DSD and social media boundaries

[Dollyparton3]

Looking from opinions from all parties on this, I'll try and keep this as agenda free as possible.

DSD has a public Instagram profile and has 1400 followers. Some are friends. Some are definitely from (research has found) apps that give you daily followers if you log in daily and follow others, then you get followers back.

Recently she's started posting some inappropriate content. Pouty selfies, underwear shots, not full underwear but her in her new negligee (we definitely didn't buy her that!) cleavage shots etc, she's also been tagging her location in the photos.

OH and I have done our homework, public profiles are definitely not advisable especially with provocative teens and none of her friends have public profiles. Some of her followers are extremely dubious, 30+ men in Brazil with photos of guns on their profiles, young teenage girls in Asia with some very inappropriate content which research tells us is how paedophile things operate. Followers follow dummy accounts, then follow girls that the network are following etc.

We've tried every tactic going to try and explain to her, reason with her and plead with her that this is unsafe and she needs to listen to us on setting boundaries. Her response was "mum says it's ok so leave me alone"

Mum doesn't do social media and we're sure doesn't know what she's dealing with.

Her mother refuses to talk with my partner and when he confronted the two of them a few weeks ago, mum took her daughters side and said "DSD says she knows what she is doing and you're being controlling".

DSD has now blocked us but as her profile is public we only need to open it in safari to see what's she's doing and it's getting worse. She also refuses to see us now.

DSD is only just 15, WWYD in our situation? We've reported some photos as she's underage and Instagram have done nothing.

[Lunar1]

Would it be worth your dp talking to school? Maybe they could go through Internet safety again! It's really hard because if you try to stop her then she will probably just get her mum to back her and hide more things from you.

It's so irresponsible if her mum to just blindly trust that she knows what she's doing, as she's 15 you may not win this one in time sadly.

[Bluelilies]

I think there's not a lot your can do in terms of enforcement. A) because she's 15, so legally old enough for Instagram, and B) because her mum's not going to back you up.

So maybe best to back away from trying to control what she does and try instead to build back a dialogue where you can hope to influence her. Does she have any siblings? My DD listens to older DSD more then she does me if DSD tells her she looks stupid doing a pout on Instagram.

I would imagine the school probably do internet safety to death already.

If her profile is public though it's easy to start following it again, you just need to set up a new profile. If you do that a few times, she might start to see the value of a private profile

[Dollyparton3]

I think you're right lunar, it has seemed that the more my OH has pushed the subject the more she's tried to push his buttons on it. Photos have become increasingly more provocative, so in a sense it's best that we can see what's going on, if she goes underground we can't.

She can be very naive though and we worry who she's PM'ing, but I suspect there's only so much we can do. I suggested that in a few years she'll realise the stupidity of what's she's done, until then we'll have to suck it up.

DSD has also turned it into a bit of a blackmailing opportunity with OH, "buy me this and I'll come and see you." We're certainly not succumbing to those sorts of demands!!

[Bananasinpyjamas1]

My DSDs also allowed and encouraged by their mother to have social media. If your DSD lives most with her mum there's not much you can do to enforce.

I'd take a different stance, keep her close ie get your DP to spend as much one on one time with her as possible. Cinema followed by cake, shopping, anything. Get to know her life, let her talk about her friends/boyfriends. Listen a lot. Let her feel grown up by taking the time to get to know her views and thoughts.

[PrettyBrightFireflies]

DHs DD was like this between the age of about 13-16; totally reckless when it came to social media, and ended up subject to death threats having got involved in one or more of the networks that were eventually prosecuted for threatening female MPs a few years ago

On one occasion, she posted my full address publicly, and would routinely invite randoms to "bring her McDonalds" via social media while she was home alone. DDs mum was oblivious - her "solution" when DH told her about it (before it got out of hand) was to ban her DD from social media - but then didn't do any checking, she just expected blind compliance.

police involvement over the death threats seemed to curb her use of social media - although she subsequently blamed the trauma of that as the cause of her shoplifting

She an adult now, and NC with us, but she seems to have curbed her social media use - either that or she only uses the accounts we're still linked to in order to post about things she wants us to know about.

And, only a few weeks ago, DH reported his DSs FB account because he's under age and there was absolutely no security on it. Unfortunately, his mum obviously hasn't learnt from her experience.

[Bananasinpyjamas1]

That's serious pretty! Maybe OP could show the thread to your DP?