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When Google launched Google+ in June, 2010, it was for adults only. Now it’s open to anyone 13 or older.  The reason Google kept teens off the service at first is not because the social network was ever about what we euphemistically call “adult content,” but because Google wanted to take extra time to get it right before opening the doors to people under 18.  After several months of testing, Google thinks it’s reached a good balance. In rolling out the teen welcome mat, Bradley Horowitz, Google’s Product VP for Google+ said, “We want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Today we’re doing both, for everyone who’s old enough for a Google Account (13+ in most countries).”

Before opening Google+ for teens, Google consulted with child safety and teen safety experts including ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization where I serve as co-director along with Anne Collier.  And to help parents better understand Google+, Anne Collier and I wrote A Parents Guide to Google Plusand helped Google with its new Google+ Teen Safety Guide.

For the most part, teens’ experience on Google+ will be just like adults, but there are some special safeguards for users under 18. Google didn’t put any major breaks on teens — it’s giving them plenty of freedom to express themselves to their friends or even to the world, but it did make some of the default settings for teens more restrictive than for adults. If teens (or adults) decide to change them, they can, but how a service sets its defaults is very important. It’s a type of recommendation — the company’s way of saying “this is how we think most people should use our service,” and — besides — most people never get around to changing defaults.

Circular logic

Everyone on Google+ is encouraged to create circles where they group their friends and other contacts. You could have a circle of just family members, another circle of schoomates and another  circle of people on your soccer team. You can have as many circles as you want and you can call the circles whatever you want to call them. People in your circles are notified, but don’t know the name of the circle(s) you’ve put them in.  And it’s asyncronous. You can be one of my circles, but you don’t have to put me in any of yours. In that case, you’d see what I post to circles you’re in but I’d only see what you post to the public, unless you added me to one of your circles.

Circles work the same for teens as they do for adults, but there are some special safeguards consisting of warnings and different default settings.

Safeguards for teens

• If teens post something directed to extended circles or the public, they’ll get a warning reminding them that “when you share to your extended circles, people you haven’t added to your circles will be able to view your post and may be able to comment.”
• All  Google+ users can control “who can notify me.” For adults, the default is “anyone,” but for teens the default is people in their circles. Adults can make their settings more restrictive and teens can make theirs more open, but the default for teens is designed to limit who can contact them.
• By default, anyone can comment on an adult’s public posts,  but for teens it’s only people in their circles.
• There are also some differences in the profile defaults. Your profile is where others can see a bit about who you are and who you interact with on Google+.  By default, employment and Education can be seen by anyone (Public) if you’re an adult, but for teens, the default is “just your circles.”
• Adults’ “Relationship Status” can be seen by people in their extended circles, but only in “your circles” for teens.
• In the hang-out feature,  up to 10 people can have a video chat. For teens if  someone outside anyof their circles joins in, the teen is temporarily pulled out of the hangout and asked if they want to continue. It’ a way of pausing the action for a second and encouraging the teen to think about whether he or she wants to remain in this hangout.

Teens are temporarily pulled out of a video hangout if someone outside their circles enters

The precautions that Google put into place will help remind teens about safe and appropriate use of Google+ but, as my ConnectSafely co-director Anne Collier pointed out in a blog post, “Just as with most protections and any services on the social Web, these are not about control. Users choose to go with the defaults – or not.” And even services that have strict controls can’t always enforce them. “There’s always a workaround even for the strictest safeguards any parent or site might impose,” said Collier, “including software that disallows social networking sites altogether.”

Disclosure: Larry Magid serves as co-director of ConnectSafely.org which receives financial support from Google, Facebook and other social media companies.

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To: Governor Neil Abercrombie
Re: HB931, SB1555 and HB1566

Aloha Mr. Governor:

HB931, SB1555, and HB1566 have recently passed both the house and senate and are currently on your desk awaiting your signature.

Your promises to the ocean recreation community during your gubernatorial campaign were compelling and convincing; they were promises that we feel were made in earnest. (See Promises:  http://www.neilabercrombie.com/index.php/issues/more/environment_and_natural_resources/%29; see also “Promises Kept?” at http://www.hawaiioceanrecreation.org/DLNRNEWS/archives/357)

Knowing that you intend to keep your promises, we’d like to get right to the heart of our concerns.  HB931, SB1555, and HB1566 appear to be dangerous in their potential to create serious public safety issues for our ocean recreation community in some of our harbors, may very well fiscally backfire on the State in the form of endless, costly litigation, loss of revenue, and state harbor office confusion and frustration, and seem ready to accomplish little other than to compromise the State’s Social Contract with the people of Hawaii to preserve Hawaii’s Public Trust lands* for the community–this latter setting a disturbing precedent for all of our islands.

Public Safety Issues: Harbor public safety is a major concern on every island in Hawaii. The public safety issues posed by HB931 and HB1566 are frightening. At the Ala Wai Small Boat harbor, for example, HB1566 forces a mix of daily, vigorous, commercial and recreational boating activity on the very same waterways that are essentially the playground, or classroom, for our young paddlers, kayakers, surfers and beginning sailors in classes conducted by both yacht clubs and numerous paddling clubs for keikis and teens.

