Friday, December 4, 2009

A New Rant About Sharks and Dangerous Things

I think I need to repeat this Rant About Sharks And Dangerous Things. (click here)

And I do it because I've recently joined Facebook. And here is a little known fact that you may not know about Facebook and the photos you post there-on.

It goes like this. If you post a series of photos any one of your friends can comment on that photo. Their comment is read by any of their friends (who may not be anyone you know). That third person can click on the comment and view Every Photo in Your Album. You may have hundreds of friends. And each of them may have hundreds whom you do not know. And your album may contain hundreds of photos that you did not expect the entire universe to be able to view.

To restate this... a friend of your friend (some third party whom you do not know) can view your photos if one of Your friends comments on Your photo! Not only can the third party see the photo in question,but they can see the entire album.

Why am I fussing about all this? It's because many young people today unabashedly post full frontal photos of their children in the nude. (I'm speaking newborns, not older children.) What they do not realize is that there are perverts out there who love these kind of photos (however cute to your way of thinking) and who will DOWNLOAD them, and indeed may SELL THEM! By posting nude photos of your own child you have made that photo available to potentially thousands of people (a hundred friends multiplied by their hundreds of friends).

While a young parent may think these photos of their newborn child are "cute" and "natural", I want to remind these same young parents that there are evil people out there who are not thinking "cute" when they see that same photo.

A parent's job is to protect their children. DO IT!

And read my previous rant, written a year ago, which has nothing to do with Facebook, but which has everthing to do about protecting your children. You can click on the link in my first sentence at the top of today's rant.

Just call me "Gramma".


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4 comments:

Kelly said...

Good posts - both this one and the earlier one you linked to.

Fortunately, two of my three children are modest by nature. One of them is a redhead and HAD to keep covered when outside (burned easily).

Now the older girl.... *sigh*
... well, despite the fact she's grown and a mom herself, I still find myself making comments and suggestions.

Karen said...

This is very useful and valuable information. We need to be SO careful about what pictures we post, especially those of our children. Thanks, WhitesStone, for bringing this issue to our attention.

I am also reminded of a mother who had a picture of her son on her return address labels! I thought that while it looks cute, it was literally sending out a picture of her child AND broadcasting her address to anyone who saw the label. Not a safe thing to do now-a-days.

Amy from She Wears Many Hats said...

Thanks for the information. I've often wondered about those links from one picture to another. Scary.

l'optimiste said...

whenever you post an album or photograph, make sure you set the privacy information to viewable by 'only friends'. This stops 'friends of friends' seeing your albums.

It's worth having a good look through ALL the available privacy settings on Facebook. Go through each of the tabs in settings and check that everything is set up the way you want it. The 'Facebook ads' tab being one that everyone is nattering about right now.