Facebook Kicks Teddy Bear Offline

JeanneSager — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 18:01:00 GMT

Christopher Robin wouldn't fit in at Facebook. Winnie the Pooh's best friend treated his stuffed teddy bear like he was a real live bear. Facebook, meanwhile, has kicked a British teddy bear offline, stranding his growing friend list without a bear buddy.

Bartie Bristle's creator Amanda Middleditch put up the page as a "bit of fun." But the English bear shop worker says she got "a very abrupt e-mail saying they felt Barty could be somebody masquerading as somebody else and it could be dangerous." The page was deleted, and calls to Facebook by the British newspaper the Daily Mail were met only with reference to the social networking site's terms of use which cite a user must be at least 13 years old. Bartie is only 2.

Before you start creating a site for your daughter's favorite dolly or your son's beloved bear, take heed: the terms also warn against impersonating "any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself, your age or your affiliation with any person or entity."

If your kids want to be friends with Bartie, they still can. He's found a new home at the Ning site, McBears, and his fan base is thumbing its collective noses at Facebook.

Image: McBears.com

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Are Parents Irresponsible for Writing About Their Kids?

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 16:38:00 GMT

Whit is not only a snarktastic genius over at Famecrawler, he also gives good blog over at Dadcentric. Recently, he explored the issues parents face when they choose to write publicly about the lives of their children. As we've recently seen, once pictures and stories enter the public sphere, all hell can break loose.

Whit rightly points out that sometimes we think we corner the market on exploiting our experiences as parents under the aegis of artistic expression, when in fact this has been going on forever. Look at the story of Christopher Robin...

AA Milne wrote the books of Pooh and used his own son as the model for Christopher Robin.. What follows from there is an unhappy ending, but I'll let Whit tell it....

But the bottom line is we aren't the first group of parents faced with judgment calls about what level of privacy and protection to grant our children in service to the art of blogging our lives (their lives). At what point does this become merely exploitation? At what point do we no longer own their story?

Strollerderby : christopher robin

Facebook Kicks Teddy Bear Offline

Are Parents Irresponsible for Writing About Their Kids?