Author Topic: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?  (Read 7034 times)

lifejoy

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Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« on: August 13, 2017, 03:31:05 PM »
Forgive me if this has been discussed ad nauseam (and feel free to link me) but my baby is 1 week old and we are deciding whether or not to post her photos on Facebook.

What have you decided for your kids?

Zamboni

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2017, 03:50:11 PM »
I rarely post photos of my children . . . and even that has only been recently, most often in group photos.

yourusernamehere

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #2 on: August 13, 2017, 06:56:08 PM »
I don't have kids yet, but I'm fairly private and when I do share on the book of faces I usually keep it to a small group. If you decide you want to, you can create a custom group of "friends" in the post's privacy settings so only people you choose can see them. I don't know if you can customize the sharing settings to keep other people (overzealous grandmothers, etc) from sharing them publicly.

AliEli

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2017, 07:07:19 PM »
I've got a 7 month old, and we have decided not to publish pics of her online.  Privacy is one of the few things we can preserve for her, and she is not able to consent to having her pic online... I wouldn't put up a pic of a friend unless they agreed, so i feel it is polite / fair to give her the choice in the future to decide what sorts of images she wants online (if any).

It's nice to see someone else pausing to think about this, there is a strong expectation that parents will post pics online without talk about the downsides.

KCM5

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2017, 10:19:58 PM »
We do. We keep it locked down to only friends, so unless we tag a friend in the photo as well, only our friends will see it. We also are pretty careful to not post anything we think she would find embarrassing in the future.

I'm unconvinced that she'll care about photos from her fourth birthday posted on my private Facebook feed. There's quite a difference between that and making a living off of blogging about your kids/family.

We also have a lot of friends/family that are far away.. I know they appreciate being able to keep up with her.

I don't think you can make a wrong decision on this. Go with what feels right.

meatface

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2017, 06:24:05 AM »
I post a pic of my kids daily on Instagram so that far-flung family members can freely see them. No big deal.

Capt j-rod

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2017, 06:34:49 AM »
We post to family and share them. Next thing we know they post them public... Short story long social media is here to stay. We used to watch criminal minds and had to stop. It was too sick and twisted. Not to sound like everyone else, but media only covers bad stories. There are millions of good stories and there are billions go good people left on the planet. I don't let my kids play with scissors and knives in the streets after dark, but I do let my kids live. Raise them to be aware that there are bad people. I also remind my kids and everyone I know to never post or write anything online that you wouldn't be comfortable seeing on a roadside billboard with your picture on it. You can only control so much, so its up to us as parents to make sure our kids make good decisions on their own.

I'm a red panda

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2017, 07:24:21 AM »
We do, but generally only on private settings.  I think I've shared maybe 5 total pictures on public groups.

I have an instagram account that is only for baby photos. And I occasionally post to my facebook.

My entire family is non-local to me. They wouldn't be able to see her if we didn't have online photos. (Or I guess I could print them out and mail them like when I was a kid...that sounds like a pain)

I realize that someone could screenshot it and post it publicly- but the only people on these social media accounts are people I know in person, or have a rich internet relationship with (I don't accept random friend requests)- so it is less likely the photo would be used for nefarious purposes.

No bathtime or other non-clothed pictures though.

okits

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #8 on: August 14, 2017, 11:05:51 AM »
We don't, and we ask friends and family not to.  But it's very hard to ask a social media-addict (not very close) friend to take down pictures of your kids all playing together (I admit we have let a few instances go just because we didn't want the confrontation).

We figure our children's likenesses belong to them and they should choose where it is shared.  We realize they'll likely choose to post photos of themselves but it should be their active choice.  We e-mail photos and are generally fine with family forwarding them onto other relatives (my mother forwarded a picture of me, bloated and haggard post-birth that I didn't want distributed further than the grandparents, so I try to remember that these pictures are going to be reforwarded to a wider circle).  My position is if it's too hard for relatives to check and send e-mail, they don't really care that much about seeing the photos.

GuitarStv

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #9 on: August 14, 2017, 11:11:10 AM »
How else would strangers and distant acquaintances provide me with validation of the quality of my parenting???

Shinplaster

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #10 on: August 14, 2017, 11:29:23 AM »
How else would strangers and distant acquaintances provide me with validation of the quality of my parenting???

: )

DS has set up a folder in dropbox for the grandparents/other relatives.  Rules are if any photos are shared elsewhere without permission, all access will be denied.  (rule is in place for one person really, who feels free to share everyone's photos and email addresses with the world).

little_brown_dog

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #11 on: August 14, 2017, 11:33:11 AM »
We do put up pics on our FB profiles of our daughter, but there are some basic rules we follow. We never post nude or embarrassing pics (bathroom or bath shots, tantrums, etc), and our profiles are private with very limited friend lists. I never share her photos or even use her first name in groups or on other pages.  I think it’s a nice balance between protecting her privacy but also allowing close friends/family (many of whom live far away and can’t see her regularly) to watch her grow. As others mentioned, I'm not worried about me sharing photos, but rather family members (read: grandmas) who aren't as tech savvy and aren't as adept at navigating online privacy issues as we are.

katsiki

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #12 on: August 14, 2017, 12:28:09 PM »
PSA - turn off GPS on your camera (if supported) or remove the GPS data before posting online.

boy_bye

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #13 on: August 14, 2017, 12:30:30 PM »
I would probably err on the side of posting fewer kid pics myself, but I don't have any.

