Social software is a lot like a double-edged sword; awesome in some situations and dodgy in others. Many of the programs support and encourage the development of learning communities, which I turn can lead to networks of knowledge in the correct instances. However, there is also a bit of a disconnect between individuals, which can exist as people accept more and more random and tenuous connections to “friends” and links.
At face-value many of the social software programs and sites seem friendly or at least benign, idealistically I believe we all hope they really are. Once you actually take a look though at the Term of Service (TOS) things look a bit different. First off the TOS design and location is significant; in plain sight, but generally in much smaller font and off to the side or at the bottom of a page so not to draw attention to itself. Once opened up they are typically bound in jargon and corporate-esque language. I suspect that the average individaul (self-included) typically looks at these like they do the user agreements from i-tunes; they just click agree and move on without actually reading it, their’s little they could do otherwise if they disagreed.
So many of the social software sites have some interesting takes on privacy and content ownership. Essentially your privacy is important and not going to be shared with anyone; well accept for affiliates of whatever social software you are using, but only of course to improve services. Your content that you upload generally is acknowledge to belong to you, have by having it on a particular site it generally means that site can do whatever they would like with it and royalty free of course.
So there are definitely some issues, but does it mean we ignore the possibilities these tools offer for learning. No! As educators it would make great sense to tap into the social tools our students use on a regular basis as well as the potential offered by tools like delicious for bookmarking and so on. What it does mean is that we need to be conscious of what material we post (if you really don’t want other people to take what you are creating then don’t post it), and also be careful with what personal information is provided to sites for not only ourselves but also the students. Lessons can be created just simply guiding students towards being more savvy about web 2.0.