Guardians of Their Smiles
The NY Times article Guardians of Their Smiles looks into the debate of the pros and cons of posting photos of your children online. It begins with the story of a mom whose daughter’s picture was taken from Flickr and used on a Brazilian chat site.
It serves as a stark reminder to make sure that you are using privacy settings on social sites and blogs (just like you tell your kids too!) I go back and forth on using my kids names on sites like Facebook. I generally don’t on my personal blog. I don’t want some employer years from now looking them up and seeing their baby pics.
A grayer area is what about when someone else is posting a photograph of you or your child. What is the etiquette for this new social taboo?
Read the article. It is definitely worth thinking about.
Is Facebook a bad flashback to high school?
I read this article on Switched about how people are posting old school photos on Facebook and tagging their friends. I had to laugh because I know people who do this, and I’ve considered it myself before coming to my senses.
There is something fun about seeing the old pics and reminiscing but at the same time it is a little scary to think about what people may post about you from your past with no input from you.
This might be a good time to remind you that you can set your Facebook privacy options to know when people tag you in photos they post. It won’t stop them from being able to post some compromising or embarrassing photo, but at least you can remove your name from it. Currently there is no “confirm” capability before someone tags in you in a photo (although I think there should be!)
There are two places you can set this information. One place is under Privacy Settings> Applications>Settings. Here you can select various information in your profile that will be available to various applications. There is a box titled “Photos taken of you.” Uncheck this box to prevent third party applications from being able to access those images where you are tagged. The other place is under Privacy>Profile>Photos Tagged of You. You can change this setting to be viewable only by you. Also, you can change your Account Settings>Notifications to get an email whenever you are tagged by someone in a photo. You can then access the photo and remove your name from those that are tagged.
These are just the dangers of living in a hyper-connected world. Surf safe!
You Diligence
Finding it difficult to keep up with all of your child’s social networking pages–like MySpace and Facebook. Worried about what people might be discussing or posting on his page? Afraid your child may be being bullied but won’t talk to you about it?
YouDiligence is a new service that allows you to receive emails when pre-selected words are used on your child’s social network account page. For example, words referring to weapons/violence, drug use, bullying, obscenity, slurs, or sexually explicit languate can be screened for. You can also add personalized words or terms.The service is customizable to allow for differing levels of parental comfort.
When one of the terms appears on your child’s page, you recieve an email containing the word, the context in which is it used and a link to the page where it appears.
To use the service, you must know your child’s login information and have been friended by them on the applicable website. YouDiligence encourages parents to have open communication with their children and to set boundaries and discuss that you reserve the right to check their pages if you find something troubling.
Another service is the SlangSpotter e-newsletter which helps parents stay up on the latest slang terms to maintain your “POS” position (Parent-over-shoulder).
Of course, there will be parent who wonder if this is an invasion of their child’s privacy to which the site responds:
Q: Is this violating my child’s privacy?
A: All of this material is being posted on the internet by your child and his/her friends. Anyone can gain access to it. With incidents popping up weekly from bullying, to fighting, to sexual predators coming after unsuspecting tweens and teens, it only makes sense to review their internet activity, especially in a responsible way like this. YouDiligence is effective and efficient, and will alert you to when you need to go take a closer look at your child’s site
Remember that what you child posts on the Internet is out there forever, for everyone anyway. At least if they think you might be watching they will think twice about what they post.
The service runs $9.99/month or $14.99 for a family plan.
Could Facebook dash your child’s college dream?
If you needed another reason to help your kids monitor what they write and do on Facebook, MySpace and other networking sites, consider this: 10 percent of college admissions counselors at prestigious universities say they check out potential students pages and 38 percent say they have rejected a student based on what they found.
You should know some colleges do consider the pages off-limits in decision making and personal, but others are looking. Regardless of whether your child’s college admissions office views them, odds are good that future employers might.
With more and more of our lives being available on-line, personal privacy and restraint is more necessary than ever. Teach your children the importance of using privacy options on MySpace and Facebook and check to make sure they are. Remind them not to post anything they wouldn’t want their parents or their future teachers or employers looking at. It could save their education or their career.
