# ******** or not???



## Irishlady

Hi

I used to be on ******** and then came off it when we were matched with wee one. We are going to court soon to legalise process and am thinking about going back on, anyone else done this? I am still cautious, even though bp's had no contact for nearly a year. In a bit of a muddle about it, and wanted to see what others had done.

Also I have signed declaration at toddler groups etc to say no photos of wee one, can this now be changed once she is legally adopted as our daughter? 

xx


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## wynnster

Hi & Congratulations!! 

I'm on **    I think the thing with ** (and any other site really) is to be cautious.  I don't put my location, don't put photo's of me or the children on etc.  I know of someone who uses an alias on ** as an extra security measure too...
I do wonder quite often if I should just come off but tbh I'm too nosey      You also have to think of if there is any serious risk to being found by bp's, if there was I obviously wouldn't be on it. 

Re the photo's, again depends on the risk involved.  I remember being very worried about photo's when ds first came home but I have relaxed over the years, now with a very aware 5 year old he would want to know why he couldn't be in the paper / school mag etc and how would I explain that?!? He would feel awful being left out.
I would however draw the line if his name AND photo were to be published anywhere......
xxx


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## Irishlady

Thank you, that is helpful. 

Will speak to sw as well x


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## thespouses

I think it depends on the situation - I've written on here recently about my friend and her two sons with very different degrees of risk. I have a feeling the younger one (with less risk) may have birth sibs who'd randomly get in touch but who wouldn't be a big risk to him, if he had his own ** page for example (he's a teenager now).

I use ** for myself, but although we don't have any particular risks we'd rather photos of our little boy don't get shared randomly. So I do put them up but I use a closed group that I ask my friends to request to be on, and I've only put on people I trust not to send photos round. And I ask friends not to tag me in photos, unless it's completely unrelated to family life (so for example I have a photo of me on my work web page, which I can't avoid, and I am googleable anyway - so if someone searched for me they'd find a photo of me anyway).  

I've also set my ******** page to be unsearchable unless you are a friend of a friend - so I'm fairly careful about it.


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## jitterbug

Same as me thespouses. I put photos of DD on but to a select group of people only. I am also unsearchable. I would advise that every time ** upgrade or change something to check your settings, as sometimes they are meddled with to go to 'default' without advice.


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## thespouses

jitterbug said:


> I would advise that every time ** upgrade or change something to check your settings, as sometimes they are meddled with to go to 'default' without advice.


Very good advice - I try and remember to do this.


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## Irishlady

Thank you, great advice   

Will spend time reading security/account settings on fbook now!

x


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## Miny Moo

I use ** a lot, I have all my security at the tightest settings, I do put pictures of my boy on there but he was a very long distance placement so absolutely no chance of any of my friends being friends with anyone who would know BF. also all our friends and family know that they are not to put photo,s of him on their pages, I can control my page, I cannot control others.


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## sweets x

Hi peeps.
I am on ******** too but since Lo's are not from too far away have changed back to my maiden name. Don't put pics on as am only friends with family and they have their own pics. Have groups that i play games etc... and they don't see my status's. Onl add people for games from other countries as am so paranoid lol. Better to be safe than sorry. Also, friends and family know not to put pics on and we use initials for the girls nicknames too. Quite protected but I think in some cases you need to be 

sweets xx


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## AoC

Just jumping in here to say that my SW made the point that according to ******** T&Cs, anything you post on there becomes their property (she may be wrong, but that's what she was saying) so she never posts any pics of her child on **.

We haven't really decided what we'd do, but I think I'd investigate other ways of sharing pics.


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## baby0684

How do you make you security so that you are not searchable.

I think I may have an alias as well on my ********. As the people who are my frinds will know and be friends with me already. Now im older I dont make many new friends anyway.


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## Mrs Dibbles

umm and ahhed for ages about going on ******** but decided to. I only have a small group of friends who all know our situation and never use ds name. More because I'm paranoid really rather than there being any real threat. Also never use pics. good luck with what you decide to do.


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## Doofuz

This is something I have already begun to think about. I have altered all my settings and I am unsearchable. This can be done in the privacy settings and toggle with all the custom/friends tags. I have stripped my friends list to the people I can infinitely trust and who know what we are going through. I don't intend to put photos online. If I do, they will be taken appropriately, side on etc. I think it's sad that we have to be like this, but thinking about it, any photo of any child can be at risk so I think we would have taken the same precautions anyhow. I even went through my photos the other day and took off the ones that may give my location away such as fetes and shopping centres. Good luck with what you decide to do, whatever you choose should work for you


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## smudgerbabe

I agree with Doofuz - you can spend the time adjusting all of your privacy settings to 'friends only' rather than 'friends of friends' or 'everyone' and adjust settings about being tagged in photos etc. However the best way is to speak directly to 'friends' and make sure they don't post photos or comments you're not happy with on their accounts. If you get the settings right random uninvited people can't see your account anyway. 

There are other ways for photo sharing though without using ******** - the best option being Flickr I think - where you can set the privacy settings to only particular people, or send a specific private link to people you want to share certain pics with. It's more private esp. if you get the privacy settings right. 

Remember that whether you're on ******** or not it doesn't stop other people posting stuff on their ******** account so the most important thing is that they all know what's OK and what's not!

By the way - my social worker came today and told me a story of a recent problem they had where the adopted parents had kindly shared photos with the birth family via letterbox etc and the birth family then posted them all on ******** causing distress all round as you can imagine.


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## someday

I like to post photos etc on ** and it disappoints me that when we are matched I won't be able to do that so much. Neither of us have family in the UK and so it would have been a good way to share photos with family - we will have to find another way. I find it sad that I can't show off photos of "MY" children for fear of someone sharing them somehow. My settings are friends only and I am also not possible to find to non friends.

Regarding the sharing photos with birth family. I really wouldn't do this. My other fear of this is that if they see us out they would recognise the children and perhaps create a scene of some sort. We are happy to have yearly letter contact though.


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## thespouses

We use Picasa for family and friends who don't do **. Several of the photo printing websites like photobox have sharing options too.

To be honest and very blunt, if you don't understand how to make ** secure, don't use it! Just email photos to people or use another sharing site.

You do risk people sharing photos inappropriately however you share them, even if you post physical prints.


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## summer girl

H All

Someone recently sent me this link which goes through what you can do to lock down the recent ******** changes: http://lifehacker.com/5813990/the-always-up%20to%20date-guide-to-managing-your-********-privacy?utm_campaign=socialflow_lifehacker_twitter&utm_source=lifehacker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow hope it helps
[/size]
[/size]summer girl x

/links


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