Online Blackout of your kids?

[maycocksean]

Facebook privacy and kids: Don’t post photos of your kids online. - Slate Magazine

I thought this article was interesting and was curious as to what you all might think.

On the face of it, it seems like these parents are making serious but reasonable efforts to protect their child's privacy.

But as I continued to read, it started coming across less like protection and more like controlling behavior. In the end it seemed obvious to me that the person most likely to violate their iron wall of internet privacy that they've built will be their own daughter. Kids being what they are she will likely start her own Facebook profile, internet presence etc perhaps even without their knowledge and more than likely before they deem her ready to use everything they've set up.

To me the most obvious concerns about online posting they failed to address at all: Giving away to the general public details about where you live and when you'll be out of town, and the possiblity of your children becoming the target of unsavory types online.

I feel like I take fairly reasonable precautions with my kids. I have a private blog for my sons that can only be viewed by people I approve. I do post about them and pictures of them occasionally on Facebook. I have some photos on my own public blog but they are usually in a group setting. I'm sure this will seem too loose for some, but I'm not really interested in living a life of constant anxiety.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. What say you?

 

[jeevey]

Well, I thought the business of creating a website, a blog and email account and stuff for their kid when she was still tiny and holding them for her was weird. Registering her name as a domain name and choosing her name based on internet research! That was a little cuckoo, imo. And actually it felt a little invasive to me, like they were trying to establish a lot of control not just over her safety but over her future self.

My kids' images do exist online. My sisters' do not. For both of us, FB knows that the kids exist, their names and their ages roughly. She posts no images anywhere and doesn't allow others to, but she has like 500 fb friends and I have like 60, so I think it balances out a bit. I try to be respectful of not posting stuff that's quite personal or that could be embarrassing, while also trying to give family and friends a sense of our life. It's tricky. The commodification of personal information on the internet is problematic for all of us, not just kids.

 

[bono_212]

My God, that article seemed horribly paranoid.

I confess I stopped reading by the time it started to sound like the author was terrified of the Minority Report universe attacking their friend's child.

 

[IWasBored]

That article was written by some batshit crazy person. I do agree with the initial concept of not putting every single detail of your kid's life on the Internet, in the same way I wouldn't put my own name and other personal information so readily out there. But their execution, their plan to protect their kid online, kind of makes me wonder if they don tin foil hats before searching to make sure they don't choose a name that's already on the Internet--it also makes me wonder what kind of dreadful name/spelling of it they gave their kid if they searched every major social media site for duplicates, and why that would protect their daughter more than an incredibly common name of which there are tons of others already out there.

I wound up skimming the paranoia toward the end. Did they address how they're going to handle her friends tagging her photos or mentioning her name on their own Facebook pages? Or are they just going to raise her in a bubble as well?

 

[IWasBored]

My God, that article seemed horribly paranoid.

I confess I stopped reading by the time it started to sound like the author was terrified of the Minority Report universe attacking their friend's child.

The part where they essentially said we're only a little ways away, technologically speaking, from the average person being able to use their phone to scan someone upon sight and learn their deepest secrets and credit card numbers? Tin foil hats, man. They'll keep that shit locked down tight!

 

[Galeongirl]

Wow, overdoing things a bit much?

 

[Kieran McConville]

Always name your children after obscure historical figures.

For example: Constantine XI Palaiologos

 

[LJT]

What if they hire a Byzantine expert to hunt you down? I was going to name one my kids Belisarius, that's when the Byzies were cool.

Anyway yep that article is pretty paranoid, you would wonder about their mental condition.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Nicephorus Phocas

 

[mikal]

I will admit that I post a lot of pictures of my daughter on Facebook. Sometimes I fear that I'm going a little overboard but I'm just too damn proud of a parent not to share with my "friends".

Personally I don't see a huge risk in doing so though.

 

[deep]

Those parents are thoughtful and doing the right thing.

When this person grows up she will appreciate what her parents did.


FB and other social postings are affecting people today. I know people that have been denied housing based on their social media postings.

 

[Galeongirl]

I think when this person grows up she'll feel suffocated by the obsessive control of her parents.

Why would you want your parents to pick your name on basis of online availability?
Why would you want your parents to decide on things that determine your online future life? Your emailadress, facebook profile, everything?

 

[Pearl]

I think when this person grows up she'll feel suffocated by the obsessive control of her parents.

Why would you want your parents to pick your name on basis of online availability?
Why would you want your parents to decide on things that determine your online future life? Your emailadress, facebook profile, everything?

