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Oct 9, 2007 5:42 pm US/Eastern
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Disturbing Trend: Kids' Online Posts, Blogs Getting More Parents In Trouble
Mom & Dad Paying Price At Work For Teen Ramblings
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Kids are prone to spilling secrets online. Now parents are paying the price.
As CBS 2 HD found out some are paying a high price, losing their jobs and even getting arrested.
Shannon Sullivan knows anything she posts on social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, can come back to hurt her when she applies for college or a job. What the 16-year-old didn't know?
"I had no idea that things I post on the Internet could come back to hurt my family, not just me," Sullivan said.
Parry Aftab of Wired Safety said the problem is much bigger than many think.
"I've represented a lot of parents who've come to me when they have been fired, they've been demoted or they've been called on the carpet because of what their kids posted online," Aftab said.
Internet safety experts warn many teens still don't understand that their posts on networking and blogging sites are not private.
Sgt. Corey MacDonald tours the country speaking about Internet safety and said police and employers are watching. He demonstrated just how easy it is to find incriminating posts.
"Whether we're talking about dad's work secrets or problems between mom and dad wit their relationship," he said.
Here's an example of some of the posts MacDonald has found.
* "Not only do I have to live with my nagging mom, my dad does drugs."
* "This person, Tara, says her parents are lazy alcoholics."
From here, it's easy for police and employers to identify teens and their parents.
"All they have to do is narrow down who this person is that's posting this, and then it's relatively easy to search their name on one of the online search sites and find out who their family is," MacDonald said.
Some posts are leading to arrests, like in the case of a boy who boasted online about his mother buying a keg for his underage friends.
"They may be talking about how their father is losing a job and perhaps a neighbor who's the mortgage broker for the father isn't aware that the father's job is in jeopardy," Aftab said.
More than 12 million kids ages 12 to 17 were using those social networking sites in August alone. That's up 15 percent from the same time last year.
Experts say it's critical for parents to talk to their teens about the repercussions of revealing family business and make sure they turn on all privacy settings.
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