Teens and Social Media: young people who use the Internet to make the greater good (VIDEO)

HuffPost Teen blogger Patrick Mott wrote in his last post: "our social networks can tell a story about us and, if you're like me, you want to make sure that your Twitter history or Facebook says that it is a good story".

Patrick was definitely on something. According to a study by 2012, teens who use social networks are more empathetic with others; around 55 percent of teenagers from 13 to 17 years of age said that Facebook and Twitter opened his eyes to what others are experiencing.

And if anyone knows how to inspire others through their own personal experiences, it is this list of teenagers. From challenge to a large corporation, to the promotion of equality in the school, to touch the hearts of thousands of foreigners through the song, these young people recently used the power of social media to change the world. Scroll down to read their incredible stories.

1 Benjamin or ' Keefe
Eighteen Benjamin O'Keefe was angered by the CEO of Abecrombie & Fitch, Michael Jeffries, when they revived their controversial comments from a 2006 interview on only addressed to "cool kids" brand. In response, Benjamin wrote a blog for the Huffington Post and created a Change.org petition asking consumers to boycott the company until the President issued an apology. Both went viral, and petition had collected more than 74,000 signatures. This caught the attention of executives from Abercrombie, who met with the teenager to discuss future changes that are planned in the manufacture.

"Has become so evident when people unite behind something to believe in, change can really come," Benjamin told HuffPost Live.

2. Students belong
In may, a group of high school students from Missouri who participate in a program called belong, a non-profit organization that inspires teenagers at risk by focusing on the design of the electric car - built a car that is driven entirely by the means of social communication.

Adolescents had restored an older car and programming to be propelled by the interactions of social media as hashtagging #MindDrive on Twitter and Instagram, liking their Facebook page and watch their videos on YouTube. Students then all social use fuel accumulated in unit of Missouri to Washington, D.C. to meet with officials to raise awareness of the benefits of this innovative type of education.

3 Calliope Wong
When Calíope Wong, a transgender woman, was rejected from Smith College because it helps finance documents still recorded as a man. The teen published had the letter of rejection to your Tumblr. As a result, Smith College students create a photographic project by Facebook of women posing with signs of support from Wong. Smith's Calliope rejection on the basis of their transgender identification also inspired a petition of Change.org to Smith "end Trans discrimination in income." After collecting more than 4,000 signatures, the students delivered the petition to administrators in May.

"I'm working so that others who care about equal rights have access to the truth," Wong told The Huffington Post. "And most importantly the transfolk do it after me, so you can inherit better policy and a fairer system of education.

4 Zach Sobiech
Last December, ill with cancer, that Zach Sobiech had posted a song that he wrote to friends and family on YouTube as a way to say goodbye. Song, "Clouds", ended up inspiring thousands of people across the country, and his family began Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund to support research into the rare form of cancer suffering Zach.

"['Clouds'] originally wrote to my family and others that I love, but which is intended to raise awareness for childhood cancer because I think often gets forgotten in", said Zach.

5 Issak Wolfe
Transgender high school senior Issak Wolfe of Pennsylvania wanted to run for King, but school officials changed their name to the ballot for Prom Queen instead. When his story was posted on the Facebook page of "Have a Gay day" in April, a petition was created to get his name in the dance of Change.org ballot King, as well as its correct name at graduation. After getting shared on Reddit, the request eventually collected more than 4,000 signatures.

"I would like an apology, at a minimum," Issak said the York Daily Record. "Was not given a fair chance. That is, if I don't win, I didn't earn, but I'm not a Queen."

These teens inspires you? What the social media campaign more cool that you get through lately? Tell us in the comments or tweet at @HuffPostTeen.

Also in HuffPost:

Architecture of United States surveillance includes collection of Internet revealed, phone metadata

On 12 March 2004, acting attorney general James B. Comey and officials of the Department of Justice was on the verge of resignation on orders of electronic surveillance, which believed that it is illegal.

