If a friend was using Facebook inappropriately, how would you handle it?

[Gordon_Sims]

Let’s say a friend of yours was spending way too much of his time on Facebook looking at the pictures of his friends’ teenage daughters. Would you say something to your friend? To his wife? To the parents of the girls whose pictures he’s been ogling?

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

I’d start with your friend.

 

[Joe_5859]

I was expecting your question to be something to the effect of your friend posting too much political commentary or something. This definitely qualifies as inappropriate!

I agree with DW about starting with your friend. Incidentally, how do you know he is doing this? Does he talk about it? Do others already know?

 

[robwar]

Let’s say a friend of yours was spending way too much of his time on Facebook looking at the pictures of his friends’ teenage daughters. Would you say something to your friend? To his wife? To the parents of the girls whose pictures he’s been ogling?

How do you know this?

 

[Gordon_Sims]

How do you know this?

Rhetorically speaking, since there’s no way I could definitively say that someone was doing this unless they told me directly, this is someone who I’d made a close friend on Facebook at some point. He then cut his Facebook usage down to zero. A couple months later, I suddenly started getting frequent notices that he had liked this or that person’s photo. I didn’t pay any attention until the one day I got a whole bunch of notifications in a short amount of time, all saying he’d liked photos posted by one particular friend. This is a mutual friend whose daughter had just gone to homecoming. I found it curious that he had liked so many of this guy’s photos in such a short amount of time. I checked out which pictures they were, and the only ones he had clicked on were the pictures of her from homecoming, from her swim meets, at the beach–basically any picture where she was wearing skin-tight outfits or showing a lot of skin. This in and of itself isn’t a big deal since I had liked a lot of the same pictures, but I also liked the pictures of the friend and his wife’s anniversary, the father-daughter dance, and a lot of the other stuff he’d posted.

However, I went through Larry’s other likes and saw a definite pattern. The only things he had liked were pictures of his friends’ young daughters, and then only the pretty ones, and only if they were showing skin, etc. Again, not something I’d think much of if not for the fact that Larry has a long history of porn abuse. Before this happened I had actually created a separate group on Facebook for when I share pictures–it’s all my friends except Larry. I’ve also noticed that, at times when I know for a fact that his wife is at work, I’ll get notifications from her saying she had liked similar pictures of her friends’ daughters.

Like I said, this could all be a misunderstanding. I hit like on a lot of the pictures my friends post of their kids, and this could be nothing more than him doing the same, although you’d think that he’d like something else at some point.

 

[pianistclare]

Does he have a teenaged son?
Sounds like someone else is using his account.
I’d ask him. Maybe he’s unaware that someone has his login info.
Present it that way, and you won’t get blasted for being nosy, at least.

 

[Joe_5859]

Rhetorically speaking, since there’s no way I could definitively say that someone was doing this unless they told me directly, this is someone who I’d made a close friend on Facebook at some point. He then cut his Facebook usage down to zero. A couple months later, I suddenly started getting frequent notices that he had liked this or that person’s photo. I didn’t pay any attention until the one day I got a whole bunch of notifications in a short amount of time, all saying he’d liked photos posted by one particular friend. This is a mutual friend whose daughter had just gone to homecoming. I found it curious that he had liked so many of this guy’s photos in such a short amount of time. I checked out which pictures they were, and the only ones he had clicked on were the pictures of her from homecoming, from her swim meets, at the beach–basically any picture where she was wearing skin-tight outfits or showing a lot of skin. This in and of itself isn’t a big deal since I had liked a lot of the same pictures, but I also liked the pictures of the friend and his wife’s anniversary, the father-daughter dance, and a lot of the other stuff he’d posted.

However, I went through Larry’s other likes and saw a definite pattern. The only things he had liked were pictures of his friends’ young daughters, and then only the pretty ones, and only if they were showing skin, etc. Again, not something I’d think much of if not for the fact that Larry has a long history of porn abuse. Before this happened I had actually created a separate group on Facebook for when I share pictures–it’s all my friends except Larry. I’ve also noticed that, at times when I know for a fact that his wife is at work, I’ll get notifications from her saying she had liked similar pictures of her friends’ daughters.

Like I said, this could all be a misunderstanding. I hit like on a lot of the pictures my friends post of their kids, and this could be nothing more than him doing the same, although you’d think that he’d like something else at some point.

Gordon Sims: Super Sleuth.

I can see why you are thinking this. That is all rather suspicious.

Had you previously talked to him about his porn addiction? Do you think you could delicately broach the subject with him?

 

[captainrick]

Let’s say a friend of yours was spending way too much of his time on Facebook looking at the pictures of his friends’ teenage daughters. Would you say something to your friend? To his wife? To the parents of the girls whose pictures he’s been ogling?

