Okay now, I see tons of people putting their kids on their Facebook photos page. Our son is 13 and we still hesitate to have any photos of him on any web sources. I know Facebook is limited to whomever we choose, but "once on the net, always on the net". What makes you feel comfortable posting your kids versus not?
Thanks for all of your great input. As background, I already have my Facebook page set to "only friends" and only put pix on that I don't mind sharing. So, someone who is not a "friend" won't see anything more than my name. But none of the responses I've read convince me yet that I want to post my son's face on my page. Paranoia is not the same as caution, and we continue to prefer to still use caution. It's good to see a range of feelings, though, to provide food for thought for the future.
I admit, we are somewhat inconsistent. If our local paper prints a picture of him, we're fine with that. (It'll be in the kitty litter box soon enough.) And we don't even mind if the school website posts a picture with no names attached. But with a Facebook page, it is one step closer to specifics of a person's identity.
I understand that lots of people feel comfortable with sharing photos on Facebook and more power to them. Personally, I love seeing the photos of family and friends on their pages. But I also know how easy it is to pull photos off of the site at full resolution just by dragging it to one's desktop. As one of the responders said..."It's a tough door to close once it's been opened." And it's way too easy to do whatever a person wants with a photo once they have it. It innocently gets sent to another friend with "isn't this cute/cool/funny"; that person doesn't see the harm in passing it on to another friend; and so on. By then, any personal control is out the window.
Our son will want his own page on Facebook soon enough. At that point, we can coach him on what parameters are safe and what are not. There is more bullying online than most people realize, especially with kids. Our exchange student a few years ago got a good dose of that, so we're very aware of the possibilities.
As for creeps, just take a training class at your school to learn how easy it is to track a kid down--with no names even identifying the child. The chances are very low, but it's not currently worth the risk. If we want family to see a picture, we can send it to them directly.
Again, I appreciate all of the input.
Carry on and enjoy your kids to the fullest! They are wonderful gifts of energy! And be safe!
I would be careful. I post mine on moms sight and probably shouldn't do that either. There are a lot of creeps out there!
M.- SAHM and WAHM and loving it!
http://www.WorkingGreenMoms.com
Susan, I read the responses from the others. All have great ideas and comments. Last year our employer had a lawyer give a presentation, and part of the presentation covered facebook, and photos. Since then 2 employees have lost their jobs because of photos they had on facebook. Employers, lenders, and schools do check what is on facebook/ myspace. Our employer also has a policy about what photos may be used for the newspaper and electronic transmission.
I personally am careful- like some others about what I post, and the settings I use for facebook. That said I do love to see family and friends photos which are posted.
Good luck.
I agree; if pictures are on the internet, keep them professional so there is no backlash later. I highly disagree with those who think the issue is ridiculous. My spouse is law enforcement and reading law enforcement blotters, cyberspace crime is at its high. None of us is safe and why put our most precious lives, children, at risk. Our children are our most precious assets and they depend on us, their parents to protect them. Pedophiles are looking for kids on the internet and if one is a hacker, whether your information is set to private or not, if they can hack into your MySpace/Facebook account, your bank account, credit card accounts, your private information is there. You don't have to read police blotters to know that just a few weeks ago, ‘Citi Bank’ was compromised, Bank of America several months ago. Ridiculous is: 911 couldn’t happen, but it did. And even though it did, we all let our guard down. One doesn't have to paranoid to take note of ones surroundings.
I didn't allow my kids to have a MySpace account or Facebook account till they were responsible for their lives and then they were advised to use with caution. We can only do our best, so you have to do what you think is best for YOUR child.
For the first year of our son's life my husband and I posted tons of pictures of him and us for all of our friends and family that live far away. We stopped cold turkey, however, after doing a little research into the small print of Facebook's copyright laws. The thing is is that you can set your privacy settings very high BUT regardless how high you set them the small print says that Facebook then owns the copyright to the image. Seeing as my husband and I are professional exhibiting artists, should we become famous, Facebook could use the images of our personal life for profit.
I have heard musings that Facebook is in litigation over this so I hope that it'll change. Until it does, however, we won't be posting anything else.
I won't put my kids photos on line. I also won't allow their photos to be used in any promotional method. I also won't sign any releases allowing any images of them to be used for promotional purpose. And my kids' friends know that I have a no internet policy. So no, you're not alone. It's a tough door to close once it's been opened.
And friends who have access to those photos may screen capture and unknowingly share them with someone who is not as scrupulous.
It's not just a matter of that image being used against them, it's a matter of having something that belongs to them tampered with or used without their expressed permission. Like the guy who's fishing photo ended up on a Russian billboard. Or read this story: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/technology/01link.html
And Flicker is not the only resource out there for this.
I'm a SAHM now, but I used to use photoshop professionally in web development. I'm very aware of how putting a "fresh face" on an old photo makes it re-sellable. There are many examples of how images have been doctored and used even by the legitimate media.
Having said that, this is somewhat about statistics. The chances are slim that your kids' photos will be picked and used. But personally, I'm not interested in my kids being that one in a thousand.
Are you being paranoid? Am I? No. I've been a programmer, a web developer, a photoshop artist. Over a span of 20 years, I've seen some unexpected things happen that have made me cautious about giving up any personal information on a public forum.
S.
I have a Facebook with pictures of my boys. I have my profile picture set to private so when a search is done it only shows the grey box and all my pictures are set to friends only.
I have no problems with it becasue there is nothing in the photo's that can implicate the kids in any way. If any of the pictures (i also have a website that shows all the pics) popped up 10/20 years from now no matter in what context it's just a picture of a kid smiling or playing or covered in chocolate. No one, not an employer, government or the general population (lets say they became famous) could fault or use against them.
Is it the concerns about pedophiles? I have never really understood how a picture of one random kid on line can be dangerous. You take your kids out in public, right? Their faces are seen on the street, the bus, the mall, etc. You're not putting their personal contact information on the photo so I'm not sure how it can be a concern. My husband is a photographer and we have a TON of photos on line. Our families live far away and both set of grandparents are on facebook. That's who is looking at my kids' photos, not pedophiles. Also if you instill care about what is put up, there should never be any future problems with employers or anything else.
Oh and I wanted to add too. In the 15 years we've been in business and putting our customer's photos on-line (password protected) only one customer has ever requested their child not be put on line. That's out of thousands. So the trend to not put pictures of your kids on line is probably less than you think.
My son has had a web page since before he was born. We always have done updates for everyone and it's not password protected. Honestly bad people are eveywhere. Your kids photo is on the web if they've ever made the news paper at school or for anything else. Crazy people will photograph your child with out you knowing it in public. I would just make sure the pics are in good taste.
Im sorry if this sounds disrespectful, but this is such a ridiculous issue. I have pictures of my son all over my Facebook, I put up updates about our activities, etc... The whole "stranger danger" thing is grossly exaggerated, so please dont raise your kids to be paranoid at the expense of living a full life. Im a huge proponent of the Free Range Kids philosophy, and I think we seriously need to chill out about these kinds of things. Our friends and family enjoy seeing pictures of our children online, and the risk of 1 sicko out of a million potentially seeing a picture of my child is a risk im willing to take.
I've never had a problem.. on rule of thumb I tell my teens... when uploading a photo to facebook you have a choice to have the picture for your friends only, for everyone, for friends of friends.... I have them choose 'friends only' as that way only the friend and not their friends and look at the pictrues.
