These are my thoughts every time I want to post a picture of my
son, LBZ online. They are my clanging, internal alarm, warning me
about the perils of technology and a world in which my son's
innocently posted picture could be...what, exactly?
I have my fearful answers to that question, of course, but if
I'm being honest, I know they stem more from thriller movies
and paranoia than any actual hard facts about how posting a
kid's picture online leads to kidnapping by freaks and
pedophiles. Still, they are persistent.
And yet, so is my need to stay in touch with friends and family. I
have my set of rules for posting LBZ's picture. I never post
anything showing genitalia, and I never tag with pictures with his
name. But truthfully, my Facebook account makes the 3,000 miles
between my mom and me seem like nothing. My friends who are in
London, Afghanistan and Darfur? They laugh at LBZ's new
haircut. My cousins in India publicly feud over whom he looks most
like. These connections are wonderful and necessary in my modern,
scattered life.
So it's interesting to me that a
recent article in the New York Times reports that the biggest
threat parents are facing in posting their kids' pictures
online is not having them seized by pedophiles, but having them
used inappropriately.
Sometimes, they are used to sell a product for a company (like the family that found their teenager daughter plastered over billboards to promote Virgin Mobile). Sometimes, they are made the butt of an elaborate joke, as they were in the case of Jessica Gwozdz, who found a picture of her baby on a Brazilian site, where it was rated for sexiness (not a pervert's doing, mind you, just a prank by teenagers).
In fact, several experts in the article specifically addressed my worst fear. According to Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute, “Research shows that there is virtually no risk of pedophiles coming to get kids because they found them online.” Prof. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, adds, "There is this characterization of pedophiles using the Internet as an L. L. Bean catalog, but this is not the way it happens."
Pedophiles and stalkers aside, I wonder about how those birthday pictures might haunt LBZ later in life. I've opted out of letting Facebook appropriate my pictures for their own use in my privacy settings, but knowing that anything posted online has a potential to live forever worries me.
So where do you stand, parents? Do you post pictures of your kids online? Never? Sometimes? Do you have rules you follow, or do you think any posting at all is bringing danger into your kid's life?