Compounding this dangerous situation, HB931 quadruples again this same waterway traffic while, simultaneously quadrupling the chances that other boats will share the same fate as the two vessels that have already been lost attempting to fulfill the so-called “buoy run” requirement under harbor office deadlines. As you know, Hawaii’s coastal waters can be some of the most dangerous—and unpredictable—in the world. HB931 quadruples the frequency of exits required. Many boaters find this process stressful enough, just once a year, trying to juggle their own busy schedules with harbor office availability.  This could be a deadly exercise on some parts of our islands during certain times of the year, like, for example, on the north shore in the winter where exit from the harbors could be extremely dangerous for weeks.  (See Ocean Recreation News:   http://www.hawaiioceanrecreation.org/DLNRNEWS/archives/95)

The increase of “buoy run” frequency to ‘every 90 days,’ as is required by HB931 (4000+ exits a year at the Ala Wai alone), accomplishes absolutely nothing, significantly raises the chance of boating disasters because of the pressures inherent in the mix of personal schedules combined with the intimidation by local harbor offices, significantly increases the potential for very expensive lawsuits, and instantly creates pandemonium in our larger harbor facility offices. As mentioned above, the Ala Wai office, for example will have to administer more than 4,000 required “buoy runs” a year; the new on-line payment system that purports to reduce harbor office workloads will, in actual fact, be nothing more than token relief from such an instantly staggering—and critical—harbor office workload regimen.

Besides being very dangerous to our young sailors, paddlers and kayakers, HB1566 would instantly steal precious slips from Hawaii’s ocean recreation community (some members of which presently wait as long as 5 years for a slip in the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor), and hand them over to commercial boating interests, essentially violating the State’s covenant with the people with regards to Hawaii’s lands held in Public Trust.

Remarkably, this same bill gives these commercial boating interests the choice of paying nearly half the rate fee that they had been paying through the DLNR-structured rate of 3.0%, reducing revenue in the process!

Fiscal Disaster: There is compelling evidence to suggest that HB931 and HB1566 could ultimately result in net losses for the state of Hawaii.

HB1566, as mentioned above, will allow commercial boating interests in our harbors the choice of actually being able to pay less than what is currently required. By choosing the DOT 1.8% option, versus the current 3.0% DLNR option, the state’s revenue would obviously be reduced. What in the world would be the motive in conceiving the kind of legislation that would create an immediate public safety calamity and reduce slips available to the public while, at the same time, create losses for the state’s coffers?

The potential for lawsuits generated through the enacting of this legislation is already being proven right now. The first lawsuit has already been filed addressing some of these issues (Monet vs. State of Hawaii), and more are in the works—and the legislation hasn’t even become law yet.  You can be sure that both HB931 and HB1566 will create a very fertile environment for a litany of very expensive lawsuits in the near and more distant future. At very least, these lawsuits alone could easily neutralize any gains realized from leasing Public Trust* lands to private financial self interests.

The State’s Social Contract with the people of Hawaii to preserve community resources held in Public Trust*

In 2000, the Hawaii Supreme Court agreed with the U.S. Court saying that “the people of Hawaii hold the absolute rights to all its navigable waters and the soils under them for their own common use.” Especially SB1555 and HB1566 will most assuredly violate this Social Contract.  Additionally, this legislation will effectively discourage—and ultimately deprive—many in our ocean recreation community access to our state harbor facilities, which have always been held in Public Trust* for the people of Hawaii.

In conclusion, HB931, SB1555 and HB1566 are at once dangerous and ultimately costly to the state of Hawaii; they will be responsible for causing the State to violate its Social Contract with the people of Hawaii by resulting in the exclusion of the general community from access to the very Public Trust resources that have been held by covenant for the people of Hawaii, since the beginning of modern Hawaii government.  At the end of the day, the main beneficiary of HB931, SB1555 and HB1566 will be the very same private financial self interests that are propelling this legislation.

Mr. Governor, HB931, SB1555 and HB1566  are not quite ready for prime time and, as such, it’s time to send this legislation packing with a firm message to the legislature that the safety and wellbeing of the people of Hawaii are always tantamount to any deals we might be tempted to cut with private financial self interest.  Your firm and timely veto of this legislation would accomplish just that.

Sincerely,

Tim Canto and Mary Allison Kindle
Editors, Ocean Recreation News (www.HawaiiOceanRecreation.org)

*The State of Hawaii’s Social Contract with the people of Hawaii to guard lands held in Public Trust: In 2000, the Hawaii Supreme Court agreed with the U.S. Court saying that “the people of Hawaii hold the absolute rights to all its navigable waters and the soils under them for their own common use.”

P.S: From all of the public input that we have gathered at the Ocean Recreation News, the ocean recreation community has never been more serious than today in its opposition to this kind of legislation. Our informal survey shows that nearly 91% of a cross section of the ocean recreation community from the north (Haleiwa), south (Ala Wai and Keehi), east (Heeia Kea) and west (Waianae) sides of Oahu, and the Kona Coast of the big island “strongly oppose” all of this legislation.

Ocean Recreation News