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Social Networking Website, Facebook, from a Safety Mom's Point of View
We consider ourselves to be "safety parents." We do our best to shield and inform our child, and the children in our extended family...from the dangerous things in this world. This includes protecting them from the dangers of the Internet. But are social networking sites really that dangerous?
When your children are young, it's easy enough to keep them safe online. You'd either sit by them whenever they're online, or install some type of parental control software. But when your children become teenagers, there are new Internet battlegrounds to cover...such as social networking websites.
Back in 2006, we wrote the article, "The Dangerous Side of Social Networking Sites." Then, we were dead set against these sites for children. We'll admit, we haven't been the biggest fans of social networking websites for teenagers. But these sites have exploded as "the" place to be if you're a teen. Not having an account at any of these websites, we felt we weren't giving them a fair review. So as parents, we thought we would personally take a look at one of these sites, to see what the hype is all about. We chose to explore the Facebook world, and see all that it offers for children age 13 and over, the minimum age Facebook recommends.
While we began to explore the many facets of Facebook, we realized this community was much more than we had ever imagined. If you have never been on Facebook, you might not understand all that there is to do here. Besides keeping in touch with family and friends, here is just a small sampling of what there is:
- Photos: Creating separate albums; organizing; posting to friends' walls.
- Virtual gifts & cards: Sending; receiving; posting to friends' walls.
- Games: Play interactive games alone, with friends, or with strangers; well-known games; pay money for additional game enhancements.
- Applications (widgets): Find an existing application or create your own. Answer quizzes; participate in virtual scavenger hunts; take part in virtual food fights; collect eggs & raise hatchlings, own a farm, restaurant, fish tank, theme park, etc. Remember friends' birthdays, support charities virtually, personalize your profile with buttons, hearts, etc. etc. etc.
- Join a group: As applications, there are too many groups to list. But you will find categories such as Business, Common Interest, Entertainment & Arts, Geography, Internet & Technology, Just for Fun, Music, Organizations, Sports & Recreation, and Student Groups.
Many of the games on Facebook are safe for your child to play, because they are played alone. But you'll have access to friends' progress, scores, virtual characters, and will be able to leave messages. Some games allow chat, while others don't. You should discuss chat options in these games with your child, since there is no 'safe' chat. Although, one of the games that allows chat, YoVille, does have a language filter so no bad words will display.
While exploring Facebook, we learned that there are many ways to help charities, all by just a click of the mouse and with no cost to you. For example, teens may enjoy helping animals, for example: Save a Dog, from Dogtime.com. According to Dogtime.com, "for every 2,500 points our users score, we donate the financial equivalent of a cup of food to RescueGroups.org, a non-profit organization that provides free and low-cost technology services to animal shelters and rescue groups across the country." This Facebook application allows people to search for adoptable dogs, so you can virtually foster them.
Another charity to be supported, is St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Games & applications depend on advertisers, and advertisers choose to advertise with games & applications that are used the most. For example, you could send virtual chocolate and other sweet gifts through the application, "Willy's Sweet Shop." In doing so, you are helping this application to raise money for St. Jude's.
Keep safe on Facebook, for teens
Keep your password hidden at all times. This is true for any website you use -- never share your password with anyone except your parents.
Don't give out personal information. Again, as on any website, keep your personal information personal. It's OK to say that you're a female or male living in the US, but it's not OK to say that you're "Mandy Somebody" living in "Melrose Gardens in Hollywood, California." It's unfortunate, but there are people in this world whose main purpose in life is to steal your identity or possibly bring harm to you. Do not give them ammunition to do so. Another bit of information you should keep private, is your date of birth. If you want to share the month and day, leave out the year you were born. There's a lot of things bad people can get if they have all the pieces of your identity puzzle. Again, don't give them the ammunition to do so.
Don't put your photos online. We don't think it's good for children to have their photos online, but many parents don't have a problem with it. If it's OK with you, just make sure you know what photos are being uploaded and displayed. Don't display any photos that show names of streets, towns, schools, or any other landmark that someone would be able to find out where you live. Also, remember...even though you have your account set to friends-only, your friends may be able to share your photo in their album, and then their friends (who are not yours) may be able to view your photo.