Just wanted to share this with you -- Young House Love's podcast went in-depth on this question with several different bloggers a few weeks ago and it was a fantastic discussion that might help you suss out your position.

http://www.younghouselove.com/2017/07/58-stopped-sharing-kids-internet/

I'm a red panda

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2017, 01:08:47 PM »
What do you think about this guy who posted a picture of his 10 week old baby?

http://www.manlyfather.com/so-i-became-a-father-last-week/

Is this your site? Looking for clicks?

lifejoy

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #15 on: August 17, 2017, 01:25:07 PM »
What do you think about this guy who posted a picture of his 10 week old baby?

http://www.manlyfather.com/so-i-became-a-father-last-week/

Is this your site? Looking for clicks?

I had the  same thought...

Mr. Green

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #16 on: August 17, 2017, 07:38:10 PM »
By the time those kids are adults (or maybe even well before?) it won't really matter because facial recognition software will have their faces in all kinds of databases, which will then be hacked and stolen. Reality of the times, I'm afraid.

lifejoy

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #17 on: August 17, 2017, 07:42:16 PM »
By the time those kids are adults (or maybe even well before?) it won't really matter because facial recognition software will have their faces in all kinds of databases, which will then be hacked and stolen. Reality of the times, I'm afraid.

Ack.

I'm already tripped out enough that she's growing up never having known a world without internet...

MBot

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #18 on: August 17, 2017, 07:53:15 PM »
I think it takes an enormous effort to avoid posting pics of children (or using fake names, or asking relatives not to).

I don't see a great deal of benefit to not doing it. None of the so-called risks seem that scary to me. Perhaps I'm just less informed than I should be.

kayvent

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #19 on: August 17, 2017, 08:23:18 PM »
Background info: At the time of this writing I have <45 friends. Over 50% of them have a consanguinity of 3 or less to me. There is only one person on it my daughter hasn't met. Only six she hasn't had a meal with. It appears that I've posted ~100 pictures of my kid from eighteen different events over seven years.

Looking at this catalogue, the reasons to post them were:

- My child explicitly asked me to take them and post them online (41.9%)

- I thought it would brighten up specific family members' day to see the picture(s) (33.33%). An example of this is pictures from when my kid was born

- I made food and like food (16.67%)

- My child is beautiful and I just wanted to take pictures to remember a special moment. Dumping them on Facebook is easy (38.89%)

- I needed a place to put a picture for someone else to get (11.11%)

I've perhaps posted too much but given my profile, I think it is not a grievous error.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2017, 08:27:56 PM by kayvent »

galliver

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #20 on: August 18, 2017, 10:28:13 AM »
A friend of mine posted an article about this, and the two greatest threats the article mentioned were strangers (pedophiles) seeing the photo (so use privacy settings then!?) and friends/relatives downloading &amp; re-sharing the photo (and then strangers seeing it). Which then led me to ask how sharing on social networks would be materially different than emailing to all the people you would share with. I absolutely see how there are differences, from a legal standpoint, from an expectations standpoint (social networks are built to facilitate sharing/virality where purple may be more thoughtful about email attachments). And there's the detail that although you can't use the "share" function and change the audience of a post/photo (on fb), you can always share a direct link to the image (which, from a standpoint of circumventing privacy settings, is similar to DL&amp;repost, but easier).

Still, it seems to me that short of running your own password protected website from your own server using no commercial backup tools, any online sharing is putting your photos'/data privacy in the hands of the company(ies) whose product(s) you're using, and your audience. So it's worth comparing specifically what risks an alternative sharing strategy protects against (vs assuming that emailing or dropboxing your photos is safer).

Personally, given how sensitive the topic is, I don't post other people's kids without express permission (even if they post their own kids, they may want to maintain control of the audience), though I have no qualms showing them off in person (since that doesn't cede control of access).

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk


BrandNewPapa

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #21 on: August 18, 2017, 11:03:52 AM »
We rarely post photos of our daughter in our public profile. We both have strong privacy settings on our profiles.

We created a private Facebook group and only invited family and very close friends. This is where we post daily/weekly updates with lots of photos and videos.

Happy balance.

acroy

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #22 on: August 18, 2017, 11:09:28 AM »
Yes. good grief, it's a baby, there's literally millions of 'em.

If a pedo wants pics, pedo will find pics. bad pedo bad.

