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Family Privacy and Social Media

This post is a little less business, more personal. We were blessed a few months ago with a baby girl. Being the same as any family, the digital flash bulbs have been unrelenting. Almost every moment seems to feel photo or video worthy.
When we recently had our open house event, I was lucky enough to have several of my family members come in from out of town. More pictures of course. Shortly after, the pictures started flying around with a few of them ending up on Facebook. This instantly threw up privacy concerns for me. It was less about the random baby photo (because let’s face it, you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, right guys , but more about MY baby’s photos… and my baby’s name. It instantly reminded me of the Smith family photo and the Prague grocery store (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5507113/Beware-photos-online-US-familys-Christmas-card-photo-used-as-advertisement-in-Prague.html ).
Many people, maybe smarter people, would say, “So your picture ended up online, overseas, who cares?” But I don’t share their comfort level. On one hand, I know that next-to-none of my day-to-day life is Twitter worthy. I don’t have an account because I’m sure that, outside of my Mother, nobody could care less about the play-by-play of the SMB  IT provider business. It’s not news that computer networking and website building is far from glamorous.
Even as un-sensational as it might be, it’s still my personal life and I guess I just want some parts of it to be relatively private. Even if just in certain circles. This is especially true when it comes to my kiddo, for which I have no idea what the future may hold. Again, I have no idea what the future ramifications may be, or not be. So for now, we use a still easily accessible, password protected area, to share photos and videos.
This was just a heads up to everyone out there that is either engaging or thinking about sharing more of their life online. Just be aware that once it’s out there, it doesn’t go away. Especially a reminder for my college friends. Watch those photos, this is a family show! Take care.
For some more reading, check out the Smith’s family Blog and some of the comments: http://www.extraordinarymommy.com/blog/are-you-kidding-me/stolen-picture/ This one is classic:
“My husband stumbled onto an ad for “Hot Singles in Your Area” with MY Facebook profile photo on it! Thank goodness we have a solid, trusting relationship, because if he was the insecure/suspicious type, it could have ruined our marriage! (I found a setting on FB that you can click to prevent this from happening - who knew?! The default setting allows them to sell/use your images.) I suppose I could have found it flattering, but it was just tooooo CREEPY!”

Comments

What’s Your Point of View? Join the discussion »
    Posted @ 12/13/2010 8:48 PM by Spamer
    Spamer's avatar

    Excellent. Thanks a lot for your sharing.

    Posted @ 12/13/2010 6:32 PM by Blogger
    Blogger's avatar

    Excellent. Thanks a lot for your sharing.

    Posted @ 12/15/2009 3:34 PM by David
    David's avatar

    The WSJ had a good article today.
    How Facebook Is Making Friending Obsolete http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126084637203791583.html

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