The kids who used Facebook back when they first opened in 2004, are now in their college years...and many are wishing that they could erase some of the information and pictures that they shared on Facebook. Why? Many are embarrassed and wished they hadn't done certain things, like putting up personal information about themselves, including personal pictures (some of them in situations their parents wouldn't be happy about seeing). It's not making job hunting easy for them, since employers nowadays are checking many social networking sites to see just what type of employee they'll be hiring.
Set privacy levels. After you log into your Facebook account, there is a link at the top called "Settings." Once you click this, there are 3 categories: Account, Privacy, and Application. Click on Account, then go down to "Privacy" and click on "manage." Here is where you can set who sees your profile. You can also block people from this screen. First click on "Profile..." First, "Basic" will be displayed. Here you can set your profile and other information to only be viewed by "Everyone," "Friends of Friends," or "Only Friends." From this menu you can also set your photo album privacy (you can also adjust privacy settings when creating a photo album, and view what your photo album looks like from the viewpoint of one of your friends).
When you're done with everything under the "Basic" tab, click on the "Contact Information" tab. This section contains privacy settings for your IM screen name, your mobile & other phone, address, website, and email address. Keep this information private...your friends should already know how to reach you. On the chance that your account is hacked, your personal information will not be compromised. Click "Save Changes," and return to the main Privacy screen. Now click on "Search." This section will allow you to choose how your name & profile will show up in a search. To be truly private, you should set your search visibility to allow "no one," though you may want to wait until you send friend requests to your friends. So, you may want to set your search to "friends only" when beginning. When you're done with these settings, click "Save Changes" and return to the main Privacy screen. Now that your name won't show up in searches, if you post something to a friend's wall, non-friends will not see your profile photo, nor will they be able to access your profile (there will be no link displayed with your name). When a non-friend views your friend's friends list, your name will not be displayed. Keep in mind, any photos you add will be seen by your friends, who will have the ability to save them.
If you click on "News Feed and Wall," you'll see two tabs: "Actions within Facebook," and "Facebook Ads." If you post something to a friend's wall, your writing may appear in mutual friends' news feeds. Use this section for deciding who gets to see what you've written or commented on. Click "Save Changes," and click on the tab, "Facebook Ads." Where it says, "Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to..." choose "No one" -- you don't want to allow anyone to use your name or photo in any ads. Click "Save Changes." Now click on "Applications," then on the "Settings" tab. Use this window to choose what others can or can't see in Facebook (name, networks, list of friends, etc.). Uncheck boxes to keep your information private, and check the boxes under "Facebook Connect Applications," and "Beacon Websites." Click "Save Changes," and either click on "Settings" up top, or use this link to make privacy changes to every application you've given authorization to.
When you're done with the four subcategories under "Privacy," you can go back to the top of the page and click "Settings" again. Click on the tab, "Notifications" and make sure you check the boxes to be notified if you are ever tagged in anyone's photos. It's good to know when your name and photo end up floating around Facebook. This way, if you're tagged, you could always remove your tag.
Each time you allow an application to access your account, you should adjust your privacy settings. Hover your mouse over "Settings" at the top of the page, then click on "Application Settings." From this window, you should be able to set the privacy in every application you have used.
Have your parents review your privacy settings -- you don't want to overlook anything.
Only accept friend requests from people you know, not know of. You may know someone in a virtual game, but that does not mean you know them. We truly never really know who is on the other side of a virtual character, unless you know them in real life. Who you think might be another 13 year old girl or boy, could in fact be an older (or younger!) man or woman. Keep your guard up and know who your friends really are. Don't ever be afraid to block people you don't know (Settings -> Privacy).
If it sounds fishy, you just may be swimming in a fish tank. Let's say that your friend shares a link with you on your wall. Before you click on it, take a good look at the link. Does the website look familiar? If it doesn't and it looks suspicious, it might be a link to a site with a virus. It's also possible that your friend's account was hacked, and even though it looks as though your friend sent you that link, in reality they did not. As you do on the Internet, always be aware of what you click on.
