Cartoon Profile Picture in Facebook – Child Abuse & the Other Side
Submitted by Syed M. Raza on Sun, 12/05/2010 - 10:22am
Originally Posted on Author's Blog
While whole the world is sloping towards the social media campaign on Facebook “Change your Facebook profile pics to a cartoon character from your childhood”, I have a little different view to present.
According to ABCNews, this campaign was started to support the cause of stopping violence against children. And initially, it started from Greece with a message to observe a profile picture change till 20th Nov, 2010. The cartoon campaign, just like the Bra-Color campaign of Jan 2010, got such a huge support that it spread worldwide within a very short span of time. And later on 19th Nov, 2010, Facebook trend observer “All Facebook” noticed a slightly different version of passing the same message as a game play. And on 4th Dec, 2010 i.e. yesterday we observed the latest version to support this cause till 6th Dec, 2010.
So, till Monday 6th Dec, you are sure to see many of your friends using cartoon heroes from their childhood on their profiles instead of their own pictures.
So, what do you think? Will this campaign really help in the great cause aimed at? Well, literally speaking, NO. It will not. It will not achieve its aim of stopping violence against children till we practically start doing what is required.
It is true that such a campaign can help raising the awareness among people. But is it just enough that we are aware? Should we stop at the point that we are aware? What should we do and what is really possible? What are the laws and regulations regarding this? Do we really care?
These are the questions I have at this hour and from the day I came to know about this cartoon campaign.
So, in my next post for Social Media Club, I am covering these questions and related Children Online Privacy issues in accordance to the COPPA (Children Online Privacy Protection Act, 1998).
Stay tuned for my post for SMC in the second week of December, 2010. Thanks.
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