Fast Growing Social Network Backs New Jersey Attorney General’s Initiative to Standardize Prominent "Report Abuse" Safety Icon Across Social Networks
myYearbook.com announced today that it is one of the founding participants in the New Jersey Attorney General’s effort to standardize abuse reporting across social networks.
“We believe it is vital to give users every opportunity to identify and swiftly report inappropriate content,” notes Catherine Cook, myYearbook’s seventeen-year old cofounder. “We intend to have the most prominent abuse reporting links in the industry. We will place the ‘Report Abuse’ icon at the top of every myYearbook page, making it easy for our users to report inappropriate behavior.”
myYearbook and Community Connect, which owns and operates several social networking sites, including BlackPlanet.com, are the first to join the coalition. To use the “Report Abuse” Safety Icon, each Site must agree to place the Icon in a prominent and consistent location on all pages of its website. In addition, each Site must agree to implement standards of service for processing abuse reports, or “Best Practices,” within 90 days.
“Strong Abuse Reporting links are the cornerstone of any successful safety operation,” notes Mike Amarosa, who was directly responsible for 9-1-1 for the City of New York and works as myYearbook’s Safety Advisor. “Prominent abuse reporting links don’t make you safe, just like dialing 9-1-1 does not make you safe, but they do make you more likely to report abuse when you see it. With more reports per user, the safety operation can zero in on people who are engaging in abusive behavior.”
“The trick is in not letting a Site reach the tipping point where the ‘graffiti’ of nudity and inappropriate content creates an atmosphere of lawlessness,” notes Don Eyer, myYearbook’s safety czar, who spent 23 years in law enforcement before building the Trust & Safety division at eBay. “Placing the adopted ‘Report Abuse’ icon in a prominent and consistent location throughout our site will focus attention on safety and encourage our members to report abuse, helping create a safer online environment for all our users.”
“Of course, this is not the end of our safety efforts,” notes Catherine. “We plan to announce a large safety education campaign called SocialSafety.org to familiarize users with the types of behaviors to report. We look forward to working collaboratively with other social networks to standardize abuse reporting practices.”
About myYearbook.com
Reaching 4.6 million unique visitors each month, myYearbook.com is one of the largest U.S. social networks on the Internet. Boasting 500 percent growth in page views and members over the last eight months, myYearbook has grown from a single high school to more than 3,000,000 members, and is now adding one million new members every three months. Founded by brother-and-sister teen entrepreneur duo Dave and Catherine Cook, myYearbook hosts enormously successful viral features like Battles, myMag, Match, and an original take on video called Video Battles. myYearbook specializes in developing innovative custom advertising opportunities with deep brand integration into the core of the user experience.