can't control son's it use

I faced huge agonies over controlling the teenagers online to keep them safe. I can't say I have the answers. First thing is to realise that if we over control them, they will find ways to outsmart us, to hack us and basically to escape in a dangerous way. So better to keep it open, so you can actually see what is going on. I also realised that at certain age you let go of over protecting them, it's a motherly instinct, but we need to let them sail into adulthood.

Another principle is 'self regulation' is better than external control, because we all obsessively circumvent external controls, while self regulation is a good skill for a responsible adult. 

He clearly has his hot buttons, why is he so desperately escaping controls? Why does he want to have several profiles with different pictures? Find what is his need. Does he want to experiment how he can be 'popular', how he can influence people.? All people do that, even if not that explicitly. Then give him licence to do it in a safe way. Explain that posting videos of other children in family is abusing them, it is as wrong as other nasty people abusing your son's agency, find an example that would be telling and sensitive to him, explain that he should treat people with the same respect that he would like to be treated with.  Explain the sanctity of personal space and privacy, he would certainly understand this, posting the fake profiles, so he should afford this to his family members, because he loves and respects them. It doesn't matter what other morons do online, he is better than that. Explain that he should not chaise popularity by abusing other people, as he would not like other people do it to him. Eventually it backfires. Being truthful, true to yourself is being free. Try to explore this principle with him. He can get his freedom by being himself. 

Explain also the legal pitfalls of being deliberately deceptive, posting different images, impersonating other people. Make sure he understands where just being private and experimenting crosses into abuse of other people and to never cross that line. It is quite common having different user names on some sites and being truly anonymous, meaning no photos and no expectation of revealing identity when changing user names. This is one situation. There are sites where you are expected to present yourself, again there are some tolerances. On Twitter some people use fake photos and say 'picture not mine' in their profile. On Facebook some people never post their picture, use a symbolic avatar, some on Fb use fake names, and admit it to their group. What is not acceptable is to really pretending to be someone else, with a fake picture pretending to be genuine, especially when engaging with other people. 

You could always get him to show you how clever he is in the internet - give him some difficult tasks - get him to price up a fictional holiday including car hire, hotel, excursions etc. - show him the real uses of the internet. 

Do you have any hobbies with hard-to-find parts?  Get him to price stuff up for you - if he's as savvy as you say, challenge him - he'll love it..

If you were to buy a holiday home - where & why - get him to do some research.

He will find porn - live with it.   It was dirty mags back in the day - just make sure he doesn't pay for anything or give his identity away or screw up the computer with viruses.

I got a cheap computer from ebay with it's boot discs for my daughter so if she messed up, wipe the disc & start again - she could build a pc from scratch and load an operating system aged 8.

I think you may be turning the internet into something mysterious and exciting for him by the way you're limiting access to it..  Really, I think you need to be very switched on yourself and be showing how to get around safely without compromising his access.

You need to suggest to him about keeping his identitiy secret and not 'giving' information away.  

You need to explain to him about the dangers of the internet and what the risks are and how people are always looking to rip you off, steal your information and get your data.  Make him understand that the internet is there to be used - and I'm not sure I'd be limiting the access - I'd be encouraging him to talk to you openly about what he does and encouraging him to make fake ids.

From the age of 8 I always encouraged my daughter to use the internet freely - as long as she protected herself by creating false identities and using false addresses and telephone numbers (we used legitimate addresses from major museums and their phone numbers for fake ids so any checkers would find a valid address).

We created false Facebook profiles so she could look around and be nosey without leaving her own ID anywhere so she could see what it was all about - and see the bullying going on.

She was all sorts of kids forums where she learned all about not getting into fights on there - because you really don't know who you're dealing with.

She became VERY tech savvy and only started using her real name on the internet very recently - and she's now 20!

If he is as good with tech as you say it will be difficult to find out what he is up to

I can't really offer any advice on how to achieve it but you need to get him to understand consent and what he can/can't post online, have you spoken to him with interest in what he is posting as this may give you a way to cover some of the safety/privacy problems 

The issue of him spying and taking pictures I think needs addressing as a separate issue as that us clearly crossing boundaries. Did you talk to him about why he did it? Or just stop him and tell him it's wrong, understanding what he was thinking could be used to explain why it's not acceptable.

My concern is 2 fold. Firstly that he is posting without consent and secondly that he is so savvy that I wonder what else he is doing that we are unaware off. 

It is very hard to reason with him and he is renagging any rules. My instinct is to remove his phone and tablet but not really coherent for day to day life. He doesn't accept any responsibility for his actions

We have had a previous instance of spying on his cousin whilst she was changing ando trying to take photos but we caught this on time. The upload on this occasion seems harmless enough but he clearly has no perception of what is and isn't acceptable and worried where it will end up. 

It's not clear what your concerns are.  If you think you are keeping him safe, then he's finding ways around your rules.  

What are your fears?

Is the problem that he is posting videos of others without consent? If so try explaining that you need peoples permission to share videos of them.

Alot of people do vlogging and providing you have adequate privacy settings applied surely it is a communication method? 

Maybe discuss viewing videos before he uploads them and encouraging him to understand others may not want their videos out there?