It’s the latest example of a troubling pattern regarding social media apps, especially one designed to do good: a phone-based app starts to become widely popular, especially with young people, but then becomes beset by rumors – all unfounded – that it’s a front for sex trafficking.
It happened in May 2016 to the social app Down To Lunch, in 2018 to IRL, a social app that helps users plan in-person meetups and, in 2021, to WalkSafe, an app designed to help women gauge the safety of neighborhoods. And now it’s happening to the Gas app, a tool that lets high schoolers send praise to one another.
Gas has never been linked to any form of human trafficking, and the app’s very structure makes it impossible, experts say. The app has limited features, doesn’t track users’ locations and can’t be used to message someone. It’s a basic polling platform that allows users to vote anonymously on preset compliments to send to mutual connections.
The false information that the app is somehow tricking children into being trafficked has ricocheted across the internet. Teenagers have posted videos on TikTok and Snapchat saying the app trafficks minors. Parents have warned other parents. On Oct. 31, the Piedmont, Oklahoma, police department issued a statement warning parents about the app and encouraging them to check their kids’ phones and the post received hundreds of shares on Facebook. The police ultimately issued a tepid retraction. The Oktaha Public School system in Oklahoma posted an announcement on its Facebook page on Thursday claiming the Gas app tricks students into giving away their locations. Local media also latched onto the hoax and shared it as the truth.
That a police department, a school district and a TV station shared such an obvious lie is outrageous. I wouldn’t be surprised if some nonprofits have as well.
How sad that this Tech4Good tool, one designed to encourage civility and positivity, is under attack by people spreading lies online.
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Someone online asked the following – they were asking about people in a particular developing country:
If you had to teach an IT skill (IT used in the very broad sense and including social media management, online chat support, microblogging) to a group of people whose only exposure to tech is their cellphones and social media platforms, in 16 half-day sessions, what would you pick? These should be skills that are in demand by employers and can give them a foot-in to work on platforms like Fiverr and Udemy.
I found the question interesting because, when it comes to online volunteering, finding roles where you use ONLY a smartphone are few and far between. Similary, I’ve never seen a paid job where all you need is a smart phone (but LOTS of scams implying there are such).
My answer was very different than everyone else’s. Here are the suggestions I made:
I would make sure they understood:
the basics of cutting and pasting, editing,
spell check with the free version of Grammarly, when something is online/in the cloud and when something is downloaded,
when something SHOULD be in the cloud versus when something is downloaded,
using a VPN,
keeping information safe online,
knowing what of your information should be private and what’s okay to be public,
how to protect privacy online and stay safe online and detect scams,
the basics of netiquette and
how to build trust online.
I would do a workshop on what an effective online video interactivemeeting looks like versus an online panel or online presentation. I would show how YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook video work – how to post, how to “like” a video, how to set privacy settings for videos, how to moderate comments, and if possible on a phone (I’m not sure if it is), how to edit such. I would emphasize that online tools are fluid – what we use now might not be what we use in 10 years, and that’s okay, because what we learn and how we work now will just transfer over to whatever comes along.
What’s interesting is that the person didn’t really seem to like the answer. She found them too “basic.” My rebuttal, which I didn’t post on her original question, but will here:
The aforementioned skills are what I look for when hiring someone,and I find them severely lacking among both applicants and co-workers – especially co-workers under 35. Whether the role is social media management, web site design, database management or online counseling, all of the aforementioned skills are fundamental to an employee, consultant or volunteer’s success in that role – and when any of these skills are lacking, the work suffers and it reflects poorly not only on the person but the entire organization.
Basic or not, these are the essential skills 21st-century workers need to master, no matter where they are in the world. And way too many of them are falling short. When an applicant has these skills, they get hired and they FLOURISH, no matter what tech changes come along.