Read the full story in The Washington Post

Jeffrey A. Miron: Do the NSA's Phone and Internet Monitoring Programs Make Sense?

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The National Security Administration's monitoring of Americans' phone calls and internet communications raises a fundamental question: when is increased security worth reduced privacy or civil liberty?

The answer depends, in part, on how often these NSA actions prevent terrorist attacks. If the NSA could provide multiple, convincing examples of terror attacks unambiguously prevented by its phone and internet surveillance programs, many Americans would regard the implied privacy and civil liberty infringements as an acceptable price of fighting terror.

But the NSA has not provided such examples. The NSA does claim that phone or internet data from its monitoring efforts -- as opposed to its targeted searches of phone records or emails, backed by specific warrants -- have stopped terrorist attacks, but the number of claimed successes appears to be small.

Even in these cases, moreover, the "foiled attacks" were not ones well underway or inevitable, diffused only because the NSA's information allowed authorities to intervene. Instead, the known incidents were at intermediate stages and might never have come to fruition.

Similarly, many avoided attacks or plots have been foiled by means other than NSA's broad-based, routine monitoring. The Shoe Bomber, for example, was stopped by fellow airplane passengers. The Times Square Car Bomber was foiled by street vendors who noticed the car bomb and informed police.

Real attacks do occur, but for each there may be dozens or hundreds of would-be terrorists with delusions of grandeur, hatching hypothetical plots with their friends, yet lacking the means or true intent to carry them out. By monitoring so many phone calls and emails, the NSA is mainly wasting its time.

The absence of convincing evidence for these NSA programs is all the more striking because the NSA faces strong incentives to publicize its successes, if they exist. Such evidence would quiet criticism and generate public kudos. The NSA might fear that publicizing recent successes would compromise future efforts, but this concern diminishes as time passes, allowing for eventual, safe disclosure of successfully prevented attacks.

The obvious inference, therefore, is that the NSA monitoring programs prevent few if any terrorist attacks.

Whether these programs make sense, therefore, depends on whether the implied privacy infringements are miniscule or substantial. Some Americans would accept a minor reduction in privacy for even a small decrease in terrorism.

The risks to privacy and civil liberty, however, are not trivial. United States intelligence authorities have misused their powers in past, as when J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI to spy on "subversives" or Richard Nixon encouraged the IRS to investigate his political enemies. The recent IRS targeting of conservative 501c(4) applications also illustrates the scope for politicization of government actions.

And anyone tempted to trust one political party or the other to use its security powers wisely should remember that the other party will someday be in charge and have access to these same powers.

In considering the NSA's monitoring of phone and internet communication, therefore, the tradeoff Americans face is not between large and easily demonstrated benefits to national security against modest and easily limited costs to privacy and civil liberty.

The choice is between uncertain and plausibly minor benefits against significant, even disastrous costs.

The case against these NSA programs is weaker still because the United States has an alternate method of reducing terrorist attacks: stop invading, occupying, stationing troops in, or launching drone strikes in the Middle East.

The vast majority of foreign terrorists come from countries where the U.S. has an active and unwanted presence, thereby stimulating the demand for terrorism.

Countless examples -- drug use, prostitution, gambling, immigration, and terrorism - show that when countries use "supply side" (cost-increasing) policies to deter behavior for which substantial demand exists, those policies fail. For most of these behaviors, we therefore have no choice but to accept them.

For terrorism, however, we can save money, avoid infringements on civil liberties, and reduce the demand for terrorism in one fell swoop. The 2009 New York Subway terrorist that the NSA claims it caught because of its phone monitoring has stated that he planned his attacks because of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. And this theme -- anger over a U.S. presence in a Muslim country -- echoes repeatedly from terrorists and their spokesmen.

So the NSA's phone and internet monitoring programs are a costly and dangerous non-solution to a problem that could be reduced markedly by eliminating other costly policies. How can the latter approach not make more sense?

Follow Jeffrey A. Miron on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jeffreyamiron

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