The compromising photos we probably shouldn’t see

You know that a post may be terribly misinterpreted when you start to write the disclaimer before you’ve even really clarified your thoughts… but here it is. This post is not meant to stand in judgement of anyone who reads it, it’s my view which may be different to yours at best or wrong at worst.

Facebook recently launched a new “scrapbooking” feature which will no doubt allow you to see more of other people’s children while you are on Facebook. Dan Barak, the product manager writes

Our team ran a small survey for parents who share pictures of their children on Facebook and found that 65% of them tag their partner in these photos to share them with their partner’s friends. These same parents also told us they want to collect photos of their little ones in a place that will grow with them over the years.

With these insights in mind, we set out to help people who are already sharing and tagging photos of their children on Facebook have a better experience. We’re starting to pilot an optional way for you to organize photos of your child, using a special tag you choose to create. If you choose to tag your child in a photo it will be added to a customizable scrapbook. And, photos you choose to tag can be shared with your friends and your partner’s friends.

This means that, more than ever before, we can now be part of our work colleague’s family photo album collation experience, we can see photos of the infants born to the girl we went to primary school with and we can ooh and aah over the first tooth of that person who friended you after you met on a holiday in 2011.

As it is I already feel I spend way too much time on Facebook trying not to look at other people’s children. It’s not that I don’t want to see other people’s children – of course I do, I am a huge fan of the small person and my friends’ kids are seriously cute, talented, smart, well-dressed, beautiful, adorable etc it’s just that sometimes I end up seeing kids I don’t even know and sometimes I feel like I am being presented with a moment of a child’s life that, as an adult, they most probably wouldn’t want me to see.

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But it’s not the kids who are filling my Facebook feed with shots of themselves in compromising positions, In fact most teenagers believe Facebook is like a museum – boring and for old people. They are hanging around on Snapchat and Instagram. The parade of kids we are being exposed to in very private or intimate moments who are too young to give consent. are being put up by their parents on their own Facebook pages. And now in Facebook scrapbooks.

I know kids look very cute in the bath, I know that being naughty can be viewed as being very cute but I think we owe it to our kids to give them some privacy, to let them create their own digital footprint and let their future bosses and partners google them without having to see a nappy change and a tantrum, a bath time ritual and the time they fell asleep in a ridiculous position. Would you invite strangers in to your home to watch any of these activities in real life?

Watch me do my hair in the camera a lot as Kerri and I interrupt each other while discussing what compromises a er, compromising photo

Comments

  1. Interesting topic! I don’t post embarrassing photos / stories about my kids, to be honest due to the added conscience of my husband, who really prefer as little as possible about other people on Facebook, blogs, etc. It makes me wonder though if this adds to the imagine of the ideal life that is also a trap of social media – only the successes, no others able to be identified (especially as fb seems to love tagging people even if you havent) – so only the good and little of the struggles (can make you a bit of s failure if your aim is to keep up / we can’t, with everyone, of course!) And I think more of us use social media as a type of diary, we have to become more mindful of this. Thanks for raising it xx

  2. I think the problem with the internet is everybody forgets that the images we are seeing in 2D on our screens are of real people. Real children. Real events. We seem to be too desensitised to the point where we are laughing and commenting and sharing without remembering that a real person is in the photograph. I am not going to lie. I am guilty of forgetting on occasion and yet I would ordinarily consider myself to be a pretty discerning person. That fact alone kind of disturbs me!
    I remember occasions where I was young, vulnerable, having a tantrum over something etc. If my parents had photographed or video taped those moments (sometimes they did) and then shared them with the world I would have been MORTIFIED. We forget that just like us, our kids will grow up and they will be mortified too one day.
    I share cute things with my friends on my personal Facebook, but I am careful – no naked photos, no tagging of him specifically (how do you feel about people making profiles for their babies?) etc. I always strive to put my son’s interests above my desire for ‘likes’ or external validation.
    My Instagram is private (even though I know my blog could get more exposure if it wasn’t). I never show his whole face on my blog (even then I only post photos of him sparingly) and I don’t use his real name. When I share cute stories/quotes from him, I make sure they are things that aren’t so unique to him that it’s uncomfortably obvious. I share funny things that any 3 year old might say. As he gets older, I try to make it more about me than him (he’s currently 3). I don’t think we can realistically avoid our children having some kind of digital footprint before they are old enough to make their own completely, but I think we can be more responsible and think of their future selves with empathy and foresight.
    Bath photos are adorable and they are innocent. But where they might have sat in a photo album and been showed to trusted visitors in our home in the past, now those photos can be stolen without us knowing. That’s what scares me.

  3. I rarely post photos of my children. Occasionally on Facebook, where I check my privacy settings weekly and every now and then on Instagram. The photos I post are never embarrassing or inappropriate. And I am actually posting less and less these days.

    I find the over-sharing of photos of kids very confronting. I understand why people do it, and do it somewhat innocently. But I have heard horror stories too, of photos ending up in other places on the internet.

    And even if you think your privacy settings are in tact, and that you trust your online friends, it is so easy to screenshot or ‘save’ a photo from the screen. I can’t bare to think of what could happen to that photo, even if it was done innocently without intent.

    As a blogger, I did at first find it challenging when first starting out. So many bloggers put their kids online, and it just didn’t sit well with me. Of course, each to their own, but me, no way.

    • It is hard as a blogger sometimes isn’t is – because it seems like it’s the “done” thing and the prevalence of it makes it seems like it’s not a problem. But really I think, like everything else you put online, you have to think of your child first and your reader second – which you do in spades xx

  4. Suspect we will always be preaching to the converted on this issue.

  5. This subject keeps me awake at night, there are days I want to shout down everything I’ve ever posted and written. Maybe one day I might just do that.

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  1. […] think (and talk) a lot about how much of our children’s lives we should be sharing on social media and with other people. I am all for respect and boundaries. I have chosen to share carefully. Often […]

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