I would mind my own business.

 

[robwar]

Rhetorically speaking, since there’s no way I could definitively say that someone was doing this unless they told me directly, this is someone who I’d made a close friend on Facebook at some point. He then cut his Facebook usage down to zero. A couple months later, I suddenly started getting frequent notices that he had liked this or that person’s photo. I didn’t pay any attention until the one day I got a whole bunch of notifications in a short amount of time, all saying he’d liked photos posted by one particular friend. This is a mutual friend whose daughter had just gone to homecoming. I found it curious that he had liked so many of this guy’s photos in such a short amount of time. I checked out which pictures they were, and the only ones he had clicked on were the pictures of her from homecoming, from her swim meets, at the beach–basically any picture where she was wearing skin-tight outfits or showing a lot of skin. This in and of itself isn’t a big deal since I had liked a lot of the same pictures, but I also liked the pictures of the friend and his wife’s anniversary, the father-daughter dance, and a lot of the other stuff he’d posted.

However, I went through Larry’s other likes and saw a definite pattern. The only things he had liked were pictures of his friends’ young daughters, and then only the pretty ones, and only if they were showing skin, etc. Again, not something I’d think much of if not for the fact that Larry has a long history of porn abuse. Before this happened I had actually created a separate group on Facebook for when I share pictures–it’s all my friends except Larry. I’ve also noticed that, at times when I know for a fact that his wife is at work, I’ll get notifications from her saying she had liked similar pictures of her friends’ daughters.

Like I said, this could all be a misunderstanding. I hit like on a lot of the pictures my friends post of their kids, and this could be nothing more than him doing the same, although you’d think that he’d like something else at some point.

Since the account was down to zero, then suddenly there is activity of interest in pictures of teenage girls, I would suspect that someone else in his household is using his name and account, maybe an teenage son. If he didn’t have that pattern before, then zero activity then activity looking at teenage girls that is what I would suspect. If you knew how to contact him outside of Facebook, I would do that and ask if he has been using his own Facebook account. If you can’t contact him outside of Facebook, I would probably de-friend him because it doesn’t sound healthy. you can also turn off notices in Facebook so your email isn’t junked up with stupid stuff like this.

 

[Emily2014]

I would mind my own business.

So would I. Would also stop using facebook!

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Does he have a teenaged son?
Sounds like someone else is using his account.
I’d ask him. Maybe he’s unaware that someone has his login info.
Present it that way, and you won’t get blasted for being nosy, at least.

He does have a teenaged son. They made him delete his account due to inappropriate comments on his part, and a sexting sort of incident at his school. However, I’m 99+% certain it’s not his son doing it due to the timing of a lot of the posts.
Joe 5859:

Gordon Sims: Super Sleuth.

I can see why you are thinking this. That is all rather suspicious.

Had you previously talked to him about his porn addiction? Do you think you could delicately broach the subject with him?

I’ve talked with him about his porn problem before and it’s not something that can be broached delicately, largely because it’s not a “real” problem and all the issues it brought up in his marriage were because of his wife and her “unrealistic” attitudes. While that was his attitude before, thanks to all the free porn on the internet he’s even more firmly entrenched in his stance because the financial aspect, which was one of the concrete issues his wife could bring up about it, has been mitigated. Preaching at him sends up a wall, but when he brings up the topic, which is fairly regularly, I’m able to point out that I don’t want to hear, see or know about it because it’s a form of adultery and extremely disrespectful to my wife and daughters. That tends to raise a wall as well, but it at least makes him extremely uneasy before shutting me down, so I’m hoping I’m getting through on some level.

As for the issue at hand, if this weren’t a close friend I wouldn’t consider butting in. My wife thinks I should mention it in a vague way to a couple friends in particular, not mentioning Larry but telling them they might want to reconsider how public they make those pictures. I actually convinced a friend to change her privacy settings a couple years ago so he couldn’t see her pictures (she’d turned down his friend request but he could still see what she posted). I’m not trying to get him in any hot water with anyone but I know I wouldn’t want someone looking at my daughters’ pictures in an unsavory way. I know it’s supposition on my part, but it’s not entirely unwarranted.

 

[pianistclare]

You say “because of the timing”. I’ll have you know friend, that kids post on FB all day while at school, including posting videos. Friends of my daughters at Catholic High School posted videos of them cutting up while the teacher was playing video games on his computer.
Some phones even have a special FB button that automatically connects them to FB.
Of course, there are the Apps as well.
I wouldn’t’ discount that it’s the son, particularly, given his history.
Tread lightly friend…it’s serious, but you don’t want assume anything either.