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An online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and “live” in an online virtual world. Avatars interact with places, objects and other avatars, exploring the virtual world, meeting other residents, socializing, having business meetings, hosting events, participating in group activities, building, creating, shopping, collaborating, even trading virtual property and services with one another.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse? No! I’m talking about Second Life, which launched back in 2003. The image at the top of this blog, and the image below, are of me, as an avatar, leading an event in Second Life for TechSoup back in 2014:
TechSoup was an early and passionate adopter of Second Life, hosting numerous online events there. If you do a search for Second Life on the TechSoup forum, you would find numerous references to the platform and TechSoup activities there over the years.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook (now Meta), said to much fanfare that he wanted to launch his own metaverse. The new virtual-reality app Horizon Worlds is Facebook’s first foray into the much-hyped “metaverse” for Facebook parent company Meta. Horizon Worlds, a beta version of which featured prominently in Zuckerberg’s announcement, launched Dec. 9 in the United States and Canada on the company’s Oculus virtual-reality platform and represents its first major attempt to deliver on his vision.
Were you on Second Life? Are you still on Second Life? Did you participate in TechSoup’s events on Second Life, or any other nonprofit-related activities? What do you think emerging virtual worlds, including Meta’s projects, can learn from Second Life? Comment below!
Second Life is so thoroughly steeped in conditions that have impeded the development of successful social norms in other communities that any system of social norms in Second Life will ultimately fail. Because social norms will likely fail to successfully maximize resident welfare, regulatory schemes imposed both by the operators of the virtual world and by real-world governing institutions are needed to enhance the functioning of this particular alternative reality inhabited by millions.
Do you think Meta’s virtual world is addressing this issue? Do you think they need to plan for how to address such?And are you worried about safety at all with any online platforms? Comment below!
Nina Jane Patel was targeted with sexual harassment in Facebook/Meta’s platforms. “Within 60 seconds of joining — I was verbally & sexually harassed — 3–4 male avatars, with male voices, essentially, but virtually gang-raped my avatar & took photos…” The 43-year-old mother said it was such a “horrible experience that happened so fast” before she even had a chance to think about using “the safety barrier,” adding that she “froze.” She continued by confessing how both her “physiological and psychological” reaction was similar to it happening in real life. “Virtual reality has essentially been designed so the mind and body can’t differentiate virtual/digital experiences from real,” Patel wrote.
This is similar to assaults that happened in Second LIfe. Examples:
Horizon Worlds is supposed to be limited to adults 18 and older. In practice, however, very young kids appear to be among its earliest adopters. Some say the presence of children in Meta’s fledgling metaverse raises a grave concern: that by mixing children with adult strangers in a largely self-moderated virtual world, the company is inadvertently creating a hunting ground for sexual predators.
When new online forums arise that attract kids, sexual predators “are often among the first to arrive,” said Sarah Gardner, vice president of external affairs at Thorn, a tech nonprofit that focuses on protecting children from online sexual abuse. “They see an environment that is not well protected and does not have clear systems of reporting. They’ll go there first to take advantage of the fact that it is a safe ground for them to abuse or groom kids.”
Could nonprofits that engage in an online metaverse be putting their clients or others at risk by asking them to be there too? Comment below!
There’s one more consideration: accessibility. If you engage with people in a graphics-based environment, you are leaving out people who have sight-impairments. How will auditory displays work for graphics-based environments to address accessibility issues (I’m asking because I really don’t know)? Or is it a matter of ensuring you never limit your service delivery and volunteer engagement to only a graphics-based environment?
There is section devoted to virtual volunteering and avatar-based environments in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. The section offers some examples of nonprofits using Second Life to engage with clients and volunteers, and offers specific advice on how a nonprofit should get started using such environments, considerations to explore and pitfalls to avoid – all of which is relevant for any graphics-based virtual world. The rest of the book is easily adaptable to engaging with volunteers in graphics-based/avatar-based virtual worlds as well.
Looking forward to hearing your comments!
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I spent 15 minutes early one morning last week talking to IT professionals in Moldova about how accessibility online makes the world a better place for everyone. The opportunity came about thanks to a colleague I worked with at the United Nations who now works for the Swedish Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Moldova. It was part of an initiative her government, and USAID, supported in Moldova regarding Diversitate, Echitate și Incluziune în comunitatea IT (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the IT community), an initiative of Tekwill, organized by Startup Moldova and in partnership with Izarra, TechWomen Moldova and the Moldovan Association of Information and Communications Technology Companies.
