Does anyone have any concerns about posting videos and names of your DD over the internet? Maybe I am overly cautious, but I think posting videos of young girls over the internet could be problematic since complete strangers can access the videos from youtube, this forum, etc. However, I do appreciate others posting videos since I can learn from them, I just don't know if I personally would ever post my DD since I cannot monitor who has access to the information.
Any concern over posting videos of your young daughters?
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I would avoid posting a clip of her in an identifiable uniform or any other information that could inform a predator, but; the majority of abuse is by family, friends and neighbors I'm told. They already know how to find your kid. According to what I've read, it's not the stranger in the trench coat who is the likely source of problems. It's someone much more familiar. In today's world it's a fine line between vigilance and paranoia but we should be well informed about the frequency of what kind of problems are coming from what areas.
I worked for a long time with child abuse victims. Mark is absolutely correct--the vast majority of child abuse is by people the child and family knows. I think the ratio is something like 100 abuses by a family member/acquaintance to 1 abuse by a complete stranger. Of course, the "complete stranger" stories get much more press.
But, Mark's advice is very good--don't put something in a video that identifies where your child lives or goes to school.
But, Mark's advice is very good--don't put something in a video that identifies where your child lives or goes to school.
I agree that most abuse happens by someone very close and familiar with the child but I am suprised how many videos of young girls are on the internet with their full names (e.g. teenager college SB recruiting videos, etc) where the location and name of the girls is mentioned for anyone to see. Even on this site, I have seen girls names and the parents have shared their hometown with the forum community. I'll probably never post a video of my DD, but if I did I would not use her name and I would "blur out" her face so she is unrecognizable.
We should all be protective of our daughters. One disturbing 2009 story, I read of a
softball (assisitant) coach 27 yrs. old who had a relationship with a player on his team 16U travel.
If I were that dad, he would need to be locked up for his own protection. This is why leagues and
clubs do background checks on volunteers.
softball (assisitant) coach 27 yrs. old who had a relationship with a player on his team 16U travel.
If I were that dad, he would need to be locked up for his own protection. This is why leagues and
clubs do background checks on volunteers.
- Sep 3, 2009
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I work in the IT security field, and I'm not overly concerned with it. People will only find out about you, as much information as you put out there. If you post all kinds of personal details, you may well be setting yourself up for a number of things, child predators, indentity theft, etc. Publicly posting emails with your name (ex: john.doe@abc.com), stating the exact city you live in, children's names, school names, etc are all bad ideas. Abstract email addresses, referring to your daughter as DD instead of by her name, saying you live in south eastern Illinois, as opposed to Cicero, are all steps you can do to minimize the threat. If you join youtube, don't use your real name, and use an abstract webmail address from yahoo or something. If you understand the threat that is out there, then you can take a guarded stance. The problem is the people who are oblivious to the threat, and post everything under the sun out there for anyone to see.
I'd definitely keep details and very personal info to a minimum. The internet is a "public" place for sure, but so is a tournament complex. True, that area is not available for anyone in the entire world to see. However, if someone wanted to prey on young women they could easily get a LOT more personal info about a player by going to a field probably than they could seeing a video over the internet (unless the video is super detailed of course).
As with everything else we do in life, there is a cost/benefit analysis involved here, and each of us uses his/her own set of standards to judge which outweighs which.
I'm sure that for some people, the risk of injury involved in playing softball exceeds by an unacceptable margin the benefit the sport might provide for their children's development, and choose to keep their children away from the field as a result. Based on their standards, this is an entirely reasonable choice.
Those who visit this board obviously operate on a somewhat different set of standards.
I would hazard a guess that the odds of our DD getting injured on the softball field significantly exceed those of their being preyed upon by unsavory characters who might visit an Internet softball discussion forum from half a world away. As Mark and Stacie suggested, the chances of our children coming into contact with these potential predators are probably far greater when they hang out unsupervised in our own neighborhood and at tournaments than as a result of their videos being posted here.
This is not to say that due caution (as outlined in the other posts) should not be exercised if and when we choose to post information about our children in an open forum. Of course we should, and I think we do, for the most part, based on what we believe to be an acceptable balance between the risk of some privacy loss and the benefit of gaining helpful input from knowledgeable people across the country, whom we'd otherwise never have a chance to hear from. Again, each of us draws the line differently between what's acceptable risk and what is not. I think the rest of us should respect these choices once they've been made.
In the end, teaching our children to use proper judgment themselves and maintaining a healthy and open communication channel with them will do more to keep them safe than anything else we can do.
Just my $0.02
Gene
I'm sure that for some people, the risk of injury involved in playing softball exceeds by an unacceptable margin the benefit the sport might provide for their children's development, and choose to keep their children away from the field as a result. Based on their standards, this is an entirely reasonable choice.
Those who visit this board obviously operate on a somewhat different set of standards.
I would hazard a guess that the odds of our DD getting injured on the softball field significantly exceed those of their being preyed upon by unsavory characters who might visit an Internet softball discussion forum from half a world away. As Mark and Stacie suggested, the chances of our children coming into contact with these potential predators are probably far greater when they hang out unsupervised in our own neighborhood and at tournaments than as a result of their videos being posted here.
This is not to say that due caution (as outlined in the other posts) should not be exercised if and when we choose to post information about our children in an open forum. Of course we should, and I think we do, for the most part, based on what we believe to be an acceptable balance between the risk of some privacy loss and the benefit of gaining helpful input from knowledgeable people across the country, whom we'd otherwise never have a chance to hear from. Again, each of us draws the line differently between what's acceptable risk and what is not. I think the rest of us should respect these choices once they've been made.
In the end, teaching our children to use proper judgment themselves and maintaining a healthy and open communication channel with them will do more to keep them safe than anything else we can do.
Just my $0.02
Gene
- Jan 15, 2009
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We've been discussing this in regards to player profiles as well. Our organization decided that we would not put home addresses or phone numbers of players on profiles, but would put email addresses only. The concern with the phone numbers is that they could be used to reverse directory the address.
Unfortunately, it is only a matter of time, before we have to remove all references of our DDs, that could possibly be traced back to them.
The U of A girls attract some weird fans that are overly exuberant about picture taking, scrap book making and web site comments.
Pics can so easily be photoshopped anymore, that I just don't put any pictures up. I make certain that the face isn't recognizable, if I do.
It is awful that we have to think this way, anymore. I am reading that pictures of the track girls and volleyball girls are more sought after than the softball and basketball girls (in general.)
The U of A girls attract some weird fans that are overly exuberant about picture taking, scrap book making and web site comments.
Pics can so easily be photoshopped anymore, that I just don't put any pictures up. I make certain that the face isn't recognizable, if I do.
It is awful that we have to think this way, anymore. I am reading that pictures of the track girls and volleyball girls are more sought after than the softball and basketball girls (in general.)
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