Privacy and Internet Safety (12th interview)

We start the 12th interview of the project on the Privacy and Internet security. We have with us Maria Diakopanagioti to talk to us about.

Hello my name is Maria. I’m 21 years old and I live in Halki, in the last three years only the summers because I am a student in Crete. I am from here, my friends are here, my life. The internet is really the only way of entertainment in the winter, we can be informed about many things.

• You were a student here in Halki?
  Yes, I was a student here from the second Gymnasium to the first Lyceum. Three years ie.
• Tell me at first, your peers and you, you walk every day on the Internet? And in what addresses usually?
  Yes, everyday. Usually, we use Facebook which is a way of communication with young persons  who are here and elsewhere, YouTube where we get to hear music or see another video, and Google to be informed about some things, because here there are magazines and newspapers and the only way to be informed is the internet.

• The same habits have other young persons of your age?
  Yes, everyone. Even the smaller, from 13 or 15 years, use these websites.
• Has anyone ever faced a problem on one of these sites?
  Only on Facebook, where a stranger can see information about you, if you have not set up. There can be messages that are not distinctive as are others. Others who want to meet you or others who know you a little, they ask everything (they think).
• The setting you said can be done. And it is made by the persons you know?
  Yes, it can be done. It depends of course on the age and character of each person. A smaller person will not do so because it doesn’t know the risks. My peers and I beware them more. We upload images, but not such as to cause offensive comments.
• There has been the case that children have contact with strangers via Facebook or other websites?
  I do not know that. But I know that some foreigners who live here, there has been communication because they can’t easily have personal contact with some girls, so they have tried through Facebook to approach them. They try not to be seen, because they might have families and want privacy.
• Do you think that all these social media is a threat to privacy or not?
  It depends on how everyone handles it , if you ie you know what you want the other to see  to your profile on Facebook, rather it is a threat. But if you do not know about it can be a threat.
• They have, however, been heard for many regions of the world, serious stories that lead to threats, intimidation, bullying etc. All of these are known to people of your age?
  Certainly, it has been heard about children who have uploaded video and photos, they have reached up to the suicide because of intimidation and threats. But here the children feel -and probably they are- more protected because they live in a small community with many relatives. But if they leave here and live in a more populous society, with more violence and surrounded by people who do not only want your own good,  they will find it difficult and will understand the problem.
• Do you believe that – given the lack of information that you mentioned too – social media outweigh the shortage? And if more cultural activities were on the island the children would still use these websites at the same rate?
  Yes, they would use them the same, in that way we have learned since they were children and it is now the way of informing and entertaining us. The internet is a part of life and day. They can not become children of another age. Even in schools where mobile is forbidden, children take pictures and upload them online. They give attention to this and not the school itself that will give them the basic skills for life. It is the use of the Internet as the key criterion.
• Do you want to add anything else?
  It is advisable that because we grew up in Halki in different ages from what today children grow up, it would be nice children to be informed about the problems of Internet security. So when the young persons leave here to be protected for the Internet and for other more personal matters.
• Do you think that this information would be needed for parents and for older people?
  Yes. Parents do not know what dangers may the internet has.

 

Maria, thank you very much.