 

[Joe_5859]

I’ve talked with him about his porn problem before and it’s not something that can be broached delicately, largely because it’s not a “real” problem and all the issues it brought up in his marriage were because of his wife and her “unrealistic” attitudes. While that was his attitude before, thanks to all the free porn on the internet he’s even more firmly entrenched in his stance because the financial aspect, which was one of the concrete issues his wife could bring up about it, has been mitigated. Preaching at him sends up a wall, but when he brings up the topic, which is fairly regularly, I’m able to point out that I don’t want to hear, see or know about it because it’s a form of adultery and extremely disrespectful to my wife and daughters. That tends to raise a wall as well, but it at least makes him extremely uneasy before shutting me down, so I’m hoping I’m getting through on some level.

As for the issue at hand, if this weren’t a close friend I wouldn’t consider butting in. My wife thinks I should mention it in a vague way to a couple friends in particular, not mentioning Larry but telling them they might want to reconsider how public they make those pictures. I actually convinced a friend to change her privacy settings a couple years ago so he couldn’t see her pictures (she’d turned down his friend request but he could still see what she posted). I’m not trying to get him in any hot water with anyone but I know I wouldn’t want someone looking at my daughters’ pictures in an unsavory way. I know it’s supposition on my part, but it’s not entirely unwarranted.

That is a tough one. If you bring it up, he may just figure he needs to stop “liking” pictures rather than stop looking at them. Your wife’s advice sounds pretty good. That may be your only course of action if he doesn’t seem to see a problem with it.

I do wonder, though, if you bringing it up and causing him to realize that his “secret” actions were not as secret as he imagined wouldn’t somehow be a helpful sort of “scare” for him. Though, as I said before, it might just lead him to be more careful about covering his tracks rather than stopping his behavior. Still, getting him to stop and think about how extremely uncool it is for him to be looking at these pictures of his friends’ kids has to be beneficial, I would think. Even if he has no qualms about the porn, I would think something like that would have to weigh on his conscience. Maybe giving him a little nudge by calling him on it would move him in the right direction.

 

[pianistclare]

Dear friend Gordon…
your “friends” continually amaze me…

I guess it’s no wonder his son got into improperly using FaceBook. Modeling dad I suppose. Maybe that’s the approach. “Look what you are teaching”. He’ll not worry about you, your girls, your friends wives…but his own son? That might be the thing that wakes him up. He’s lucky his wife has not left over this. Porn is not harmless. Even if you remove the word sin from the conversation, it destroys people’s lives and the lives of those around them. There is no such thing as " a little bit of porn". It’s all disordered, and he needs professional help. I would block him, and have a sit down with him If he’s a friend, the truth is always the most compassionate thing to do.
That, and blocking him from your page. He’s setting himself up to be fired of someone from work sees all this. It happens. Also looks bad for his son when applying to colleges.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

That is a tough one. If you bring it up, he may just figure he needs to stop “liking” pictures rather than stop looking at them. Your wife’s advice sounds pretty good. That may be your only course of action if he doesn’t seem to see a problem with it.

I do wonder, though, if you bringing it up and causing him to realize that his “secret” actions were not as secret as he imagined wouldn’t somehow be a helpful sort of “scare” for him. Though, as I said before, it might just lead him to be more careful about covering his tracks rather than stopping his behavior. Still, getting him to stop and think about how extremely uncool it is for him to be looking at these pictures of his friends’ kids has to be beneficial, I would think. Even if he has no qualms about the porn, I would think something like that would have to weigh on his conscience. Maybe giving him a little nudge by calling him on it would move him in the right direction.

My wife was playing devil’s advocate for him today, pointing out that she hits like on all her Facebook friends’ pictures of their kids but almost never of them or their spouses. She suggested he could be the same way, although I don’t know that she was very convinced of this herself. Still, he could just as easily say that he doesn’t care about hitting like on his friends’ pictures but as a fellow parent likes to acknowledge the pics of their kids.

pianistclare:

Dear friend Gordon…
your “friends” continually amaze me…

I guess it’s no wonder his son got into improperly using FaceBook. Modeling dad I suppose. Maybe that’s the approach. “Look what you are teaching”. He’ll not worry about you, your girls, your friends wives…but his own son? That might be the thing that wakes him up. He’s lucky his wife has not left over this. Porn is not harmless. Even if you remove the word sin from the conversation, it destroys people’s lives and the lives of those around them. There is no such thing as " a little bit of porn". It’s all disordered, and he needs professional help. I would block him, and have a sit down with him If he’s a friend, the truth is always the most compassionate thing to do.
That, and blocking him from your page. He’s setting himself up to be fired of someone from work sees all this. It happens. Also looks bad for his son when applying to colleges.

