访谈录 2007-07-17&07-19, 网络相册的危险

Last week, Miss New Jersey¹ told us how someone was trying to blackmail² her, threatening to make public embarrassing photographs that she posted on her Facebook page. And you might be wondering what are your kids posting and how can you protect them from prying³ and potentially dangerous eyes online.

You know, they are, they are not that bad, but they were meant to be private, and that's making me feel very vulnerable that the entire country has to see them now.

Amy Polenbo may be a beauty queen, but she is no different from the average computer user who uses social networking websites to post personal photos. MySpace and Facebook collectively garner⁴ more than 90 million users posting personal information and photos. An estimated 4.7 million are under the age of 18 on MySpace and 4.3 million on Facebook. While most intend/ for the photos they post to be viewed by close friends and family. The stories of Miss New Jersey and that of American Idol⁵ contestant⁶ Antonella Barbara offer a sobering reminder⁷. Even pictures meant to be kept private have a way of becoming public. In this new age of information, employers and school admissions councils are now using these sites to access information about job candidates and potential students. MySpace does offer privacy control for profiles in facebooks, limits access to people with the same network or groups. But there are still ways for people not connected to you to access personal information. And while devastating⁸ for her, the case of Miss New Jersey provides a valuable lesson for all Internet users.

Nothing you post on the Internet is private, even if it's in a privately⁹ accessed website.

Ruth Peters is a child psychologist, hey, Ruth, good morning. Nice to have you back. (Good morning, Matt) I, I, I look at it as the rules for photos online are a little bit like the rules for wearing a microphone around here. If you don't want someone to hear it, you don’t say while you are wearing a microphone. If you don't want someone to see the pictures, don't put them online.

There is absolutely no control once it goes online. I don't care if it says it's personal, it's private, whatever. Once it's on there, somebody can actually copy it, paste it to their own websites or into their own computers. And even if you sanitize that site afterward¹⁰, those people still have it.

And if you are a parent, and you have got teenagers, daughter, sons, and, and ,and this kinda, this Facebook craze, this MySpace craze is part of their daily socialization, how do you convince them that what can seem fun at one moment can become a nightmare another moment.

Well, first of all, I think what Miss New Jersey did is, it probably did more for all of this than anybody of us could do. And so I think what you do (is) you talk to your child, you explain it to them , and then you have to supervise them. That's the key word; you have to supervise your kids online.

I'll talk about supervising them in just a second but I think a parent has(have) to say to a child, look, this is for your friends and your family. These are the people who are supposed to see these photos. (Right!) But it only takes one angry friend or one jealous friend to make these things public.

Exactly, and that's where we say you do not have control, and so if you want to send photos to your friends or families, send them an email with that on. It doesn't have to go into this public sphere.

So parents have to familiarize themselves with Facebook and MySpace and all these things, at least they can help their children.

And it’s easy, most parents think that the technology is a bafflement beyond them, but it's really very simple to start your own account, to go in, and be able to look and see what your children are doing.

Alright, so talk to me about different age groups and how much monitoring parents should be doing with their kids and these types of pages.

I think you start that with talk about who your kid is. There are some kids that are really good and really easy and all you have to do is just check it once in a while. But other kids who are squally and impulsive¹¹ and you don't trust their judgement. Well, I would sit down and say, um, I'm paying for the Internet, what your site is on there is my site, it will embarrass me. I am gonna be checking it frequently and randomly¹².

Yeah, and parents should absolutely have the passwords, they should be able to get no matter what.

Or there is no site, I mean it's just very clear. I am paying for it, the password is mine too.

Dose the parent make the child responsible for everything on the site? In other words, you know, a friend can put something on my child’s Facebook account or what, MySpace page. So then is my child responsible for that?

Absolutely, and that's the rule I use with my kid clients. it is that I don't care what kind of language your friends are using, if it's on there and it’s bad language, you are responsible. You either have to block them or you lose the site. And your language has to be very appropriate because people will judge you by who you associate with.

And as these kids get older, they get to be of college age or at least college application age, and of job age, these accounts, these pages can come back to haunt them.

They are public, because, um, you know, the college admissions councils are now using them for grade school, and also employers, their HR departments are always going to look. So what I tell people to do is if you have to have an account, use your first name as your first name, your middle name as your last name, very difficult for other people to find out.

But again, the most important thing, it's not private. If you put it on the Internet in any way, shape or form, it's not private.

It's not private. And you wouldn't let your kid to go down the dark alley¹³ without supervision¹⁴. Don't let them go into the dark alley of the Internet without supervision.

Ruth Peters, well said. Thanks very much.

1 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

2 blackmail   

n.讹诈，敲诈，勒索，胁迫，恫吓

参考例句：

• She demanded ＄1000 blackmail from him.她向他敲诈了1000美元。
• The journalist used blackmail to make the lawyer give him the documents.记者讹诈那名律师交给他文件。

3 prying   

adj.爱打听的v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的现在分词 )；撬开

参考例句：

• I'm sick of you prying into my personal life! 我讨厌你刺探我的私生活！
• She is always prying into other people's affairs. 她总是打听别人的私事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。

5 idol   

n.偶像，红人，宠儿

参考例句：

• As an only child he was the idol of his parents.作为独子，他是父母的宠儿。
• Blind worship of this idol must be ended.对这个偶像的盲目崇拜应该结束了。

6 contestant   

n.竞争者，参加竞赛者

参考例句：

• The company will furnish each contestant with a free ticket.公司将为每个参赛者免费提供一张票。
• The personal appearance and interview of the contestant is another count.参加比赛者的个人仪表和谈话也是一项。

7 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

8 devastating   

adj.毁灭性的，令人震惊的，强有力的

参考例句：

• It is the most devastating storm in 20 years.这是20年来破坏性最大的风暴。
• Affairs do have a devastating effect on marriages.婚外情确实会对婚姻造成毁灭性的影响。

9 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

10 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

11 impulsive   

adj.冲动的，刺激的；有推动力的

参考例句：

• She is impulsive in her actions.她的行为常出于冲动。
• He was neither an impulsive nor an emotional man,but a very honest and sincere one.他不是个一冲动就鲁莽行事的人，也不多愁善感.他为人十分正直、诚恳。

12 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

13 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

14 supervision   

n.监督，管理

参考例句：

• The work was done under my supervision.这项工作是在我的监督之下完成的。
• The old man's will was executed under the personal supervision of the lawyer.老人的遗嘱是在律师的亲自监督下执行的。