We'll admit, there is really a lot of good on Facebook. But where there is good, there is usually bad not far behind. Below are just a few of the areas that parents need to be aware of when allowing their young teen on Facebook:
Open Chat. Facebook has a great feature, where you can chat with any of your friends when you are signed in. You will find the chat link in the bottom right-hand corner of your browser window. If you click on this, a box will open and on the left side it has, "Friend Lists," and the right side it has, "Options.  You can choose to "Go offline," or "Pop out chat," into a separate bigger window. Again, there is no 'safe chat' option, so if you don't want your teen to chat online, and they tell you they're "just going on Facebook," you should be aware of this feature.
Photo Posting. We would like to think that if we uploaded a photo for only our friends to see, only our friends would see it. But unfortunately, this is not always so. Using the privacy settings above, you can set your photo albums so only your friends could see it. The problem with this is, if one of your friends comments on your photo, that comment will display on their profile wall. When this happens, any of your friends' friends may be able to see your photos (if you haven't set your privacy settings correctly). Also, if you haven't set the privacy settings for your feeds, then your photos will show up in the 'highlights' section in your friend's wall, and all of your mutual friends. Your friends could also share your photos in their account, enabling all of their friends (who may not be your friends) to view them. When it comes down to it, if you're going to post photos, make sure you don't post anything you don't want everyone to see (this includes information and landmarks displaying your personal information such as your name, address, city, state, school, team, club, etc.).
Writings. Anything you post to your wall, can be viewed by all of your friends. If any of your friends comment to your post, their friends (who may not be your friends) will be able to see it. Don't post anything on Facebook that you don't want everyone to see. In addition to you writing on your wall, your friends can also write anything on your wall. Another thing you don't know, is who has access to your friend's Facebook account. Your friend may have given access to their siblings, parents, and/or other friends. Be selective on who you choose to befriend.
Profile boxes. When you view yours or your friends' profiles, there is a tab that says, "Boxes." You can put many things in this section: game boxes, causes, quizzes, gifts, etc. Pretty much any application that has a box, can be displayed here. Not only can you put things there yourself, your friends can post things here as well, if your applications are set up for that. You may never encounter a problem with any of these boxes, but as we viewed friends' profiles, we found one. We happened to be looking at friend's' "Boxes" tab, and came across an application that allows friends to post various photographs and funny headlines to other friends' profiles. It happened that one of these photographs contained a very non-family-friendly image. As it turns out, this friend had no idea that image was on her profile, but she quickly removed it. Good thing our teen wasn't sitting next to us at that moment. This was just one of the things we found that make Facebook an unsafe place for children.
Another problem we ran into was from one of the gift applications. Someone sent us a virtual gift of chocolate, and when it asked if we wanted to send a virtual gift back, we were given the choice of many different items, including some that were not at all family-friendly. Facebook's terms say that adult images are not allowed, but there's no way to guarantee that you won't come across them.
Friend Requests. We're listing this one again, because it's that important. We've seen how so many teens accept "friends" just so they can increase their friend count. But by no means should your child accept friend requests from people they don't know. Just as you would not allow your child to be with people you don't know in real life, "strangers" should not have access to your child's information, no matter how non-private it is. Sometimes kids post things that give away pieces of their identity, and predators are always on the look-out for just those pieces.
When and if you or your teenager do decide to put information and photos on the Internet...just remember: when you think you're just sharing it with friends and family...just take a moment to really think about it. Ask yourself if you will be happy if somehow that piece of information or that silly photo you took...may be floating around the Internet for your future employers to see. Or, if a stranger happened upon your page and saw your thumbnail photo...would you want a stranger looking at your personal picture? Don't put anything online (words or pictures) that your parents wouldn't want to see...especially inappropriate pictures. It's ok to fool around and be silly -- who doesn't want to do that? But we all have to try and make the right choices, because you don't want any one bad choice to come back and hit you when you least expect it to.
Other articles on MyParenTime.com:
The Dangerous Side of Social Networking Sites
Protect Your Kids on the Internet
The Real Dangers to Kids Online & How to Avoid Them
Teen Safety on the Information Highway
Parental Control: Dangers To Your Child Online & Internet Child Safety Tips
Helpful checklists:
Email Tracker Checklist
Internet Tracker Checklist / Internet Password Checklist
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