Worry about something worthwhile (or better, learn not to worry ;)), enjoy the baby, and congratulations!!

katsiki

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #23 on: August 18, 2017, 12:55:33 PM »
We rarely post photos of our daughter in our public profile. We both have strong privacy settings on our profiles.

We created a private Facebook group and only invited family and very close friends. This is where we post daily/weekly updates with lots of photos and videos.

Happy balance.

Private fb group might be a good compromise.  But I quit facebook so what do I know... :)

katscratch

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #24 on: August 25, 2017, 09:14:20 AM »
I never did on any media platform with facial recognition software - so no facebook, google, instagram, even on privacy settings - that image is still banked on their servers.

I have pretty hardcore rules for myself that I don't do anything that creates online presence or record for my kid without his consent. It was never about strangers seeing my kid. That happens in life every day.


I have a friend using Tinybeans to send pictures and videos (they avoid social media including for themselves) and I've been really impressed so far. It's easy to use and isn't a million emails - just one per day that they send an update.

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edited -- oh geez! I think I sound super bitchy the way I worded my post! I have wackadoodle rules for myself but I do love seeing my friends' pictures of kids and pets :)  My kiddo is also an adult now so photos weren't as prevalent "back in the day". I actually wonder if I'd be so strict about it now.

« Last Edit: August 25, 2017, 09:04:12 PM by katscratch »

La Bibliotecaria Feroz

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #25 on: August 25, 2017, 02:50:21 PM »
I do, on a private setting, and I don't have that many friends. The boys are old enough now that they have a general awareness that their pictures go on Facebook and sometimes actually ask for this.

Baby pics are a special category IMO because in a few years, the baby pics will be impossible to match with the kid. Personally, I enjoy seeing lots of baby photos in my news feed.

It's a personal choice.

Chesleygirl

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #26 on: August 25, 2017, 03:00:50 PM »
You can adjust it to  where only members on your "family" list on facebook can see certain posts, if you are concerned about it.

On a side note, I posted on nextdoor neighborhood recently looking for a babysitter. Someone responded simply asking me to send pictures of my children to them. When I didn't respond, they emailed again, wanting pictures. Very creepy.

katscratch

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #27 on: August 25, 2017, 09:05:48 PM »
On a side note, I posted on nextdoor neighborhood recently looking for a babysitter. Someone responded simply asking me to send pictures of my children to them. When I didn't respond, they emailed again, wanting pictures. Very creepy.

That is super creepy! I'd report that to the leads/NextDoor itself.

Chesleygirl

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #28 on: August 25, 2017, 09:28:01 PM »
On a side note, I posted on nextdoor neighborhood recently looking for a babysitter. Someone responded simply asking me to send pictures of my children to them. When I didn't respond, they emailed again, wanting pictures. Very creepy.

That is super creepy! I'd report that to the leads/NextDoor itself.

We found out a while back that NextDoor doesn't really have moderators that do much about things that go on, on the site. And I think the police wouldn't do anything either. They would probably just say, it's not a crime to email someone to ask for pics of their kids. Do I think they should know? Yes, but they wouldn't bother to make a report.

katscratch

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #29 on: August 25, 2017, 09:34:00 PM »
My neighborhood area is an outlier on NextDoor - super vigilant leads and a ridiculously strong citizen-justice network, so I bet my perspective is a little skewed, haha. But here too, the police don't do anything without a crime.

Chesleygirl

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #30 on: August 26, 2017, 10:31:56 PM »
There was a mom two years ago in my daughter's Scout troop who became angry at me for no reason, made vague threats and was creepy. I googled her name online and found out she owned a small business, and had threatened some of her clients as well, telling them "I know where you live".

I was so scared I thought about taking my daughter out of the troop, but this woman wound up leaving anyway. And there was really nothing concrete to take the police anyway so I just had to live with the fear. There are some real weirdos out there, folks. And some of them are other parents.

lifejoy

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #31 on: August 31, 2017, 06:33:23 AM »
Nice discussion here.

I feel like I may have to cave because my MIL posted pics of my baby despite telling her that we were currently undecided and could she please not.

I feel like it would be very hard to control never putting baby photos out there. :(

Does that mean I don't try? If you can't beat em, join em?

I'm a red panda

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Re: Should we put our kid's photos up on social media?
« Reply #32 on: August 31, 2017, 08:00:35 AM »
Nice discussion here.

I feel like I may have to cave because my MIL posted pics of my baby despite telling her that we were currently undecided and could she please not.

I feel like it would be very hard to control never putting baby photos out there. :(

Does that mean I don't try? If you can't beat em, join em?

Two things you can do
1) Ask her to take them down
2) If they are on facebook, you can report them- as posting photos of someone else's minor children without their permission is against TOS.


I also think it doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can limit your kid's exposure. A few photos surely are less likely to be mishandled than millions of photos on a public instagram account that you whore out to make money, for instance.
« Last Edit: August 31, 2017, 08:03:03 AM by iowajes »

 

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