bebo and teenage privacy

thebaz · 25-05-2006 06:03PM #1

Like many teenagers my daughter has her own Bebo website -- we suspect her to be up to no good -- what do people , especially Bebo users themselves, think of there parents/ teachers reviewing there sites ? Are teenagers boasting what they are actually up to, are there freinds/enemies planting stuff ? are they exagerating to look cool ? are other kids creating false sites for someone the don't like ? hard to know what to believe , as the main users are young teenagers .

Time Magazine · 25-05-2006 06:09PM

Bebo = safer than the real world.

Bebo = crap.

And,
Bebo = frowned upon on boards.

fuzzywiggle · 25-05-2006 06:11PM

Exaggerating to look cool? Yes. I've seen some young teenagers that I know that have ''i love smoking,gettin locked, gettin high wit me mates'' as the main sentences on their bebo.

stevenmu · 25-05-2006 06:12PM

Teenagers are always up to no good, at least with bebo they're doing it in your house where you can keep some sort of an eye on them instead of off in a field somewhere

Ruu_Old · 25-05-2006 06:12PM

Plenty of exaggerating and plenty of rubbish. I closed mine a while ago, used it to keep in touch with friends from my old school and college but got bored and just got their emails.

secret_squirrel · 25-05-2006 06:12PM

Teenagers are always up to something their parents wouldnt approve of, its just the degree of disapproval that changes.

If I was you I would sit her down and explain the perils of posting personal info on the interweb.

Im sure with a little work you could track her site down on bebo - review it and make your own mind up on whether she is crossing the line.

Presumably she's using the family PC to post? There are many ways to find out how she is using that PC. It just depends on how you balance keeping her safe and still giving her some privacy.

I would think long and hard before doing this but I would guess that if you went to Bebo on the family computer and using her account (if you have named accounts on your pc) then it would probably be set up to log automatically into bebo.

If not a quick search of the history pages, the cookies or the browser cache would probably give you enough pointers.

Karoma · 25-05-2006 06:15PM

Ruu wrote:

Plenty of exaggerating and plenty of rubbish. I closed mine a while ago.

And then there was a little bit less.

Bebo, and the bahaviour demonstrated on it are symptomatic of society as a whole. It's what teenagers do. Your concern should extend as far as your child and not much further. If you take issue with it - raise your daughter well, monitor or restrict her access to the Internet as well as you can, and report anything dodgy to Bebo.

ed: You might also want to point her in the direction of threads relating to people getting in trouble for their Bebo profile (ex: Students getting in trouble for photo's of them drinking and smoking,etc. on school holidays being posted on a Bebo profile)

Red Alert · 25-05-2006 06:18PM

i wouldn't worry about what she's up to on bebo. they're probably all at it in her school.

Lisapeep · 25-05-2006 06:19PM

As others have said, create your own profile on Bebo and log on to see what she's up to! You'll see all the discussions she has with her friends so you'll know exectly what they're all up to, you'll see what her friends are really like and be able to monitor all of this whenever you want!

I don't think anything happens in Bebo that doesn't happen in the real world. If her friends are swearing on Bebo, they probably do it in school too. If they're talking about boys on Bebo, they're most likely talking about that stuff in school too. At least on Bebo you could monitor it!

smemon · 25-05-2006 06:29PM

bebo is harmless.

it's the same as when camera phones first came out, all that privacy rubbish and people wanting them banned :rolleyes:

it's technology, live with it. it makes life easier and also is a fun way of communicating with friends, maybe friends you've lost contact with.

the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, no question about that. in a year or two it'll have died down just like camera phones and parents will be picking holes in some other fad.

there is only 1 person who can put your privacy at risk - and that is yourself. the potential problem lies with the user, not with bebo.

cars are dangerous and can kill people if used in the wrong way, so do we ban them all? no, we educate drivers, train drivers and highlight dangers. cars won't be done away with and neither will the likes of bebo. people have to deal with it, not complain bout it and try to get it shut down.

easy_as_easy · 25-05-2006 06:35PM

oh my god.

dlofnep · 25-05-2006 06:56PM

bax wrote:

Like many teenagers my daughter has her own Bebo website -- we suspect her to be up to no good -- what do people , especially Bebo users themselves, think of there parents/ teachers reviewing there sites ? Are teenagers boasting what they are actually up to, are there freinds/enemies planting stuff ? are they exagerating to look cool ? are other kids creating false sites for someone the don't like ? hard to know what to believe , as the main users are young teenagers .

Teen Privacy? It's a public website - What they advertise on their has nothing to do with privacy, if it was they wouldn't have it on there.

Let your children live, it's just a website. They are obviously going to type on their like they'd type to their friends and not parents.

chump · 25-05-2006 07:08PM

Don't be looking at what your kids write on bebo would be my advice.

Diarmsquid · 25-05-2006 08:23PM

easy_as_easy wrote:

oh my god.

The OP is your Dad?

Cake Fiend · 25-05-2006 08:31PM

Make sure your kid knows that anyone in the world can see their page - some of these kids seem to think that it's only their mates that will be looking at their info.

I work in an internet café and I regularly see men in their thirties and forties looking up profiles of 14-year-old girls and boys. Who knows what they do with the info they find? Creeps the hell out of me, anyway. As far as I know a Bebo profile can be set up so that only people in the author's 'friend list' or whatever can view it - that might be a good start.

