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. 

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.