Evenimentul reunește antreprenori locali pentru a încuraja și abilita participanții să-și împărtășească ideile fără limite sau frica de a fi judecați dar și să manifeste mai multă atenție privind respectarea normelor și etichetei culturale din regiune – credințe, convingeri, ținută sau obiceiuri.
The event brings together local entrepreneurs to encourage and empower participants to share their ideas without limits or fear of being judged but also to pay more attention to respecting the rules and cultural etiquette of the region – beliefs, beliefs, dress or customs.
Located in the heart of the Technical University of Moldova (UTM), “Tekwill is a 4,000m² hub that has everything one would ever need for ongoing growth, from co-working spaces, tech labs (IoT, 3D printing) and community events.”
Tekwill is built on the belief that to be competitive economically in the years to come, Moldovan startups and innovators must begin adopting and creating industry-disrupting technology today. Therefore, this message was coded into our name; “Tek” – for technology and “will” – for our future. The organization regularly gathers local and international tech leaders to empower the development of Moldova’s startup ecosystem by facilitating results-oriented innovation and collaboration.
I’m very partial to Moldova, having met some wonderful young Moldavians in 2019 hosted by World Oregon (I did a workshop on countering misinformation online). I have always found a very electrifying entrepreneurial, optimistic spirit among young Eastern Europeans, particularly from Moldova, Ukraine and Poland – people ready to innovate, to include, to explore and to create. I so long for the days when we can travel again so we call meet up face-to-face again!
One of the many things I’m proud of in The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook, is that it features an entire chapter on accessibility and diversity. I’ve been advocating for accessibility online since 1994 – and I’m going to keep doing it!
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Lots of folks online are upset at the news that Microsoft is planning plan to shut down its Microsoft Academic Search at the end of 2021. As one blogger put it, “it provides/provided better results than Google Scholar along with a number of features GS doesn’t provide at all” and has been “wonderful and powerful.”
It’s not that there aren’t other services – there are a number of other academic research search tools, many of them free. Some include bibliographic information/direct links to open access articles as well as bibliographic info about paywalled materials. Others, provide material only about open access content. These include:
Listened to a podcast by someone wanting to develop an app to address a particular community need. He has no stats regarding the need, no research showing his approach is what partner agencies or potential clients want. Just talked about #app4good he’ll develop. (1/5) #CSR
This project leader has no experience regarding this particular community need. None. It’s another case of someone from the corporate world deciding that he knows what nonprofits or at-risk community members need, with no data or research to back that up. (2/5)
Looked at the web site. It’s very slick, uses all the buzzwords. You have to really read (which most folks won’t) to realize every project is in development, that no people with actual expertise in this issue are involved in this supposed nonprofit effort. (3/5)
It’s great that folks from the corporate / business / tech world want to help with community issues. Your involvement is vital. But just as you have to do your homework before developing an app for consumers, you have to do research before you develop an #app4good. #CSR (4/5)
Years of experience in the tech sector doesn’t prepare app creators for addressing homelessness, hunger or street harassment, or navigating mass transit, or working in emergencies. You must talk in-depth with the experts: nonprofits & their clients. (5/5)
I’ve written a LOT about how folks from the corporate world, from executive directors to app developers, don’t talk to nonprofits before they develop tech tools for their clients. Here’s more:
To paraphrase a comment I wrote in a previous blog, it’s wonderful to see so many tech4good / apps4good / hacks4good initiatives anywhere in the world, but I see way too much attention being spent on their launch, on their promise, and not nearly enough researching if this is really what clients or the community wants, let alone evaluating their impact and sustainability after launch. And if we don’t focus on those things, then they are just tech fluff.
I live two doors down from a home for adults with intellectual disabilities, most of them over 40 years old. Some residents are on the autism spectrum, some have Down’s Syndrome, and some have brain damage from birth. They are terrific neighbors: kind, observant and friendly. And a couple of them are my friends: we sit together on the low wall around my front yard and interact with my dog and the various neighborhood dogs and cats that pass by – and the people, but always from a safe distance, as this is a group of people who are particularly vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.
