Splitcoaststampers.com - the world's #1 papercrafting community
You're currently viewing Splitcoaststampers as a GUEST. We pride ourselves on being great hosts, but guests have limited access to some of our incredible artwork, our lively forums and other super cool features of the site! You can join our incredible papercrafting community at NO COST. So what are you waiting for?
I don't know where best to place this question, but I was thinking about this tonight. I have a classroom website and I can't post any images of any students on the website unless it's the back of their heads, and sure can't include any names.
Looking on various stamp/scrap websites, I see so many people post pictures of their children/grandchildren on here. This is a little concerning to me (and I'm not usually very overly concerned about the whole internet predation thing because I don't have any kids). I am really alarmed how many people have pictures of their kids, with their kid's name on here. Not only that, but it's not too difficult to find out where people live, we post our location, we have our addresses in various groups online, it just freaks me out.
I see a few people who block out names, they have screen names that don't give away who they are or their location, but some people on here don't. I am guilty, I have my name in my screen name, I have my location, but I don't have any children.
Anyone have any comments about this? I wouldn't expect that stampers and scrappers would be child predators, but we do have lurkers now who just want to bring up problems in various forums, this is also a public site. Just something I was thinking about... it makes me cringe a little to see how easily some on here have given a great deal of private information.
(I just went through training on safety and the internet as an inservice, so blame my school for making me think )
__________________ No, the picture is not my child, it's little me when I was 2. I'm dreaming of being at the lake
Check out my gallery:Click Here
Yeah, I kinda know what you mean. I don't have any kids either, but If I did, I would be a little more worried. I wouldn't mind putting pictures of their faces or first names, but I don't think I'd be putting any bath pictures. It is really sad that the world has come to this, where you can't even show off picutures of your cute little kid taking a bath because some sicko may be getting his jollies from it.
I think most people who post pictures of their children on their websites have thought about the concerns you brought up in your post. I was and still am comfortable posting scrapbook pages of my children in the Splitcoast galleries. On the other hand when I started my stamping blog with typepad my husband and I went back and forth as to whether or not to post pictures of our family. One of the concerns we had that hasn't been mentioned is that once you put photos out in the world you can't take it back and it may come back to bite you in the butt later on. Now, in the end, we did decide it was probably okay to post scrapbook pages of our family on the blog, but I still haven't. I guess I am still debating it.
I remember poor MamaK found some baby pics of Libby she had posted on the internet had been put into a diaper fetishist gallery. That was pretty horrifying. I've got a couple of pics of my sister's kids in my gallery on SB LOs, but they're limited, clothed, and I try not to use names too much. I've seen the occasional LO with yellow happy faces over the kids' faces, and considered doing something like that with my pix, but that just got to be too intimidating to try and learn or figure out how to do the blurring thing.
I guess I don't understand the concern. People get their picture and names printed in newspapers, which are on the internet, all the time. What's different about scrapbook pages? What am I supposed to be afraid of?
I remember poor MamaK found some baby pics of Libby she had posted on the internet had been put into a diaper fetishist gallery. That was pretty horrifying.
That would be bad. So, the lesson here is to be careful of the pages posted. I don't think the majority of pages here would be dangerous. Maybe I'm nieve?
I have a blog and post my kids' pictures all the time. I don't talk specifically about where we live. I figure our names are common enough that our exact location would be hard to find. I'm not too worried about it. Our family is scattered all over the US, and our family blog is the best way for them to get to see the kids grow. I think this outweighs the slim (in my opinion) chance that some freak is going to stalk me or my kids.
I guess I don't understand the concern. People get their picture and names printed in newspapers, which are on the internet, all the time. What's different about scrapbook pages? What am I supposed to be afraid of?
I don't post pictures of my kids on the internet and when they were in school we had to sign a release to have any photos (with or without names) printed in the newspaper. Our kids never made it into the paper or onto the school website because we refused to sign the release. There are a lot of freaky people out there who would use these types of media to get at kids. It doesn't take much for someone to get an address of a child whose name and photo have been published. It happens. I'm not just being panicky about this. My dh works with these types of situations in his job. Just be careful with your little ones. Never add names to pics. And like an earlier poster said... some pics will inevitably end up in some pervert's file.
