Article by Sharon Miyagawa

On May 7, 2012, FBI Special Agent Arnold Laanui gave an eye-opening presentation of how the internet can make a “digital tattoo” in virtual space.

Special Agent Arnold Laanui, a graduate of Damien High School and Pepperdine University, holds the unique distinction of being the first student from Hawaii to participate in the FBI’s Honors Program.  After earning a law degree (J.D.) from the University of Hawaii, he entered service with the FBI in 1995.  He served for 8 years as a member of the FBI’s SWAT Team and has lead numerous investigations including bank robbery, juvenile prostitution, serial homicide, police corruption, narcotics, labor racketeering, computer hacking and child pornography.  A past recipient of Hawaii’s Top Cop Award (1998), he has received numerous awards and accolades for his innovative work in the development the Internet Safety Awards (www.interentsafetyawards.org), an educational outreach program that promotes ethical and legal use of the Internet among youth and teens.

He discussed the culture of branding and marking  as an expression of ownership and control.  For example gangs use different specific symbols and markings, such as graffiti, to show ownership and control of geographic boundaries (e.g. “turf”).   Tattoos are used in various Polynesian societies to denote ali’i, or royalty and it signifies honor and respect.  Western society also used tattoos to denote ownership of people and were used to identify the lower class. Criminals, prisoners and  slaves in Western cultures were branded with tattoos.

Today, 80% of our kids have access to the internet and participate in social networking.  Facebook owns all postings and when you hit the “Like” button, it starts to track all of your online activities.  This data is then used for marketing purposes.  Pretty soon, you’ll discover that ads will begin to appear related to your likes.

Don’t be fooled by the illusion of privacy.  The Internet is not reality, and the illusion of privacy and anonymity makes people more inclined to participate in cyber-bullying.  The internet is very public and permanent.  Word spreads fast in cyberspace, and this often leads to violence and suicide. Unfortunately, bullying is the leading precursor of teen suicide in Hawaii – and suicide is the leading cause of death amongst Hawaii teens.  Boys tend to be more visual and will often spread pictures to others that eventually cause harm.

We all know that simply deleting material does not necessarily make it disappear forever.  Degaussing, or erasing magnetic storage, is possible, but we don’t usually do that.  It’s important to remember that colleges and employers routinely check social networks for information on applicants.  How do you fix the problem?  If you have negative postings about yourself, try to post more positive items so that the negative ones will get pushed to the end of an online search.  Use “clean” language, avoid profanity and don’t be afraid to use social networks as a positive vehicle to highlight and market the things about yourself that you like the most.  You should always ask yourself before posting something, “would I be embarrassed?”