Because of the danger of COVID-19, most of the residents can’t do the daily things that have brought them joy: one that had a job has now lost it because there isn’t enough work. They can’t go to church. They can’t go to the bottle drop center to recycle bottles and cans, something they enjoyed as much for the social aspect as the money. They can’t walk through Goodwill or Walmart. They can’t take mass transit. There are no public festivals. There are few garage sales. And their favorite shows, Live PD and Cops, have been canceled.
A month ago, a sister of one of the residents I’m particularly close to decided to buy him an iPad, so he could watch the church services he’s dearly missing because of the global pandemic, as well as watch videos like the dog videos I regularly record and share on YouTube. I volunteered to try to set it up in such a way that her brother could more easily navigate it. My goal was that, once someone logged into the iPad for him, he could watch the videos he wanted to without someone having to load a video each time. What I imagined was that there’s a particular time of day – let’s say 10 a.m. – when a staff person would log on to the device for him and, from there, he would have just a few clicks to watch and re-watch the videos pre-selected for him, and he could do that for, say, an hour on his own. It was tough to set up: he cannot read, so everything has to be done by easy-to-recognize icons. I don’t think he can remember more than two steps on a device. There can’t be too many things to click on – it will just be a sea of confusing symbols. He’s over 70 and has no experience using any device other than turning a device on or off or changing TV channels manually (he can’t use a remote and a phone is much too complicated for him to operate, even to call someone).
I spent hours looking at the Internet trying to find apps he would enjoy as well, but all seemed too advanced for him. Everything I read about online about apps that people with intellectual disabilities can use required a level of remembering and understanding and reading he just doesn’t have. There are lots of resources for parents to find apps to help their children with intellectual disabilities use an iPad or Android, and there are lots of resources to help people help elderly people use these devices, but resources to help seniors with intellectual disabilities use these devices? THAT has been a fruitless quest.
Here’s how I set it up:
I made three web pages, which are on my own web site, so that I can change them from my own home, without having to take his device back. I have a shortcut to the home page for these pages on the iPad, in the top left corner of the main screen. I wish I could have made the icon a cat or a dog, two images he easily recognizes, but I never could figure out how. The icon also has his name on it, which he does recognize.
I made the icons on the iPad as large as I could (and even then I wish I could have made them larger).
I moved all the icons off the first screen that I don’t want him to use. I left the icon to the web page that I created as his main interface, as well as the shortcuts to YouTube, kids’ YouTube, FaceTime, Zoom, his contacts and the camera button.
I created accounts for him on Google (for YouTube and gmail) and Facebook, and automatic logins for such. He will not use email, but he needed an email account in order to have accounts on things like video-conferencing software his sister might want to use to communicate with him.
After someone signs him in, he clicks on the icon with his name on it and he will come to a web page with three photos on it. One is of his church, one is of his pastor and one is of me. If he clicks on the church photo, he goes to a long list of links that go to church videos on Facebook. If he clicks on the photo of his pastor, he goes to a long list of links to videos his pastor has made, some on Facebook and some on YouTube (singing, puppet ministry, etc.). And if he clicks on the photo of me, he goes to a long list of my animal videos and silly videos on YouTube. He clicks on a link and pushes the play icon, and can watch the video.
Here’s the problem: after the video is done, he doesn’t have the capacity to navigate Facebook or YouTube and go to the next video. Instead, he has to remember to push the home button at the bottom of the device. Then he starts all over: clicking on “his” icon, coming to the web page with the three photos, choosing which “channel” of videos he wants to view, and then choosing a video to watch.
So, how is it going? I can’t observe him using it, and I wasn’t able to train him myself on using it. But in the evenings, I have been sitting out on my wall, talking with the pastor’s wife sitting eight feet away, and my neighbor has come walking over to say, “I saw you on that box thing!” He then recounts seeing her or her daughters singing or her husband preaching. I don’t know how often he watches videos on it, but it seems to be enough to delight him a few times a week. And as we all stay home day after day, being delighted a few times a week is the best we can hope for.
I hope it continues to work out for him. But either no one is thinking about people like him in the development of apps and interfaces, or they are but they’ve made those tools extremely hard to find.
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The United Nations Volunteers program, an initiative under the UN Development Program (UNDP), has stopped accepting new nonprofits, NGOs and others who apply to use the Online Volunteering Service, onlinevolunteering.org.
