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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to want to put my photos on Facebook

124 replies

mamateur · 21/02/2013 09:35

We got married at the weekend Grin. I had a good friend visit from the US with her daughter. Her DD was massively excited about the wedding and wanted to be a flower girl. It was an informal wedding but of course I said she could, got her a lovely posy etc and she came into the register office holding my hand etc. My friend has said categorically that she doesn't want any photos of her DD on FB. At the time of this conversation I didn't say anything, her DD her choice. THey went back yesterday and our wedding photos have arrived, and it has dawned on me that her DD is in every shot. I have put our photos on FB because I have lots of friends in different countries which is why I use it, but now I'm worried she'll be upset.

OP posts:
DontmindifIdo · 21/02/2013 10:03

Yep, being flower girl includes being photographed. She's right they'll be on the internet forever, however another way to look at it is this, when I was about 4 I was a bridesmaid at my Uncle's wedding to my now Aunt. it was rather a grand affair and made the regional paper - there's a photo of me in that newspaper, and that's forever too - people have copies of that photo I can't get back, there's people who've seen me as bridesmaid I've never met and probably never will. The paper is free to reprint the photo if they feel like it (why they would I don't know, but they could).

The internet increases the potential audience, but it is the same principle, once you've posed for a photo you've handed over your image, unless the photo has been taken with your camera and stays in your posession, what happens next and who sees it next is not in your control.

MrsReiver · 21/02/2013 10:04

Exactly imnotmymum how on earth did people share photos before facebook?

DontmindifIdo · 21/02/2013 10:07

MrsReiver - if you don't want pictures of your DS on facebook then you need to stop him posing in photos for other people. If you don't want any photos even with him in the background, then you do need avoid events like weddings where people will be posing for photos with your DS stood behind them etc.

OP - when she asked to be a flowergirl did the mum mention anything then about those photos? when she posed for the group photos, did the mum ask what would happen to the photos or tell ther other people taking a photo of the posed scene not to post the photos on facebook? Did she think to tell you to take some without her DD in so that she wasn't restricting what could happen to all your wedding photos?

If not, she's the one at fault, her preference, her responsibility to avoid this sort of situation.

Sallyingforth · 21/02/2013 10:08

Have you not heard of email? You can send pictures to your friends privately without posting them for the world to see.
Take them down at once and apologise to her mother.

HollyBerryBush · 21/02/2013 10:10

Now what would your friend do if, for example, the photographer you used decided to use those as promo shots on his business website?

DontmindifIdo · 21/02/2013 10:11

Imnotmymum - the OP mentions relatives overseas, facebook is a quick and free way to share photos. If she has to have a whole album printed for each person who might want it and post it to them, that's going to cost. Even if she just does a disc. If the photos are a high quality, it's going to be a big e-mail to send, unless you put them up somewhere online and just send the link. (and then they are still online). If you have sent them to anyone else digitally, either disc or e-mailed, what's to stop them putting the photos online?

Either way, it means the OP has expense/effort to go to in order to pander to the preferences of someone else who was happy enough for her DD to appear in the photos in the first place, therefore causing the problem.

badtasteflump · 21/02/2013 10:14

IWI 'the damage is done' because once something is out there on the WWW it could end up anywhere, whether you take it off your page or not.

IMO you had no right to upload pics of her DD on FB if you knew she didn't want you to - unless you had cropped them first. I wouldn't blame her for being hugely pissed off with you TBH. There is no reason why you couldn't have just emailed the pics to friends.

CheeseStrawWars · 21/02/2013 10:15

Get onto Picasa - you can create an album, with a password that you can send to your friends/relations so that you can control who sees the images online. Much better than FB.

MrsReiver · 21/02/2013 10:15

DontmindifIdo I manage to keep him off facebook without avoiding all social situations perfectly well.

HollyBerryBush · 21/02/2013 10:16

I think your friend is over reacting (unless there is a protection order on the child or something) - I'm afraid FB and social media are a way of life now - the only way to avoid being up there is to put a bag on your head when out in public.

People want to share their events with their friends.

Again, out of curiosity - the other guests must have had cameras, and will be merrily uploading - has she been through all their FB pages and issued diktats?