__________________ I got a Nikon camera. I love to take photographs, so momma don't take my kodachrome away."
Paul Simon
It really depends on many things. I have a website for my kids. I don't use our last name, I use a "free" site that doesn't require information other than an email address to start up (right now I'm using one provided by an ISP). I also don't "advertise" my site and email updates of it only to my relatives.
There are "right" ways and "wrong" ways. I don't know the statistics but I haven't heard anything (that I remember anyway) of "preditors" coming to take children they found on a family website, I do however hear all the time about TEENS giving too much information out and getting themselves into trouble that way :(
I have debated this issue for years. I see it both ways and still have not come up with a conclusion. I have a my space and I put nothing but myself and my DH on there. It really bugs me that pretty much all of my friends have pics of there kids, plus descriptions that give names and such. Anyone can get a hold of that. BUT, nothing is private anymore, if you want to find out my kids name and my addy, it probably wouldnt be that hard. I have done it on my ex's before. SHHH! ;)
Then I see it from, fine I have seen the kids. BUT what now? No one is coming up in my home and taking anyone. I am very overpretective ( or so I have been told)
So then you are back to is it ok or not? Who really knows. Every situation is different. You have to choose what you are comfortable with. Some are arent as worried as others. Some of us are paranoid freaks, myself included in this group. IM very honest O
When I first had my DD who is now 6, I used to get a baby magazine in the mail each month, I think it was American Baby or something like that, the free one you get. Every month they had these pics of babies and their parents names and the city and state they lived in. It freaked me out. Reading the names and city/state in the magazine made me realize that anyone could just say, hey isn't that Jane Smith from Salem MA, and wow they just had a baby, and here is where they live....
I think because around that time I got a congratulations card from an old boyfriend that I had broken up with 10 years prior to that and since then I had gotten married and moved 3 times that I was a little touchy about the fact that someone could find you if they wanted to. The fact that he knew where I lived and that I just had a baby was frightening to me, I had purposely NOT given the info to the paper for advertisement and the only way I can figure he got the information was that our insurance company's claim office coincidentally was in the same town that he lived in. I lived 2 states away from him and this office. I had no idea what his purpose of sending the congrats card to me was, and I lived in fear for a long time that he was stalking me and going to take the baby.
Not something to take lightly I think. For a while I used to want to submit things to publish in scrapbook magazines but then I realized how much out there those kids are.... any one of the big popular scrapbookers we all know where they live and what their kids look like and how old they are. Maybe you and I don't think about stuff like that but WHAT ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE THAT MIGHT READ THE MAGAZINE??? -- like that pervert that some woman has for a boyfriend, or father, or uncle.
I know it is sick that we have to think like a criminal to protect our kids, but I know there are SO Many ways people can find out info, why not keep it a little harder for them to get the info.
I should add to clarify that I "totally agree" with the original poster that we should be careful to either limit or not post our kids names/pics on the internet. I tried to go back and edit my post but I guess the edit feature is not an option anymore.
The "bad" guys have so many avenues to you that I figure that we are really never safe and just need to do the best we can. I was stalked at one time. The person was IN prison, called and wrote my home. How did he find me? I was in the grocery store writing a check, it was later learned that his friend on the "outs" was next to me. This prisoner had a whole profile of his kind of woman and I fit it. So his friend caught enough of my personal information that he could pass on, by reading my check. We finally got it all stopped. By the way, I live in a very out of the way place on a road with only 2 other houses. Our road is not even on any map and yet you would be surprised at how we can be found. Google your address and voila, directions to your house and in many cases, a photo of your home. All I am saying is that there is no way to stop one of these guys if they want personal information. We have had our mail stolen (again rural area) and lots of information got into the wrong hands. You answer questionaires, and fill out info almost daily in this life. All it takes is a dishonest office person to copy that and give it to her wacko boyfriend. All it takes is someone to come to your home to do some sort of work and you may have had your place cased. My point is that we are never really safe.
