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Newswise DALLAS The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) House of Delegates adopted new policy guidelines on the appropriate use of social media and social networking sites by physicians during the FSMBs 2012 Annual Meeting in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 28.

Developed by the FSMBs Special Committee on Ethics and Professionalism, the "Model Policy Guidelines for the Appropriate Use of Social Media and Social Networking in Medical Practice" provide recommendations for state medical boards to consider in educating their licensees on the proper use of social media and social networking websites.

Digital media has enormous potential for doctors and patients, allowing us more opportunities to share information and establish meaningful professional relationships, said FSMB President and CEO Humayun Chaudhry, DO. However, physicians also need to be aware of how to maintain the same professional and ethical standards in their online activity as they do in the rest of their practice. Failing to do so can hurt patients and physicians careers.

Violations of online professionalism are prevalent among physicians, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars at Yale in collaboration with the FSMB, found that 92 percent of state medical boards in the United States have received reports of violations of online professionalism.

Developed by the FSMB to encourage physicians who use social media to protect themselves from unintended consequences, the new model guidelines include these recommendations:

Physicians should only have online interaction with patients when discussing the patients medical treatment within the physician-patient relationship and these interactions should never occur on personal social networking or social media websites.

Patient privacy and confidentiality must be protected at all times, especially on social media and social networking websites. Although physicians may discuss their experiences in non-clinical settings, they should never provide any information that could be used to identify patients.

Physicians should be aware that any information they post on a social networking site may be disseminated to a larger audience, and that what they say may be taken out of context or remain publicly available online in perpetuity.

The "Model Policy Guidelines for the Appropriate Use of Social Media and Social Networking in Medical Practice" is available on the FSMB website at http://www.fsmb.org.

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Originally posted here:
New FSMB Policy Addresses Appropriate Use of Social Media by Physicians

May 5, 2012

Enid Burns for RedOrbit.com

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has drafted a controversial proposal that would require social networking sites, VoIP services and other online platforms to build a wiretap-friendly back door. The government organization is making the rounds to social networking companies including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo and Google to urge them not to oppose the proposal.

In a time when more lines of communication are open, such as instant messenger, social networking sites and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the FBI worries it wont have access to communications between suspicious individuals. A ZDNet article states that The FBI General Counsels office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.

The proposal hopes to amend the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, or CALEA. CALEA requires telecommunications providers to provide the tools for an easily implemented wiretap. In 2004 the Federal Communications Commission extended CALEA to encompass broadband networks.

In defense of the original CALEA enacted in October of 1994, the FCC says it was intended to preserve the ability of law enforcement agencies to conduct electronic surveillance by requiring that telecommunications carriers and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment modify and design their equipment, facilities and services to ensure that they have the necessary surveillance capabilities.

The law includes common carriers, facilities-based broadband internet access providers, and providers of interconnected VoIP service. The agency fears a Going Dark trend. Going Dark is a term the FBI revealed in early 2011 to describe how new technologies and rapidly changing communications modes erode the ability of the government to conduct court ordered intercepts of wire and electronic communications.

Sources say the FBI has held meetings with Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Facebook as well as the White House and U.S. Senators to discuss the proposal. In talks with internet companies, the FBI reportedly urged companies not to oppose the action.

Many social networking companies already comply to law enforcement actions, to a degree. The safety center page on Facebook states the conditions under which it cooperates with law enforcement authorities within the U.S. and international jurisdictions.

In the U.S., Facebook complies to the federal Stored Communications Act (SCA). Under this act the social network complies with federal and law enforcement requests with a valid subpoena issued in connection with an official criminal investigation; a court order issued under 18 U.S.C Section 3703(d); or a search warrant issued under the procedures described in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Read this article:
FBI Pushes for Wiretap-Friendly Social Networks

New guidelines released this week by the New York City education department make it clear that social networking has a place in education, but they call for restrictions on how educators and students interact in such spaces.

