{"id":2638,"date":"2006-08-23T06:29:21","date_gmt":"2006-08-23T13:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/08\/23\/baby-blogging-and-internet-paedophiles\/"},"modified":"2006-08-23T06:29:21","modified_gmt":"2006-08-23T13:29:21","slug":"baby-blogging-and-internet-paedophiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2638","title":{"rendered":"Baby blogging and internet paedophiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I attended a child protection conference. Several issues came up that would be essays in themselves, but the one that most immediately disturbs me is the chair’s attitude towards baby blogging. I post the occasional picture of Andrea over at The Iron-On Line<\/a>, and I mentioned this as one way that her father kept abreast of her progress without interacting with me directly.<\/p>\n

As soon as I mentioned the words “pictures” and “internet”, the chair became very grave. She asked me whether I was aware that paedophiles look for images of children on the internet and manipulate them for their own twisted ends. I was aware of it, but I don’t understand how the existence of manipulated pictures could harm my daughter. I don’t think child pornography – even the faked kind that’s at issue here – is acceptable, but neither do I think giving up baby blogging is an effective way to combat it.<\/p>\n

I post pictures of Andrea because I want my friends to see them. My friends are a diverse lot, scattered all across the globe, and if I sent out the pictures in email by request only, some of them would miss out. Even if I posted them on a password-protected website, the act of having to enter a password is enough to deter her father from accessing the pictures, and I don’t want to raise any more barriers between father and daughter than he has already created.<\/p>\n

And if I could practically give the pictures only to known friends, that’s no guarantee they wouldn’t end up in the hands of a paedophile anyway. Once they’re out of my hands, they’re out of my control. I may be certain none of my friends are paedophiles (as it happens, I’m not: I trust no-one absolutely), but can I say the same for their friends? Their co-workers? Can I be sure they won’t inadvertently leave a copy of one of the photographs on the bus for anyone to pick up?<\/p>\n

So not only is it restrictive, it’s also ineffective. It reminds me of the rape-prevention advice that boils down to “live in constant fear.” Do nothing unless you’ve first assured yourself that it won’t make you (or in this case your family) into a victim. Allow the rapists to set the conditions by which you live your life. That’s one situation in which I find it perfectly reasonable to say, “The terrorists will have won.”<\/p>\n

I’m not blind to the dangers of paedophiles. My daughter’s still too young to be out of my sight, but as she gets older and more independant I intend to give her all the sensible advice I can about self-protection, probably combined with natural parental paranoia. But cracking down on child pornography is a task for law enforcement. I shouldn’t have to stop sharing pictures of my beautiful little girl because determined perverts can manipulate them..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I attended a child protection conference. Several issues came up that would be essays in themselves, but the one that most immediately disturbs me is the chair’s attitude towards baby blogging. I post the occasional picture of Andrea … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}