the fact that what you put online about yourself could stay there forever or the way in which you portray yourself today might affect the way people see you in ten years?

Social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster have become extremely popular – especially among young people. In Denmark there is one particular site that has won the heart of almost every Danish teenager. The website is called Arto and it has more than half a million users (out of a 5,4 million population). It is estimated that 80 % of all Danes between the age of 12 and 18 years old have a profile on the website. (more…)