The guidelines recommend prohibiting students and teachers from being "friends" on popular social-networking sites, such as Facebook, and instruct teachers to create school-related email accounts that are separate from their personal email accounts, for example, for interacting with students. The guidelines also call for principals or educational supervisors to closely monitor social-networking sites that are set up for educational purposes.

Despite the restrictions, city Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott touted the use of social networking as way to engage students and boost learning. In a letter to school principals released April 30, he wrote that the responsible use of such digital tools is important.

"We seek to provide our students with the opportunities that multimedia learning can provide--which is why we should allow and encourage the appropriate and accepted use of these powerful resources," he said.

Matthew Mittenthal, a spokesman for the 1.1 million-student district, emphasized that the guidelines do not recommend banning social-networking sites or interaction between students and teachers on such sites. The district will continue to collect feedback on the guidelines and will review them every three months and update them as needed, Mr. Mittenthal said.

Nancy E. Willard, the director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, based in Eugene, Ore., called the guidelines "noteworthy" in their "obvious concerted effort to recognize the importance of social media for instructional activities and the effort at distinguishing between professional and personal socializing."

But she and others expressed worries about how the guidelines will ultimately be carried out. For example, the recommendation that principals and supervisors oversee educational social-media sites and review their content closely is unlikely to work in the real world, she said.

"There is no way ... a principal can effectively manage a multitude of professional social-media sites," she said. "Impossible."

Communication Issues

In crafting the guidelines, the country's largest school district is following in the footsteps of other districts, including the 664,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District as well as the 9,000-student Minnetonka, Minn., district, which Mr. Mittenthal said were both used as models for the guidelines.

See more here:
N.Y.C. Outlines Social Media Guidelines for Educators

30-04-2012 16:43 Improving Access to Your Social Accounts - There are many ways in which you can link social media accounts and access them through a single system, but as yet none of these systems quite pull everything together in the way that we would wish. Accessing accounts remains a system wherein multiple web pages load up automatically when we log into the computer. From these web pages there then necessarily needs to be a short search to find any recent activity. All of this is very time consuming, so surely there is a better way? The answer is soon to arrive through the innovations of the Windows 8 ISO. This system is set to combine all of your social media with apps and other online integrated tiles. The free Windows 8 download will give you a good idea about how this will work when the system is finally released in October, but there is a huge potential for this system. The new Microsoft offering will utilize the Metro user interface, a system it introduced in 2011 as the system to run the Windows phone. The Windows phone was a huge success technologically but it was somewhat overshadowed by the sheer market dominance of Apple. Metro, however, will offer users a greatly increased level of access to and management of social media networks. The system works with a series of tiles that will be made up of apps and web links. These tiles will be constantly updating from the web in a live manner that will allow you to view things as they happen. For your ...

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Social Media Networking | Improving Access to Your Social Accounts - Video

30-04-2012 17:04 Using Twitter for Your Link Building - What people do not realize is that you really can use your Twitter account to help you out with your SEO campaign. There are several different ways of using Twitter for your link building; in fact, that you can build valid, real and substantial links for your website using your Twitter account. You will be surprised at the high quality links you can generate with these methods. Here are some tips on using Twitter for your link building: * The first and most indirect way is by building relationships with people on Twitter. Yes, it will take you a while, but eventually you could wind up with links from these relationships. * Make a list of the top people in a particular genre. Take a topic and reach out to others, perhaps looking for the best videos on the subject, and find the Twitter accounts of the people that appear in the videos. Use Twitter to connect with them and also ask everyone for the best videos on the subject matter. Once you gather all of these people you can create your list of top people and reach out to them once more in the form of badges that they can place on their website that link back to yours. * Another way you might use your Twitter account is by reaching out to someone else. If they are tweeting that they need something in particular, and you can help them, do so! It could turn around to them rewarding you with promoting your site and your business. * Bring stories together. Use your ...

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Social Media Marketing | Using Twitter for Your Link Building - Video