This can especially be a problem if the parents are helicopter/narcissistic type

 

[nbcrusader]

Facebook privacy and kids: Don’t post photos of your kids online. - Slate Magazine

Anyway, those are my thoughts. What say you?

Unless you plan on living "off the grid," digital content for any individual will eventually make its way online.

The article proposes one way of addressing the situation, but I see it as similar to those families who remove televisions from the household. At some point, the child will discover television. And watch it.

The way I approach this with my children is to focus on the one thing they own - their reputation. Be aware of what you say and what you do - others will see and remember. Even if you don't have a Facebook profile, all it takes is another person with a camera phone to capture an image.

 

[Irvine511]

i can't imagine the fear kids must have today knowing that their bad moments can potentially be videoed and shared amongst classmates. the fear of humiliation must be overwhelming at times.

 

[nbcrusader]

i can't imagine the fear kids must have today knowing that their bad moments can potentially be videoed and shared amongst classmates. the fear of humiliation must be overwhelming at times.

What surprises me is the number of people who opt-in to digital environments where fear and humiliation runs rampant.

Ask.fm, and its predecessor formspring.me, allow individuals to open themselves us to abuse through the receipt of anonymous questions.

Kid's behavior hasn't changed (bullying isn't a new phenomena), but the digital age allows it to come at us faster and with a higher degree of anonymity.

 

[jeevey]

i can't imagine the fear kids must have today knowing that their bad moments can potentially be videoed and shared amongst classmates. the fear of humiliation must be overwhelming at times.

Well, that fear must be complicated by the fact that kids now don't grow up with the same expectation of privacy that previous generations had. They think of themselves as performers to an audience from quite young and participate in it actively, posting selfies and keeping micro accounts of their lives on social media sites and so on. It must be very loaded for them. To exist socially for them means to exist digitally, but at the same time the stakes and opportunities for disaster are very high.

 

[IWasBored]

Well, that fear must be complicated by the fact that kids now don't grow up with the same expectation of privacy that previous generations had. They think of themselves as performers to an audience from quite young and participate in it actively, posting selfies and keeping micro accounts of their lives on social media sites and so on. It must be very loaded for them. To exist socially for them means to exist digitally, but at the same time the stakes and opportunities for disaster are very high.

Do you really think they actually think of it in those terms?

 

[jeevey]

I can't put my hands on quotes right now. But I think looking at the behavior of kids would substantiate it. I'm thinking of twelve and thirteen year old kids sending sexualized pictures of themselves, as a clear example of the performer aspect. They are creating an identity, an image of themselves. This is true of all of us- we filter what we put on social media to create a particular picture of ourselves; wry and funny, harrassed office worker, blissful mama or whatever. Kids are just also participating in that, whether they can consciously name it or not.

As for the "to exist socially is to exist digitally" aspect, I think yes, and again observation substantiates it. I remember particularly the 14 year old girl who hung herself in the closet a couple of years ago. What's amazing is that kids create an identity and a social life online, and then when it goes bad (people start spreading rumors or passing embarrassing photos, a fb friends turns out to be a hoax) they can't back away from it- can't disengage and say okay, this is not so important. Because it is-- the way they are talked about and viewed online bleeds over into every aspect of their social lives. I remember in that story of this 14 year old girl, she was sitting at the computer for hours with her mom literally standing behind her chair, trying to help figure out how to solve or stop the vicious bullying, and neither of them considered just turning off the computer and saying fuck it to them all. They felt they couldn't because it was quite literally her social life. You see that a lot in cases of teen rape, the Stuebenville case for example, that what occurs online can take over a kids' life. In many cases kids are actually finding out that they were victimized through social media- they literally knew after everyone else did. So the penalty for not participating can be very high, but so is the one for participating.

 

[nbcrusader]

How NOT to protect your child.

Ex-NFL star Brian Holloway may be sued by parents of teens who allegedly trashed his upstate NY home

 

[Pearl]

How NOT to protect your child.

Ex-NFL star Brian Holloway may be sued by parents of teens who allegedly trashed his upstate NY home

Amazing how so many people fall into the "my kid will never do that!" mentality.

 

[IWasBored]

I'm missing something here. What are they trying to sue him for? Haven't we established that kids who want to be fucksticks, post pictures of themselves being fucksticks on the Internet, should be fair game to be called out for their fuckstickery using said pictures?

 

[Pearl]

I heard on CBS This Morning that they're trying to sue him for misuse of their kids' photos...which those kids posted on public social media for the whole world to see. Yeah, I'm lost too.