Privacy and Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites (SNS) have been a topic of interest at my house for quite some time. I have mentioned on a few occasions that I have teenage girls with both MySpace and Facebook accounts. I have tried my best to convey to them both the good and the bad of SNS. It is our (my wife and I) opinion that parents should educate and mentor their children in the use of SNS and not forbid it as an evil, dangerous, thing like some parents do. I think that it can be used as a healthy communication and expression tool for teens (and even adults at times). Therefore, the goal of parents should be to help their children to use SNS and the Internet responsibly.

However, many parents are clueless or only hear the negative stories in the news. Then they either do not help their children develop or they panic and say, “You will NOT have a SNS account at all!” Well, those kids only find other ways (go outside the home) to get their accounts and while their parents boast, “MY kids do not have a MySpace or Facebook account” their kids are doing it anyway with no parental guidance.

So then we have the issues that the article “Privacy and Social Networking Sites” discusses concerning the debate of what is private and what is not. While I think that we should work out those issues, ultimately what I have told my children and students is not to ever depend on privacy settings. Basically, my philosophy is that if you put something on the Internet consider it “public” and potentially global regardless of privacy settings. My thinking is that if you only publish photos, movies, text, etc. that you are okay with anyone seeing then there will be no issues. When you publish something that you only want to be private and that can have incriminating or embarrassing results in the wrong hands, there is always the risk that unintended eyes may view it.

Keep it safe on your space...or be prepared to face the consequences...you may win the legal battle, but at what expense?