Organizations that have already been accepted into the Online Volunteering service can continue to use it to recruit online volunteers, but no new volunteering hosts are being accepted, and there is no word on whether this is a temporary or permanent change – and what this changes means for the future of the UN’s pioneering virtual volunteering initiative.
I found this out when I tried to register the nonprofit where I am working now – the nonprofit where I work is an international program and one of our nonprofits clients, in Congo, is familiar with both the OV service and my own work in virtual volunteering (it’s a small world, truly!). It reminded me that the organization where I am working now needs to make sure people in other countries know about our many online volunteering opportunities – we strive to be an inclusive organization, and involving international online volunteers is a part of that. As our program works to address at least three of the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN’s Online Volunteering service seemed like an obvious choice for the organization.
But after I filled out the application, I received an email from UNV that pointed me to this announcement on the home page:
April 5: The UNV Online Volunteering service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from non-governmental (NGO) and other civil society organizations (CSOs).
The Find out more link after this announcement makes no mention of the suspension. The other pages on the UN site make no mention of this suspension. The how does it work page makes no mention of this suspension. The page with the heading “Organizations that find volunteers through us are”, says that organizations need to be officially registered with appropriate government authorities and provide proof of such, be a nonprofit, an NGO or other civil society organization, a government or other public institution, a United Nations agency or other intergovernmental institution, and active in the field of sustainable human development. There’s no mention at all of on this and other pages that the OV service has suspended acceptance of new registrations from organizations that want to host online volunteers.
Because the application on the OV service for new hosts of online volunteers still works, and all of the links to it still function, I’m not sure if the suspension is for all new users of the online volunteering service that want to host online volunteers, or if United Nations agencies are still allowed to apply to use the service. Is this ban just for NGOs and other non-UN agencies? Is it temporary or permanent? Is this the first step in getting rid of the OV service altogether? And why have these changes been made? I have asked UNV but have not had a response in more three weeks.
If UNV is getting rid of the Online Volunteering service, it will be devastating news. The OV service is one of the most successful programs the UN has launched outside of is emergency humanitarian response programs and its post-conflict-rebuilding programs. Yes, I feel that strongly about the OV service. I think the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering can still be helpful to any tech4good, micro-volunteering initiative starting now. Note when you read these lessons that the early adopters of the service were NOT UNITED NATIONS AGENCIES, nor were the organizations that most online volunteers supported through the service: they were nonprofits and NGOs, some of them quite small – the kinds of organizations that aren’t allowed to use the UN Online Volunteering service anymore.
This is particularly bitter news on this the 20th anniversary of NetAid, which launched the UN’s online volunteering efforts that became the Online Volunteering service.
What could cause this radical change? Lack of funding and, therefore, a lack of staffing for the OV service? Lack of support from senior management? I would love to know. Let’s hope for a quick and clear response.
And let’s hope someone takes the lessons from the OV service regarding virtual volunteering and creates a viable alternative for those organizations that want to involve online volunteers from outside their country’s borders in their initiatives, and for online volunteers that want to help programs serving the developing world specifically.
Update: UNV has sent a cryptic reply on Twitter that reads: “Thank you for your comment. Online Volunteering continues to be a integral part of the @UNVolunteers offer. The platform will be enhanced in the coming months as the organization expands digital-savvy solutions for all involved.” Answers nothing brought up in the blog. Frustrating!
January 2, 2020 update: UNV now has a new message on its OV web site that says: “Effective 1 January 2020, the Online Volunteering service is free of charge to all eligible partners. Eligible partners are: UN entities, Governmental or other public institutions, and Civil Society Organizations.” But if you click on the link for more information, you discover that UNV has a VERY narrow version of civil society organizations (CSOs): it has to be a CSO already registered with the OV service, or the organization has to provide evidence of accreditation with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), or the organization has to be working with a UN Country Team as an implementing partner or through an agreement and submit a form signed by the UN Entity they are partnering with.
