The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The Student News Site of Walt Whitman High School

The Black and White

The “not milk” generation: How Gen Z prompted milk’s rebrand
A piece of our history: A look into the Montgomery Farm Women’s Co-operative Market
LIVE: Baseball takes on Richard Montgomery in home opener
Coach Manon achieves 200 wins and state championship in a thrilling wrestling season
Overtime Elite: A new wave of professional basketball
Proposed bill will guarantee top 10% of Maryland students to 12 Maryland universities

Proposed bill will guarantee top 10% of Maryland students to 12 Maryland universities

March 21, 2024

Attorney General warns against dangers of Facebook at community forum

Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler held a community forum on internet safety March 20 at Winston Churchill High School. The meeting focused on educating parents about Facebook and ways to help their children use the social media site safely.

Flier courtesy www.oag.state.md.us.

Brooke Overwetter, a member of Facebook’s public policy team, presented the basic logistics of working the social media site. She encouraged parents and teens to check their privacy settings at least once a month to keep track of any changes to Facebook’s privacy policy.

“Safety is an ongoing conversation and a conversation that needs to happen at home,” Overwetter said. “As you’re connecting with more people, as you’re sharing more kinds of content and different information, you want to go back make sure your privacy settings still make sense.”

She also demonstrated tools available to Facebook users to protect privacy, such as reporting users. The presentation emphasized the prevention of cyberbullying, harassment and other threats for teenagers. Overwetter reiterated that although Facebook can provide strong safety tools, Facebook users need to know who they’re giving information to online.

Story continues below advertisement

“Make sure that the audience you chose is the audience you trust,” Overwetter said.

After the presentation concluded, the audience, which consisted mostly of local parents, asked questions.

“I thought it was really informative and that they should take these presentations to high schools and middle schools,” said Randi Sagudor, a Walter Johnson HS parent.

Gansler said he hopes that parents now understand that they need to work with their teenagers on managing their privacy settings in order to navigate Facebook safely.

“The fact of the matter is almost every child over 13-years-old is on Facebook; either they have their own page, or they have access to it,” Gansler said. “It’s a wonderful tool, but it has to be used safely.”

View Comments (2)
More to Discover

Comments (2)

In order to make the Black & White online a safe and secure public forum for members of the community to express their opinions, we read all comments before publishing them. No comments with personal attacks, advertisements, nonsense, defamatory or derogatory rhetoric, excessive obscenities, libel or slander will be published. Comments are meant to spur discussion about the content and/or topic of an article. Please use your real name when commenting.
Comments are Closed.
All The Black and White Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest
  • C

    CM PunkMar 29, 2012 at 4:29 pm

    That’s why you shouldn’t let highly impressionable 13 year olds have FB accounts. They need to put the age limit back to at least 16 so that very young teenagers aren’t putting themselves in danger.

  • S

    Sincerely, A GirlMar 22, 2012 at 8:54 am

    They blocked this for a while…