27 April 2009
Let Them Know Pix Trix
Posted by admin under: safety .
Another update to the Microsoft/GSUSA joint project “LMK: Let Me Know” covers the topic of photo sharing onlineand what it means to girls. Some parts of it come across as a little naive. There are a lot of girls that won’t feel like creating a personal photo album that is shared with other members of the family is what they were looking to do when they said they wanted to post some pictures. Mainly they want to show off and check out their friend’s looks and especially the people that they know that the girls may not have any direct contact with. When the LMK update finally discusses the subject with their resident expert, Parry AFtab, we get a little better clue as to why girls may engage in these provocative pictures.
Good teens, model students, and teen leaders are all likely candidates for “girls gone wild” online! They start at about age13 and continue throughout their teens. The younger ones do it to look “mature” and audition for the older boys’ attention. The older teens do it to show how much they “love” their boyfriend or to get even after a bad breakup, showing him how much he is “missing.” They do it from a slumber party for fun, or take the pic of one of the girls they don’t like in the bathroom, locker room, or dressing room to use as a weapon to hurt her. And boys do it too. Not as often as girls, but far too often.
And a picture is worth a thousand words! Even the more careful teens will share pictures or videos online that give away far too much personal information about themselves. Their houses may appear in the backgrounds, or their cars with license plates in plain view. Their Girl Scout uniform can give away their troop, which in turn gives away their location and activities. And even if they are careful about what they post, their friends may not be.
I didn’t know that there are some unwritten rules about photo tagging so I’ll share that here, too, for other dads who were as clueless as me.
“Tagging” pictures is a new way to identify a person in an online photo. When you’re making an album online, many sites will give you the option to “tag” people who appear in the pictures. Tagging someone in a picture adds it to a database of images in which they appear. It’s similar to adding a caption, but has more functions than just to describe a photo.
By clicking the “tag photo” button, you can place an invisible box around the person in the photo and label her or him. Anyone who views the photo and rolls a mouse over that person will see the photo subject’s “tag,” which is usually her or his name.
On social networking sites, your online profile can be accessed through tagged pics, if your profile is not set to private. Tagged photos are also linked to a database in your own profile. You can easily see where photos of you – that others have tagged – are stored. Users are notified with an e-mail or alert whenever they are tagged and can “untag” the images if they choose, removing them from their databases. Tagging pics allows other people to know when a picture of them is posted on the social networking site they are using, giving them the chance to untag it.
The unspoken rules about tagging a picture are that if a person looks really bad in a photo, if they’re doing something they could get into trouble for, or ask not be tagged in it, then you don’t tag her or him. If someone does untag a picture, you need to respect that person’s wishes and keep it untagged. Sometimes a friend will ask you to remove an embarrassing picture entirely. When this happens, it’s your responsibility as a friend (or family member!) to accommodate her or him.
I’m generally supportive of, but still a little ambivalent, about this project. LMK is sponsored by Microsoft, after all, so they try to encourage the use of their online products and the Girl Scouts are there to legitimize the opinions being offered . So, I worry that the teen girls who are the editors are sharing their enthusiasm with social media might not be sufficiently cautious due to their age. On balance, however, this seems like a good thing, especially for the parents of Girl Scouts, or any girls for that matter.
- LMK Gives Parents a Primer
- New Girl Scouts CyberBullying Prevention Partnership with Microsoft
- Don’t Forget Your Camera!
- Update to Barack Obama Was a Boy Scout
- Girl Scouts Unveil Their New Uniforms