Setun · 25-05-2006 08:35PM

Bebo's grand, just a bunch of empty boasts tha's all. I'd be more worried about them spending too much time on it than outside enjoying 'teh fantastic weather'.

PlayGirl · 25-05-2006 08:36PM

i myself have a bebo page and find it is a great way to communitcate with friends, as it is easy and cheap.. i dont understand why school teachers look up the profiles of there students, it doesnt really have anything to do with them tbh.. and as for the OP, make sure that u do not complete invade your daughters privacy as if she finds out she will never trust you, and dont get too wound up about what she writes on it, its only words.. it doesnt mean she actually does all the things she says she does..

PrettyInPunk · 25-05-2006 09:09PM

PlayGirl wrote:

i myself have a bebo page and find it is a great way to communitcate with friends, as it is easy and cheap.. i dont understand why school teachers look up the profiles of there students, it doesnt really have anything to do with them tbh.. and as for the OP, make sure that u do not complete invade your daughters privacy as if she finds out she will never trust you, and dont get too wound up about what she writes on it, its only words.. it doesnt mean she actually does all the things she says she does..

i completely agree with you..also if you go on her bebo homepage and snoop around to find there is nothing and she finds out there could be war.personally i think its a bit of an invasion but if your worried or whatever go ahead.

Rb · 25-05-2006 09:16PM

Angry Banana wrote:

Bebo = safer than the real world.

Bebo = crap.

And,
Bebo = frowned upon on boards.

Great way to summarise it

OP: Your daughter is posting her information on a publicly available website, if you're worried and want to see whats going on then have a look at her profile. She's posted it, she's then accepted that anybody is able to read it (including you, teachers etc) and if she throws a fit over finding out you looked at it, get rid of her internet access until she grows up a bit.

R0ot · 25-05-2006 09:44PM

Bebo like so many other things will die eventually, boards will live forever though!

Gator · 25-05-2006 10:24PM

All bebo users should die!!!

thebaz · 25-05-2006 10:27PM

it's a bit like snooping in some ones diary, some bebo sites are private and some can be accessed via google -- i got a bit of shock very saucy, and lots of talk about booze -- can't watch her all the time , but hope that the talk is bravado -- it would really worry me if it was all true -- is Dublin teenage life really like that film 13 -- what a depressing thought.

Tusky · 25-05-2006 10:34PM

bax wrote:

is Dublin teenage life really like that film 13 -- what a depressing thought.

no, its not.

Adam · 25-05-2006 10:34PM

A bebo page is set to only be viewable by direct friends by default, it has to be changed by you to be completely public.

@ OP

I really wouldn't worry, Bebo changes nothing. Unless you had worries before now about your daughters lifestyle/friends/activities then there is no reason to start because she has a page on Bebo, its all a talked up farce! Being part of any online community leaves you open to attack, for example I caould be trolling/flaming you right now, because you're part of boards.ie, so should your wife monitor your activity?

As for teachers reviewing the sites, I think that's just sad. Its just an exploitation of an online community because they can't do a decent job within the school that they have to take it outside the school.

lostexpectation · 25-05-2006 11:19PM

if you teenage daughter is smoking drinking and having sex well its got nothing to do with bebo an you should be able to deal with it without reading bebo or her diary.

Sparky · 25-05-2006 11:28PM

Gator wrote:

All bebo users should die!!!

So cloud should die?

homah_7ft · 25-05-2006 11:29PM

To the OP. Have you looked at your child's page?

Sully · 25-05-2006 11:33PM

Bebo.. What can I say? I have my own Bebo account, amongst the majority of the rest of us Irish. Its not a teen thing - college students use it too you know.

Bebo do a good bit to help protect people, but I never thought they did enough. Iv had to contact a person in support directly to get an account closed down casue it was impersonating a girl I knew and making offensive / inappropriate comments. Thats a big part of Bebo now - impersonation. People sign up pretending to be someone else they know - and make a fool of themselves.

Also there are a lot of girls signing up with the sole purpose to go around hunting for fellas through the site - and use fake pics / descriptions to "wheel em in".

Just check the profile briefly now and again - the ones that are inappropriate are obvious.

Slutmonkey57b · 26-05-2006 12:09AM

fade_to_grey wrote:

As for teachers reviewing the sites, I think that's just sad. Its just an exploitation of an online community because they can't do a decent job within the school that they have to take it outside the school.

No it isn't it's an example of tachers being more responsible for the children in their care than the parents.

andrew163 · 26-05-2006 12:10AM

bax wrote:

-- is Dublin teenage life really like that film 13 -- what a depressing thought.

If it was I'd have sealed myself in a time-release safe that won't open until I'm 20 a long time ago...i'm 18

That was a baaaaad film... and Dublin teenage life doesn't even enter the same realm as it...

Anyways, I have a bebo page. Use it for talking to people from my secondary school that I never see anymore. That and drawing stuff on the drawing brick thingys that it has.

IceHawk · 26-05-2006 09:26AM

If a Bebo page is public, it's fair game. A public page is in no way like a diary. People have to choose to make theirs public, and in my opinion, if they do, they are accepting that anyone will be able to see it. Go ahead and trawl through it. Even though most of the stuff is probably bravado and rumour, it will at least give you some idea of the attitudes of some of your daughter's friends. I wouldn't overreact to anything I see on there though.

bebo and teenage privacy

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