He’s of the unshakeable opinion that looking at porn is a natural and healthy pastime for a young guy. He has some fairly extreme security measures to keep the stuff on his computer hidden since he doesn’t want his wife to know about it and, ironically enough, because a lot of what he has is, by his own admission, pretty sick and disgusting and he doesn’t think it would be healthy for a kid his son’s age (almost 16) to see it. His wife has conceded to him on a lot of this and now won’t complain much if their son gets his hands on Playboys or the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I’ve argued with his wife over this and told her she’s enabling him. It would take way too much space to go into all we discussed but she basically gives into him on specific issues because she gets her way on others. They moved out of state a couple years ago so having a sitdown with him isn’t something I can do very often anymore. When we do talk, he brings up the topic (or similar topics) often enough that he gets at least snippets of my opinion on a semi-regular basis. He says he doesn’t like hearing me “preach” about it, but for someone who doesn’t want my opinion on the topic, he sure does bring it up an awful lot.

 

[pianistclare]

He’s of the unshakeable opinion that looking at porn is a natural and healthy pastime for a young guy. He has some fairly extreme security measures to keep the stuff on his computer hidden since he doesn’t want his wife to know about it and, ironically enough, because a lot of what he has is, by his own admission, pretty sick and disgusting and he doesn’t think it would be healthy for a kid his son’s age (almost 16) to see it. His wife has conceded to him on a lot of this and now won’t complain much if their son gets his hands on Playboys or the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I’ve argued with his wife over this and told her she’s enabling him. It would take way too much space to go into all we discussed but she basically gives into him on specific issues because she gets her way on others. They moved out of state a couple years ago so having a sitdown with him isn’t something I can do very often anymore. When we do talk, he brings up the topic (or similar topics) often enough that he gets at least snippets of my opinion on a semi-regular basis. He says he doesn’t like hearing me “preach” about it, but for someone who doesn’t want my opinion on the topic, he sure does bring it up an awful lot.

Well of course he does. He’s an addict. And his wife IS enabling him. What in the world would make a self-respecting woman believe that trading a husband’s addiction to " sick and disgusting porn" is a worthy trade? What in the world can he be “allowing her”? Money? Helping around the house? Vacations?
the two of them need counseling. I can’t fathom how he must treat her in bed. I think I would be thanking God that these damaged “friends” don’t live near me anymore if I were you. Prayer is all you can do. This will not end well. Addiction to anything…never does.

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Well of course he does. He’s an addict. And his wife IS enabling him. What in the world would make a self-respecting woman believe that trading a husband’s addiction to " sick and disgusting porn" is a worthy trade? What in the world can he be “allowing her”? Money? Helping around the house? Vacations?
the two of them need counseling. I can’t fathom how he must treat her in bed. I think I would be thanking God that these damaged “friends” don’t live near me anymore if I were you. Prayer is all you can do. This will not end well. Addiction to anything…never does.

Essentially, he works and does his thing, she gets to make all the relevant decisions for the household. I’ve suggested counseling to them in regards to several issues but it’s not something he believes in. Outside of some of these issues they have a strong marriage. I believe some of what they do are coping methods for other issues in their life, but that’s neither here nor there. This issue in particular does cause them a lot of pain and unhappiness and I think they’d be much better off if he actually did give it up.

As far as the Facebook thing goes, I had a conversation going with a couple friends earlier (not actual friends but friends of friends through Facebook). The one said he didn’t like the idea of people ogling his daughter online but said that he doesn’t worry about it because people will do that in real life anyway. The other saw no problem with it whatsoever, then said that if the idea of it bothers his 13-year-old daughter, she should learn to cover up more. It made me glad these aren’t people I deal with in real life.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Gordon,

I have some history of porn addiction, and some sense of how the internet works. I honestly think there’s only one reason why your friend would be so shameless – because he wants someone to notice. In particular, he wants one of these girls to notice. I’m not kidding.

If he’s not completely unintelligent, he knows that anyone who noticed this would think he’s a creep, if not a pedophile. He would never do that unless there was something potentially huge to be gained from it. When you’ve spent tons of time looking at porn, it gets boring, and you need it to have more of an edge. Some people start looking at S&M. Some people start pursuing bizarre fetishes. Some people start looking at teens or kids. Some people do all of the above. And then, when the buzz wears off that, they want to enact these fantasies “in real life”. It’s very, very sad.

Considering your friend seems very much dominated by this addiction, I would not be surprised if he’s willing to foolishly risk a HECK of a lot in the hope that maybe he could get one of these girls to notice him, and they would be curious. That’s the only reason I can imagine for him to publicly show this pattern.