So, in short, the OV service no longer can be used by most nonprofits, NGOs and CSOs. There’s no explanation as to why this decision has been made. So, if your nonprofit, NGO or CSO doesn’t meet the criteria, you can’t use the UNV Online Volunteering service to recruit online volunteers. If you want to recruit online volunteers, I recommend these resources:
As of July 2019, Reddit ranks as the No. 5 most visited website in the USA and No. 13 in the world. Statistics suggest that 74% of Reddit users are male. Users tend to be significantly younger than other online communities like Facebook with less than 1% of users being 65 or over. Reddit is known in part for its passionate user base, which has been described as “offbeat, quirky, and anti-establishment”. I participate in Reddit because I have struggled at times to connect with young, male audiences, and to have a handle on what young people say regarding nonprofits, volunteering, civic engagement and other subjects of interest to me professionally. If you want to reach out to young people, especially men, in the USA, or even know what they might be thinking, Reddit is a terrific resource.
If you are interested in volunteerism or philanthropy, here are subreddits – online discussion groups on Reddit – you might be interested in visiting regularly, which I’ve dubbed, collectively, as “Reddit4Good”, though some are questionable in terms of ethics and quality of info (updated March 17, 2021):
Thinktank – proposing solutions to problems big and small.
United We Stand – “To engage in discussions about how to improve our current society through non-violent means of caring, sharing, loving, accepting, and helping one another.”
Volunteer – Want to help a community or a cause? Want to share your volunteering service experiences or to share opportunities for others? Have questions on how best to recruit, engage & support volunteers? Want to discuss ethics around volunteerism? Come share, question and discuss. Note: this is a moderated subreddit with very strict rules for posting.
volunteer2 “without stupid mods” A subreddit created by people who didn’t like that the main subreddit regarding volunteerism is moderated.
VolunteerFreely “Post all your Volunteer opportunities or requests. we won’t filter you like the other community.” A subreddit created by people who didn’t like that the main subreddit regarding volunteerism is moderated.
If you are in Utah and are looking for volunteering opportunities, you should follow UServeUtah.
If you want to get ideas for voluntourism – where you pay to “volunteer” abroad, where you get to have a “feel good” experience for just a few weeks or months (as opposed to having to have an area of expertise and local people designing the volunteer role, not a company that brings in foreign volunteers), where you don’t need to have any skills and no one checks your background – that’s not really doing anything “for good.” But I’ll share the places on Reddit where people post voluntourism opportunities (updated March 17, 2021):
Full disclosure: I’m the volunteer moderator of the Volunteer subreddit. Is it tough being a 50+ female moderator on an online community that skews oh-so-young and male? Yes. Yes, it is.
September 21, 2020 update: check out The Nonprofit & NGO Guide to Using Reddit, to see how your nonprofit, NGO, charity or other community program can leverage these and other subreddits to build awareness, promote events, recruit volunteers and more.
If you have benefited from this blog or other parts of my web site and would like to support the time that went into researching information, developing material, preparing articles, updating pages, etc. (I receive no funding for this work), here is how you can help.
Yahoo will no longer allow users to upload content to the Yahoo Groups site. Yahoo is saying that YahooGroups will continue to exist, but only has a message site – messages aren’t going away, but all attachments and everything in the collaboration areas are. Here is the Official Yahoo Announcement.
Beginning October 21, 2019 YahooGroups users won’t be able to upload any content to a YahooGroup except for messages, and as of December 14 all previously posted content on the site will be permanently removed. You’ll have until that date to save anything you’ve uploaded.
EVERYTHING but messages on YahooGroups is going away:
Files
Polls
Links
Photos
Folders
Calendar
Database
Attachments
Conversations
Message Digest
Message History
All Yahoo Groups site will be made private or restricted. Any new group members will need to request an invite or be invited by an admin.
You will still be able to communicate with YahooGroup members via email and search for private groups on the site and ask to join groups.
My advice, other than backing up the files on a YahooGroup you don’t want to lose: ABANDON SHIP. Find a new platform to communicate with your group! I do NOT recommend Facebook, since Facebook’s privacy is non-existent and not everyone is on Facebook (nor wishes to be forced on it just to be a member of your group).
Just know that there is no magic third party messaging platform, file sharing platform, collaboration platform or blog platform that won’t, at some point, go away. Just as car brands come and go, just as technology comes and goes (remember cassette tapes?), online platforms come and go. All that talk you heard of the permanence of digital data, that nothing disappears from the Internet? Yeah, about that…
