I was looking for an electronic sign to put on the front lawn of one of my parish’s two churches. An updatable sign is clearly more cost-effective than a wooden one that cannot change or announce future events. A parishioner sent me a bit.ly link in a cellphone text to a digital one he found on ebay. I simply entered the url in my browser expecting to see the sign. I apparently added one digit incorrectly. What appeared is not something I wanted to see on the parish front lawn, indeed, I would not want to see anywhere and certainly not on my computer. It was a rather nasty picture from tumblr.

After some research, I found that you can preview bit.ly url’s and I tried it again and found that the url was indeed to a sign on ebay. I apparently entered the digit incorrectly previously, as I stated above. For us in the priesthood internet safety is essential, the question is can we make sure that we use the internet safely and can we teach our knowledge to parishioners. The answer is yes on both counts.

First, there is internet filter software that some people in ministry use, I do not. I used a trial version once and found the software filtered out one of my favorite websites: MLB.COM which for the uninitiated is the official website for Major League Baseball. If one cannot check baseball scores because of filtering software, then the software is useless.

However, there are several tricks to help one surf the web safely.

First, be careful on these abbreviated web url’s such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com. Try previewing the link to make sure it is going to where you expect or even that it is not taking you to an infected site. How do you do this? Each has their own method, find out before you check out the address.

Preview bit.ly addresses by simply adding a plus sign (+) after the url. You will be taken to a bit.ly site that shows you the actual address. Had I know this before, I would have never seen the nasty image on Tumblr.com. So to see my blog for Canção Nova go to http://bit.ly/1dwG4cq+ and you will come to a bit.ly page that tells you the web address is http://blog.cancaonova.com/catholicismanew. If you do not use the plus sign, you should go straight to the site.

Tinyurl.com has a different method. Just simply add preview. prior to a tinyurl. So, for example, to see my blog for the Canção Nova community you can go to http://preview.tinyurl.com/kmmgt6 and you will see the actual url for my blog.

It is a simple rule that can help you to avoid ending up on a bad website.

There are other actions you can take. Many of the web portals have settings that allow you to make sure you are making a safe search every time you use it. For example in Google, in the lower right hand corner you should find a link that says settings. Click on that, look for search settings and click on safe search, this will filter our any explicit images from your search. You may find the method is not one hundred percent effective, but it is effective enough to filter out virtually all explicit pictures. That way, you, again, cannot accidentally bring up a picture that was never your intention to see. You can set that safe search as a permanent setting on Google as well. Other search engines have similar settings; check with the site itself to make sure you can keep it safe. There is usually a stricter level available as well, which will also filter out explicit words, but that setting can be too strict. If you remember, here in Boston, the words of David Ortiz after the Boston Bombing, you realize you cannot find that in the strictest settings.

I always keep my search engines on the safe search setting which is the medium level of filtering. Never, do I search without that setting. Of course, you may have to go unfiltered depending on your search, but I cannot think of such a reason to go off of the safe search position in our occupation.

Youtube, which is a Google property, also has a safe search setting and make sure you are on that setting on that site. You will find that popular sites seem to have no videos, that means that they are not available to you because of the setting. The YouTube filter can be too strict, but again, using it is for your professional protection.

This comes to another method of protecting yourself and your computer, be careful what you enter into a search engine.

Make sure your words are for what you are seeking. If you need more information on David Ortiz the great Boston Slugger then put in what you are looking for (i.e. David Ortiz, RBI David Ortiz, Homeruns David Ortiz) what to keep in mind is imagine someone is able to see your search terms, what would they think of what you enter? If you keep that rule in mind, you will be aware always of what you are searching for on such portals.

Be aware of search terms that may seem innocent to you but have other connotations that you otherwise would not know. An obvious example would be if you were looking up a historical person and wanted to know the name of the secret source to Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate era. It is important to know that he took the name of a pornographic movie at the time. So instead of searching for Deep Throat, you may instead search for Deep Throat Watergate Nixon. That will give you a more direct link to the information you are looking for and less of a chance of learning more than you want to know about the 1970’s porn industry.

Another tip is to be aware of the site you are visiting, remember, the issue is not only you might accidentally end up on a site that a priest should not visit, that might not happen, but you may end up with a virus from a site. If you are wary about a site recommendation, then put the url in a search engine and see what appears. The engine should give you a good description of the site and then let you discern whether or not you want to go there.

An example of this is the famous warning not to visit whitehouse.com. I have never visited that site, but I have been warned away from making the mistake of going to the wrong White House website and heeded the warning. The actual White House site is whitehouse.gov. OK that said, what about the US Postal Service? Can you visit usps.com as opposed to usps.gov. Check it out in a search engine first and that should show you whether or not it is where you want to go with your web browser.

If you come to a website that warns you to pay first or to acknowledge that you are 18 first, then do not continue any further. Such a site is probably somewhere you do not want to go, and there is always a chance, and not a small one, such a site will put some form of malicious software on your computer that may not damage your software, but may become annoying. Take their request for your adult verification or your credit card as sufficient warning not to go further. This rule does not apply if you have to verify that you are over thirteen. It is actually a federal law that requires sites to verify you are at least a teenager before you enter anything on that site.

Internet safety is important as visiting the wrong site can damage the very core of what we promote. There are some who would tell you to avoid the internet completely and in today’s world that is not practical. I know of a member of the hierarchy who defines the word naïve when it comes to technology, he boasts of using the same communication technology as Abraham Lincoln, just with updated pens. Unfortunately, his computer illiteracy did great damage to the Church and to himself. Computer use and internet use can fall under the category of being as wise as serpents which Jesus commanded us to do in Matthew 10.

Use the internet, but know that it is a powerful tool and you will use it wisely and prudently. Do not fall victim to its anarchy. Some simple rules and tools are available to you by the companies who have a vested interest in your using the net well. Use the tools at your disposal and you will be fine when surfing online. Just remember, you are in a place bigger than all outdoors with the dangers as found in the real all outdoors. Be prudent and wise. Finally, remember to pray before using the internet that you will indeed use it well.

God Bless You,

Fr. Robert J Carr
Fr. Carr is the editor of this blog.

This article originally appeared in the Visitation, the newsletter of the Fraternity of Priests, which Fr Carr also edits.