<p>If I was those kids, I would post on my Facebook that seems the government is looking st their facebooks and to be careful. Play up the invasion of privacy. I do think it was the mom and she made up the story. Tell the mom you wonder what else creepy uncle is doing. And if he is willing to hack accounts, isn’t he abusing his power, and bet he will get in so much trouble if caught. I would be telling the step mom, even if I guessed she was the one, that because the fb chat was looked at, some sort of warrant must be out there, and shouldn’t you all look to protect the minors involved? I would have a bit of fun.</p>
<p>Don’t know about chat. But one day I was clicking around FB and found a screen that you could search a word and then click search and EVERYONE EVERYWHERE who had use that word would come up in a list with the persons profile photo and the actual entry they had said and how many seconds/minutes ago they had said it. </p>
<p>If I clicked on the person, I could not see the comment on their page because I was not their “friend” but I thought what a perfect tool for the government to see who is using suspicious words like terrorist or communist in their comments.</p>
<p>FB is not anyone’s real friend. Be very very careful what you say or do. Even PMs which you would think would be private, I imagine, are not really private at all.</p>
<p>Yep, this is the real takeaway. Regardless of whether it was the uncle or stepmom, regardless of privacy settings or legalities or federal agencies, regardless of whether it was hacking or just a kid forgetting to sign out. Never, ever assume that anything you do online won’t come back to haunt you. ESPECIALLY on facebook.</p>
<p>I think the uncle story is a cover. The stepmom either saw the chat because he didn’t sign off of fb, or she has his password, which can be obtained by installing tracking software.</p>
<p>^ I agree with this. I’ve accidently done this a few times when son has been using my computer and didn’t close the browser. When he was younger (and I felt more entitled to see what he was doing on FB) I could easily go into the browser’s history and click on a link and see things like chats, etc. I haven’t tried it in years but if the boy didn’t log out out of FB or left the browser up or if the step-mom has tracking software, that is probably what happened. Presumably the step-uncle has better things to do than to track his sister’s step-son FB activity. </p>
<p>BTW - as a cautionary tale - about 10 years ago, I had tracking software on my computer to keep tabs on my then pre-teen son. An in-law was staying with us and used my computer. She was married to one of my close relatives. She IM’d the guy she was having an affair with - it was very obvious from the IM what was going on. I was shocked when I looked at the tracking log. Put me in a very awkward position. Fortunately, the family member found out not too long after this and saved me the anguish of having to tell him.</p>