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Is it safe to put your kid’s names and photos on your blog? What I learned at BlogHer, Part 1

I was just drafting a post about being safe when you’re a single parent blogger, and my sweet dad called to give me the heads up about today’s San Francisco Chronicle. In today’s article about “Mommy Bloggers,” Heather Armstrong — aka Dooce – says she “has seen photos of her daughter manipulated online.”

MommyBlogging: Public Parenting & Privacy was the most challenging workshop I attended at BlogHer. The room was filled with fear. One mother told me later that the paranoia was too much for her.

The session began with a discussion about safety and our kids: sex predators, kidnapping, people stealing photos without permission, strangers finding out where you live, legal issues. If you’d like to read more detailed notes about the workshop, Rose’s Life did a great “live” write-up during the discussion.

It was very helpful to hear what Shino Tanaka — a former police officer and current community manager at BabyCenter.com — said about the realities of “stranger danger.” More than 80 percent of the children abducted every year are taken by people we know. Moreover, more than half of the cyberstalking cases are from people we know.

Crystal McKee — who uses real names and posts pictures on her blog Boobs, Injuries, and Dr. Pepper – writes about her 15 year-old son who was missing for 10 years. When she got her son back, she started telling his story.

“In real life, I’m very protective of my children,” Crystal said. “I’m more worried about the creepy guy who might live across the street.”

Many mommy bloggers raised their hands to say that it was their husband’s idea to keep the kids’ names and photos off the blog. If I were married, I probably wouldn’t have a blog.

This blog grew out of my book, in which I’d already disclosed my real name, as well as my child’s. Even so, I was very cautious about going online.

Today, two years later, the community and support I’ve discovered — with all of you — far outweighs any fears I might have.

Your turn. Let’s hear from the bloggers who post real names and photos. What are your thoughts? And how about those of you who use pseudonyms and don’t post photos? Why did you make this decision?

Notes from the Trenches, watermarks the photos of her kids and has a private flickr account. She’s being cautious; but she added that she’s not going to live in fear. Like Chris, I plan to start watermarking my photos soon.

In the meantime, if any of you have seen photos of Mae and me floating around the web, would you let me know? I’ve already found a couple of stolen pics on the web. I’ll alert you if I see a photo of you or your kids in a place it shouldn’t belong, okay?

Let’s use this this technology to keep our eyes out for each other… this is one of positive angles of blogging. I say: let’s be there for each other. Don’t you?

Example of watermarked photo from Picture Shark

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