Social Media Policy for Parents

My wife and I are in the process of adopting twin boys.

Many questions have popped into my mind over the past few weeks, and one of them is what our social media policy should be.

I am a very public person. You can find out a lot of information about me on the internet. Some, perhaps, I might wish you couldn't. (Some I might attempt to see if I can remove before my sons-to-be are of internet surfing age.) However, almost everything I have put online about myself, I have made a conscious decision to do so. I have a policy on this blog of not sharing photographs of living relatives without being absolutely sure they will approve. The boys are only 1 year old, so they don't have the ability to consent, yet.

This blog is public, and indexed by search engines, which is one reason I refrain from sharing photographs of and stories about living relatives. My Facebook account is visible only to 'friends.' However, those Facebook friends include dozens of people I have never met - mostly fellow genealogists. A lot of them I feel like I know through their blogs, but I don't really know them. And there are a handful of other 'friends' I only know through the internet. Facebook does make it relatively easy to share posts with only a select group of friends, and I could divide my friend list between those people I have met, and those I haven't.

Then there is the question of whether I need to go through the process of removing geotags from photographs that I do choose to upload. This is an easier one for me to answer. The main concerns with geotags is that they can pinpoint the location the photograph was taken. So if you post a photograph when you are on vacation, someone might know you are on vacation. If you post a photograph of your kid at home, someone can figure out where you live. I don't post vacation photos until I am home. It's a common safety precaution whether one has kids or not. And whether or not I post photographs taken at home, it is very easy to find my home address on the internet. (A little more difficult since my wife and I dropped our landline, but still fairly easy.) Posting photographs with geotags will not lead to a decrease in privacy. At least not in my situation.

Lots of my friends post photographs of their children on Facebook, and while the boys haven't yet been placed into our home, that date is only days away, and I already am feeling the 'proud father' cravings to share my naches ('joy') with the world.

Input is welcomed.

Re-Defining Friendships

Almost anyone on Facebook (or other online 'social networks') goes through the same decision making process. Do we or do we not ‘accept’ a Friend request from someone we barely know? The former high school classmate who never spoke to you once in those four years? The colleague who works in a different department, and you think you might know who they are, but you aren’t sure? The ‘Friend’ of a ‘Friend’ who liked the comment you made on one of your friend’s posts? The complete stranger who came across your blog, liked what they read?

As a member of the genealogy-blogging community, I’ve received scores of friend requests from fellow genealogists. I’ve accepted all of them.

And then there is the next issue. At what point do you end one of these new ‘friendships.’ Is there anything that would cause me to defriend someone?

I reached that point today.

It wasn’t because they were filling my newsfeed with silly game statuses. I long ago learned how to hide those.

It was because of a racist comment they made. The comment was also political, but the politics didn’t matter to me. I have ‘real world’ friends who have diametrically opposed political views. I’ve had a couple political discussions with some Facebook friends who are otherwise unknown to me – and I haven’t defriended them because they have opinions that differ from mine. But I won’t tolerate racism.

This is where the party ends.

It’s likely they will recognize themselves, as I suspect Facebook notifies you when you have been defriended, and I suspect they read my blog.

They'll probably insist what they said wasn’t racist, or that I’m over-reacting. That’s OK with me. They are entitled to believe what they want to believe. But, to me, what they said was racist, and since I don’t really know them, I see no reason I need to keep them on my list of ‘friends.’