Quick Links

Join Our List

Related Resources:

We've just posted links to many new resources on the topic of privacy and social networks, as well as tips for parents. Visit our Resources page and select a topic of interest.

For example, on the resource page titled "Protecting Privacy and Computer Safety", you'll find a link to learn how to better set the privacy settings on Facebook.

RELATED ARTICLES:

1. Cyberbullying Grows Bigger and Meaner with Photos, Video [USA Today, July, 2008]

2. Six Disturbing Viral Kid Videos [Momlogic, February, 2009]

3. Secure Photo Sharing Online - Blog discussion about password protected photosharing sites and choices [July, 2009]

4. Is it Safe to Post Photos of My Kids Online - Know the Risks from About.com (Good points made and some interesting consequences and links.)

About
Children Online

Children Online offers innovative and comprehensive workshops on Internet safety and online education to students, parents, faculty and administrators. Our approach, unique in the field of Internet safety, combines a thorough understanding of Internet technologies, child development and counseling, to focus on the impact of the internet on the social, emotional and language development of young people.

Doug Fodeman and Marje Monroe, experts in technology, counseling and education, work together to provide invaluable research and tools for parents and schools with practical real-life solutions to the issues faced by young people online. Since 1997, Marje and Doug have spoken to thousands of students, teachers and parents. They have several publications in the area of Internet safety and offer a free online newsletter. More detailed information can be found at ChildrenOnline.org.

Issue: #26

July 2009

26th Edition of the Children Online Newsletter.

Before we introduce the topic of this month's newsletter, we are very excited to announce that we have just launched a newly updated and redesigned web site at ChildrenOnline.org. We have also changed the color scheme of our newsletter to match our new web site design.

The new website has hundreds of resources for parents, educators and school administrators. We have also organized the resources section to better present the topics we know that parents and teachers are interested in learning about. We include our research and recommendations throughout the site and in the months to come we will be adding more content and updating links to current topics of interest.

We invite you to visit our new site and, especially, to explore the Resources area.

The topic for this month's newsletter actually came from a couple of recent calls from parents to ask about their children's posting photos or videos to websites. Was it safe? What should parents be aware of? It is a question we are often asked at workshops.

As always, we welcome your comments. Our telephone number for Children Online is 413-214-1225.

Best wishes for a relaxing summer,
Marje Monroe and Doug Fodeman

Contact Marje or Doug via email at marjem@childrenonline.org or dougf@childrenonline.org for information about our programs or consulting services.

What are the Risks & Concerns for Our Children Posting Images or Video Online?
Scrolling through your friends or your children's pages on Facebook will result in seeing thousands of personal photos. Personal photos and images, in fact, litter the Internet. Some are behind password-protected websites, but many more are sitting open for anyone to see. When speaking to parents, we are often asked about the dangers of having personal photos online. Should their children or their friends be posting pictures on the Internet? While an obvious answer may be no in order to be 100% safe, it is a much more complicated issue. As the Internet has grown and the technology has changed at phenomenal rates, most people have paid attention to child predators, stalkers and criminals lurking on the web. In reality only a very small percentage of children or teens are stalked, harassed or abused by adult criminals online. Most crimes against children and teens happen in real life outside of the Internet. While personal photos online could be seen by a criminal and then used against an unsuspecting child or teen, it is extremely rare for this to happen. Teens, do, however put themselves at risk by using their own revealing and provocative photos and sending them to a group of friends via their cell phones (known as sexting) or posting them on their social network pages. Many of these photos are just passed among friends, though some do get in the hands of teens that use them to humiliate or hurt. For some angry teens, social networking pages are used as weapons, with harassing language, embarrassing pictures or outright lies posted in the name of another to cause embarrassment or harm. In addition there have been examples of teens arrested for sending naked or provocative pictures over their cell phones. (Sending pornographic imagery of children under 18 across the Internet is considered a crime.) Young children are more likely to post a funny video on YouTube or a picture of himself or herself taken with their camera on their laptops and shared with friends. Many thousands of videos of children and young teens are posted on YouTube every day where kids feel a sense of purpose and fame knowing their own videos may be able to be viewed by many, even in some cases, millions. It is important for parents to note that YouTube recommends users be at least age 13 to post photos or videos. Thousands of younger children are using YouTube daily and posting pictures and videos of themselves, their family and friends on this extremely popular site. Here are some basic recommendations we have for posting pictures:
Do not allow children or young teens to post any picture or video online without parental permission. For young children, do not allow any posting of pictures or videos anywhere online. Ask to see you teen's social networking site in order to check for inappropriate pictures or videos. Set all online accounts to the most restrictive privacy settings and do not allow strangers to have access to online pages such as Facebook, My Space, etc.... When posting pictures of your own children or family, use password protected sites. When using Facebook or MySpace keep your "friend" list limited to people you know personally and set the restrictions to "Friends Only". Do not allow children or teens to send pictures over their cell phones without parental permission. When using commercial sites geared for storing photos, do some research first and find out what restrictions you have for protecting your family pictures.. Talk to your children and set guidelines about the content of photos or videos they are allowed to post. For example, it is not uncommon for young teens at a sleepover to post photos or videos of the event online, or older teens to post themselves in bathing suits. Keep in Mind: Once another person gets hold of any picture, it can be copied, altered, photoshopped, saved or sent to others.