As I hope is perfectly obvious, I’m a Christian blogger. I’m aiming mostly for the Christian audience, though of course I welcome a wider readership, and I read mostly Christian blogs. But while surfing through blog explosion, I came across a blog that has continued to hold my interest, though I doubt that there is much spiritual like-mindedness between its author and myself. That blog is David W. Boles’ Urban Semiotic. His writing is strong and clear, his topics are interesting, and he definitely has his own take on things.
His post this morning about bloggers who post pictures of their children has really got me pondering, in a troubled kind of way. (I hate it when this happens, because I maintain the feeling of distress and anxiety until I’ve resolved the issue, but in true A.D.D. fashion I keep forgetting what I’m distressed about.) Here is a tiny quote from his post:
There are likely thousands of pedophiles hiding behind a computer screen somewhere in the world agreeing with every single word you say about your kids. They are buying the shine you are shilling off your children.
For all my fellow mommy (and daddy) bloggers out there, I recommend reading his post. I know I’m giving his words serious thought, though I know it means a serious re-design of my site. Although I’m proud of my children, and enjoy sharing the occasional cute photo, their safety is certainly not worth sacrificing on the bloggerama altar.
UPDATE: I went and read David’s article again and clicked through to the article he was referring to. I am horrified and nauseated! It never occurred to me that someone could snatch the pics of my boys off my site and edit them to whatever they wanted them to be. I have deleted almost all pictures from my site and am considering redesigns for my header. Please give this issue some heavy thought and prayer.
Eh. Scary!
Comment by Bethany — July 13, 2005 @ 8:50 am
And it gets scarier. I went and clicked through to the article David was referring to… I am horrified and nauseated! I have just gone back and edited or deleted my posts with pics of my kids. It’s just not worth the risk.
Comment by blestwithsons — July 13, 2005 @ 9:00 am
Blest
Remove the pics would be my suggestion. 99% of your readers love the photos but it’s not worth the worry you now must have.
Comment by Roger — July 13, 2005 @ 2:49 pm
Yep that’s why I don’t have any pictures of my children on my blog, their safety comes first. There sure are some scary sick people out there in the world.
Comment by Aimz — July 13, 2005 @ 3:28 pm
Oh my gosh this is scary - I’ve posted a pic of my husband and I and our dogs but I’ve always been hesitant to post any of my kids - now I’m really glad I haven’t. Thank you for sharing.
Bethany referred me to your blog - it’s wonderful. I have two kids, my daughter Emy is 9 and my son Daniel is 8. Danny is autistic, so I really enjoy meeting other parents of kids with the same or similar syndromes.
Great blog..
Take care.
Comment by Esther — July 13, 2005 @ 6:57 pm
Thanks Esther! Nice to meet ya!
Roger - yup there all gone except one line drawing. My header will be replaced sometime this evening when my brother gets home from church. I’ve gone for some modified pics… Eventually I’d like something cartoonish - but I can’t draw!
Comment by blestwithsons — July 13, 2005 @ 8:08 pm
That’s what I was thinking… some cartoon representations of the boys could really be fun.
Of course, I can’t draw either.
Comment by SCPanther — July 13, 2005 @ 8:54 pm
blest,
i have actually made a new website partly for this reason.
when it is done you will be one i email with necessary info to get in, if you’d like it.
it is so scary to me that people like that exist….
Comment by jenn — July 13, 2005 @ 11:51 pm
[…]
Posted on
Thursday 14 July 2005
After reading blestwithsons’ post, and the post that inspired it, I’ve mulled over some of the conclusions, […]
Pingback by RazorsKiss.net » Photoblogs and Pedeophilia — July 14, 2005 @ 1:48 am
I thought the post at RazorsKiss gave the issue a little balance. I deleted all photos of my kids from my blog last night, but was very sad and angry to do it. I especially had a hard time deleting the photo of my daughter at vacation Bible school praising God with closed eyes and arms raised. I also hated deleting the photo essay of the day David left for his trip to Europe. I’ll be prayerfully considering what to do in future posts. I copy, reformat, and print posts each month and keep them in a binder. It’s my easy way to scrapbook I guess. It wouldn’t be the same without the photos.
Comment by Kris — July 14, 2005 @ 10:48 am
Exactly the reason that I don’t put any pictures of my son or stepkids and use different names. They don’t need to start life out with any inhibitions because of my desire to have a popular web site.
I do use online secure services to transfer photos to family.
Comment by Sal — July 14, 2005 @ 11:00 am
Children Online
I don’t show photos of my family online - or even use their real names. From the start I have done this to protect my family. I didn’t want them to suffer something unjust because of my desire to generate…
Trackback by Stand Up and Walk — July 14, 2005 @ 11:07 am
Like Kris I found Razor Kiss’s post to be a reasonable and well thought out solution to a problem that tends to be dominated by extreme views and actions on both sides. I do not have children, but I do post pictures from my vacations, and other things along the way.
In the end a bit of common sense will likely cure 95% of the issues here. View of us would put our pictures, names, address and personal info on a bulletin board or in the paper, but many do all of the above on their blogs and on their sites. The web is a MUCH bigger audience, but sense it is a more anonymous we do not give it the same mental checks. Common sense and asking a few questions before publishing tend to resolve these issues.
Comment by Frank — July 14, 2005 @ 1:48 pm
I agree. I liked RK’s article and it calmed me somewhat. However, as I commented over there… it didn’t really hurt my blog to remove the photos. Although I enjoyed sharing them, it’s not really my focus. I will probably still put up a pic once in a while - but I will modify it like the ones in my header just so I feel a little better about it.
Comment by blestwithsons — July 14, 2005 @ 5:42 pm
If pedophiles are lurking they most likely are finding pictures via the image search feature at yahoo and google. It’s easy enough to block those sites from indexing your weblog. If your photos are not in the index, the only way somebody can find them is to end up at your site by accident. Given the billions of web pages and gazillions of images posted online, the odds of your child being grabbed off the street by a pedophile are far more likely than the odds of one finding your pictures.
See my site for info on how to block the image bots.
Comment by Chris — July 15, 2005 @ 8:53 am
Nice post, and it’s always better to be cautious with our kids and the unknown public, IMO. We’ve never published pictures of our kids faces to our blog because of similar concerns.
Comment by DeputyHeadmistress — July 15, 2005 @ 10:56 pm
P.S. I linked to this on my blog, but I can’t get trackbacks to work.
Comment by DeputyHeadmistress — July 16, 2005 @ 10:07 am
I have mixed thoughts on this subject. Something that no one has mentioned, yet is the whois information for every domain. It’s very easy go to any register site (register.com, betterwhois.com, etc.) and search any domain for the address and phone number of the site owner. I use a P.O. Box for this type of information, as well as any time I have to put my address online for any reason. Additionally, you can have your domain information hidden via your register. Sometimes it’s free, sometimes you have to pay like $1 extra per year.
Something else that wasn’t mentioned is that once pictures are online, they’re pretty much online forever (as well as other content). All you have to do is go to http://www.archive.org/ and put the domain in the wayback machine. The internet is archived by thousands of robots each day, and once it’s done, there’s no undoing it.
Just some more things for you all to think about.
Comment by Kim — July 18, 2005 @ 9:00 am
More on Children Online…
I put up a quick blurb on posting photos of your children online a few days ago, with some links to other folks who had mentioned this topic. Since then a few others have gotten into the loop. Here’s a…
Trackback by Stand Up and Walk — July 18, 2005 @ 7:31 pm