I don’t know what you should do about that. Obviously there are grave dangers if I’m right, but there’s no point in doing anything ineffective. Any other suggestions out there? Is my theory entirely implausible?

 

[Gordon_Sims]

Gordon,

I have some history of porn addiction, and some sense of how the internet works. I honestly think there’s only one reason why your friend would be so shameless – because he wants someone to notice. In particular, he wants one of these girls to notice. I’m not kidding.

If he’s not completely unintelligent, he knows that anyone who noticed this would think he’s a creep, if not a pedophile. He would never do that unless there was something potentially huge to be gained from it. When you’ve spent tons of time looking at porn, it gets boring, and you need it to have more of an edge. Some people start looking at S&M. Some people start pursuing bizarre fetishes. Some people start looking at teens or kids. Some people do all of the above. And then, when the buzz wears off that, they want to enact these fantasies “in real life”. It’s very, very sad.

Considering your friend seems very much dominated by this addiction, I would not be surprised if he’s willing to foolishly risk a HECK of a lot in the hope that maybe he could get one of these girls to notice him, and they would be curious. That’s the only reason I can imagine for him to publicly show this pattern.

I don’t know what you should do about that. Obviously there are grave dangers if I’m right, but there’s no point in doing anything ineffective. Any other suggestions out there? Is my theory entirely implausible?

I don’t believe he’s a pedophile or that he would ever act on his impulses. I also don’t think he’d do anything to wreck his home life. He doesn’t do well outside of his comfort zone. Personally, I think that if he wife pushed or threatened him enough he’d give up or cut way back on his porn use but that would take her admitting that he never gave it up in the first place which is something she’s not willing to do.

I found out earlier this evening that he deactivated his Facebook account. While I was talking to my wife about all this, she decided to respond to his wife about some comments she’d made about sexting and the celebrity nude photo leak. She told her how scary things are today, especially with daughters, and that she worries about how people could look at or use pictures of our girls. She then told her that I blocked a family member on Facebook because all he’d ever do was hit like on pictures of young girls and make comments about how our daughters were developing physically. (This was half true since I did block the guy but it had nothing to do with our daughters.) Larry’s wife said that someone liking a picture doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than that they like the picture. She said she knew that Larry never did anything on Facebook anymore other than look at people’s pictures and read posts from pages he liked. My wife didn’t say anything else but Larry’s wife got back with her last night and said she talked to him about it and he said he thought it was disgusting that anyone would act that way over pictures of their friends’ kids. When I tried to look at his page tonight, I found it deactivated. He’s said before he planned on deactivating it since he never really uses it anymore so this could all be coincidental. I’m planning on leaving it be until he or his wife says something or asks for my (name removed by moderator)ut, although I will say that if my wife’s comments led to the deactivation, I’m glad that played out that way instead of me saying something that could drive a wedge between us.

 

[Joe_5859]

I don’t believe he’s a pedophile or that he would ever act on his impulses. I also don’t think he’d do anything to wreck his home life. He doesn’t do well outside of his comfort zone. Personally, I think that if he wife pushed or threatened him enough he’d give up or cut way back on his porn use but that would take her admitting that he never gave it up in the first place which is something she’s not willing to do.

I found out earlier this evening that he deactivated his Facebook account. While I was talking to my wife about all this, she decided to respond to his wife about some comments she’d made about sexting and the celebrity nude photo leak. She told her how scary things are today, especially with daughters, and that she worries about how people could look at or use pictures of our girls. She then told her that I blocked a family member on Facebook because all he’d ever do was hit like on pictures of young girls and make comments about how our daughters were developing physically. (This was half true since I did block the guy but it had nothing to do with our daughters.) Larry’s wife said that someone liking a picture doesn’t necessarily mean anything other than that they like the picture. She said she knew that Larry never did anything on Facebook anymore other than look at people’s pictures and read posts from pages he liked. My wife didn’t say anything else but Larry’s wife got back with her last night and said she talked to him about it and he said he thought it was disgusting that anyone would act that way over pictures of their friends’ kids. When I tried to look at his page tonight, I found it deactivated. He’s said before he planned on deactivating it since he never really uses it anymore so this could all be coincidental. I’m planning on leaving it be until he or his wife says something or asks for my (name removed by moderator)ut, although I will say that if my wife’s comments led to the deactivation, I’m glad that played out that way instead of me saying something that could drive a wedge between us.

That’s an interesting development! Well, whatever the cause and whatever he may have been doing, I suppose he cannot really do that anymore if his account has been deactivated.