Safe posting tips for children and teenagers

[Tina]

SAFE POSTING TIPS FOR CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS

Here at Reptile Forums UK we are happy to encourage young keepers to join our community so that they can learn and share their knowledge. We are also committed to ensuring that the youngsters who use our forum do so in a safe and happy environment.

Forums and other social networking groups are a great place to chat with other people who have the same interests but always try to remember the following:

Forums aren’t real time like msn or chat rooms, when you post on a forum it remains there for other people to look at later and is available for everyone to see.

• Never reveal anything about yourself… including name, age, address, post code, mobile number, the name of your school – if you do want someone to be able to contact you off the forum only ever give out your email address. The same rule applies to information about members of your family and friends.
• Never post pictures of members of your family, friends or any that could identify where you live.
• Never post pictures of yourself that you wouldn’t be happy for your parents or teachers to see!
• Never arrange to meet someone you have spoken to on the forum, you can never know for certain that the person is genuine. If you do feel it’s appropriate to meet someone ALWAYS discuss this with your parents/carers first, arrange to meet in a public place and take along a parent or another adult to the first meeting.

• If a member asks where you live, for instance to ask if you can recommend any pet shops or vets, only reply with an area. For instance Surrey, Yorkshire, Angus etc.
• Never post anything about yourself that you wouldn’t want the world at large to know.
• NEVER respond to posts, private messages or emails that you feel are abusive, bullying, sexually explicit, suggestive or make you feel uncomfortable in any way. Report these immediately to a moderator and discuss them with a parent/carer or another adult you trust (don’t delete these as you will need to show them to a moderator when you report them).
• Don’t open any attachments, from strangers, sent to you by private message or email.
• Don't user your email address as your user name.
• Make sure that you use safe passwords so that others can’t log onto your account, never share these passwords with anyone – not even your best friends.

Agree with your parent/carer rules for going on-line… how often, how long for, what sites you can access on-line.

Help and advice about staying safe online and reporting abuse can be found on the following sites:

http://www.ceop.gov.uk/reportabuse/index.asp
http://www.childline.org.uk/Info/Pages/OnlineSafety.aspx
http://tcs.cybertipline.com/
http://tcs.cybertipline.com/knowthedangers8.htm
http://www.virtualglobaltaskforce.com/

REMEMBER… THESE TIPS APPLY ON ALL SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES SUCH AS FACEBOOK, BEBO, MYSPACE, MSN ETC AS WELL AS REPTILE FORUMS UK.