Sallyingforth · 21/02/2013 10:16

If the photos are a high quality, it's going to be a big e-mail to send
So? Big emails don't cost any more to send. Most email services allow 20MB attachments.

badtasteflump · 21/02/2013 10:18

Or as others have probably said, use Picasa or Flikr - you can create a whole album and password protect it.

Original poster
mamateur · 21/02/2013 10:18

Well, MrsReiver, I'm sure she would understand I had done it without considering the ramifications. What a categorical world you live in!

As an over 40 FB is a very small part of my life, but having lived in several countries, it is a great way to keep in touch with some of my friends.

I can take them of FB, but I'm not willing to contact all my friends and ask them not to circulate any photos with her in. Quite right, Idon'tmind.

Even if I share them by email, I cannot guarantee that others won't post them on FB.

I'm hoping this will be one of her exceptions.

OP posts:
MadCap · 21/02/2013 10:21

YANBU it is unreasonable to expect that wedding pictures wouldn't be posted to the web. If she didn't want there to be evidence of her DD's existence in print form anywhere then she should've kept her dad out of the pictures.

IMO it is really entitled of your friend to dictate what you do with your wedding photos.

Original poster
mamateur · 21/02/2013 10:23

Sorry that's Idon'tmind, sorry for striking you.

I was excited and happy about my photos, so stuck them on there. It occurred to me this morning that she might not like it.

OP posts:
AgentProvocateur · 21/02/2013 10:23

But even if the OP keeps them off Facebook and emails them to her friends, there's nothing to stop her friends adding them to FB. I think the child's mum is BVU, and if she doesn't want photos of her daughter made public, then it's her responsibility to keep her daughter out of photos.

Bejeena · 21/02/2013 10:24

I think everybody seems to have missed the point here, this woman doesn't own any rights to photos that her DD is in they belong to the person that has taken them. Anybody could take a photo of her DD on the street and post it on facebook and there is b*gger all the mother could do about it.

OP if your friend doesn't understand this as an exception then she is being totally unreasonable.

Bejeena · 21/02/2013 10:25

Also not forgetting the rights to the pictures don't even belong to the bride, but the photographer that took them.

ShipwreckedAndComatose · 21/02/2013 10:26

However, the reality is that you will lose a friend if you keep them up on FB and she finds out...

Maryz · 21/02/2013 10:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mmmuffins · 21/02/2013 10:34

This woman cannot allow her daughter to participate in a wedding and then insist that none of the photos are put online.

She is being VVVVU.

sneezingwakesthebaby · 21/02/2013 10:38

I'm pretty sure that she will be able to report any pictures to fb and they will remove them on the basis that they are of her child and she has refused permission to upload them. She can do this with every single one that every single friend uploads if she wants to.

TantrumsAndBalloons · 21/02/2013 10:38

Surely the point is that the OP and her friend actually discussed the whole FB/photo issue. The OP clearly knew how her friend feels about it.

Whether or not it is realistic to stop anyone else at he wedding uploading the pics to FB is beside the point. It's beside the point because they haven't discussed it with the friend. They would have no idea that she didn't want the pics on FB.

But the OP does know

Her friend quite specifically said "I don't want pics of my daughter on FB.

And then knowing that, you totally ignored that.

You could have cropped the photos. You could have blurred her face. You could have done the decent thing, phoned your friend and said that you really want to share the pics but her dd is in all of them, would it be ok to put them up just this once, without naming it tagging them.

But you didn't.

I agree, you cannot control what other pics random people put on FB and it might be slightly unrealistic to expect that your child will never appear in a pic online.

But if I had a lengthy conversation with one of my friends, and explained why I didn't want pics of my dd online, and a few days later my friend did exactly what I had explained I was unhappy about, without any discussion with me about it, I would be furious.

FeckOffCup · 21/02/2013 10:40

Your friend is being far too precious about this, I agree that she must have known her DD would get photographed a lot as a flower girl and shouldn't have let her be in all the official photos if she wasn't happy with people seeing them.

Original poster
mamateur · 21/02/2013 10:42

I don't think I will lose her friendship over it, assuming we discuss and agree on a course of action. She is my friend - and I think she will put herself in my shoes.

Quite agree MaryZ.

OP posts:
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