Also google the "handles" you use on the internet. If they are unusual enough others can find out all the sites you visit and glean information from all those sites, often creating a very large picture of who and where you are.
Splitcoast Dirty Dozen Alumni VSN Go to Girl Pretty, Pretty Princess
Join Date: Feb 2006
Location: Suffolk, VA
Posts: 23,957
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
People are sick and you can never be too careful!
I have only been on this site for a few months and I thought about this the very first time I visited SCS. I cringe everytime I see a scrapbook page in the gallery that has peoples children/grandchildren. These are PUBLIC galleries that everyone in the whole internet world can see...scary!
I have a 14 year old daughter and would never dream of putting her pic on the internet anywhere! It is bad enough that I have to cuss grown men out on a fairly regular basis for openly staring at her and she looks 14, not older, wears VERY conservative/preppy style clothes since that is the style at her prep school (thank God!!) but wouldnt it be even worse if I had to worry about someone I can't even see look at her on the internet.
Even seeing the face of a child can give someone with a perverse mind enough to use in their own sick fantasy world. Be overprotective!! Actually, I dont think there actually is anything that could be called "overprotective". I wouldnt even put a picture of myself or my dh, people are SICK!! I am worried that I have a picture of my beloved dog as my avatar, people are too sick in this world to be trusted with any kind of picture.
I am glad that someone brought this up, it is a VERY important thing to think about!
I don't post pictures of my kids on the internet and when they were in school we had to sign a release to have any photos (with or without names) printed in the newspaper. Our kids never made it into the paper or onto the school website because we refused to sign the release. There are a lot of freaky people out there who would use these types of media to get at kids. It doesn't take much for someone to get an address of a child whose name and photo have been published. It happens. I'm not just being panicky about this. My dh works with these types of situations in his job. Just be careful with your little ones. Never add names to pics. And like an earlier poster said... some pics will inevitably end up in some pervert's file.
I'm glad someone else sees my concern I think the people who would try something are few and far between, but as was already posted, one person on here has had issues with photos being used elsewhere. In my town a kid was kidnapped by his father (who didn't have visitation or anything) because he sad his son's picture in the paper... I don't think I am being supersensitive, I think everyone assumes it won't happen to them. It's sad that we have to be careful about this these days.
__________________ No, the picture is not my child, it's little me when I was 2. I'm dreaming of being at the lake
Check out my gallery:Click Here
I'm not against posting pictures... I'm just saying I have come across some layouts where the poster included first and last name, the pictures are taken in front of street signs/other things that make it obvious where they are and I didn't even try to figure it out. After posting this, I took a few random pages and tried to see if I could figure out where the people where... it took 5 min. to figure out where 2 people and their families lived. That probably sounds freaky, but it shows how easy it was...
Are the majority of the people out t here going to care where you live/what your name is? Heck no, we just like your layouts and want to see but some people on here just provide so much detailed information it's scary. It's something that concerned me with my students' MySpace thing... now that's a more "obvious" forum for scary people... I don't know how many scary people scrap or make cards... but it is public. Then again, "scary" doesn't fit anymore... watching some of those Dateline shows, the people looked pretty darn normal to me.
__________________ No, the picture is not my child, it's little me when I was 2. I'm dreaming of being at the lake
Check out my gallery:Click Here
I am really alarmed how many people have pictures of their kids, with their kid's name on here. Not only that, but it's not too difficult to find out where people live, we post our location, we have our addresses in various groups online, it just freaks me out.
Yeah, I'd like to think that SCS is a site where we don't have to worry about that. But, getting past being gullible, I decided that it was a good idea to remove my picture of my DS from my avatar slot. I will use animals and innocent pics from now on. Internet predators suck! They should all be strung up and stoned as far as I am concerned!
__________________ Kristi- PIGskin SPAMmy my blog "But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you."
Anyone with pictures online- please comment
