Daily posts of baby on FB

[shebird]

A family member had a baby 6 months ago. Since the day baby was born she posts at least 3 photos and sometimes videos of baby together with updates on baby's weight, sleep and how much she's has expressed I thought this might have dwindled out as baby got older but it's not looking likely.

I'm aware that I can hide her posts and I am not having a moan about how annoying I find FB. My concern is for the child's privacy. We are not talking the odd cute photo here, pretty much all of this child's life to date has been documented on FB. Do children not have a right to have everything shared online or AIBU?

Even if you aren't using the internet, how do you know someone else isn't talking about you on the internet and making your details known?... Or taking a particular interest in you precisely because you don't appear to have much of a footprint on the internet? Besides which, if your child's got an NHS number, or goes to a state school, or has a passport, or you pay any tax or national insurance, or have a credit or debit card, your privacy is probably shot to pieces already, so anything you do is merely increasing the risk, not creating it. Civil servants and even spies leave our most sensitive information lying about on trains and lose it in the post, fgs!!! At least if you flood the internet with so much bilge about your child's bowel movements and sniffles from the moment of birth, you're probably protecting yourself from your child having the remotest interest in ploughing through it when they are older to find any interesting nuggets of information.

I think a lot of parents couldn't care less until the a problem arises that they can't do anything about, and then they pretend it wasn't their fault. Classic, blame someone else for your troubles.

What happened if your kids are bullied in school because of something you post online? Is that the bully's fault, or your fault for providing the ammunition?

What happened if your child can't follow a chosen career because of your indiscretions online? Their fault for having ambition? Or your fault for having plastered their life online?

What happened if your child has his identity taken and spends a couple of years trying to sort out the mess through the courts and the credit agencies? Your fault for having posted personal information online? Or the person who used the information you gave them?

It seems the answer to a lot of these is, "Not my problem, my kid can sort out the mess if it arises." Which, being parents, we are all entitled to do. but let's not pretend. What we are doing is having fun and passing the responsibility for our fun onto our babies.

Ah yes, that common problem of people being bullied because they are found to have opened their bowels six times a day as a baby. It wouldn't at any point cross a bully's mind to pick up their mobile phone, take an embarrassing/compromising present day picture of someone and post that on Facebook against the person's will to bully them... obviously they would rather laugh at a photo of a 6-month old baby. And it would be all the parent's fault for taking a photo of their baby. That's asking for it, that is.

I must say that with all the privacy concerns, I'm surprised there isn't a law to say posting pics of children is illegal. I may be being naive but I see that as only way to keep safety ??? It is a shame that we feel we can't post pics esp those that have family abroad as it's great for that but I do understand what some of you are saying. It really is a tough one to call and as I say we will never really know how far 'privacy' settings go. In my day the only thing we worried about was the local Boots seeing our camera photos when we took in to be developed x

Great post, neonbib. I wouldn't stand in the street, handing out photographs of DS, so I don't upload them onto FB, either.

I think photographs on Facebook are the least of our problems. Some people will happily store all their most private data and even their passwords in a cloud, fgs...

FWIW I don't feel find these posts annoying, I don't spend enough time on FB for it to bother me and of course it's down to the parents what they do. I am merely making an observation as to whether people who put this much out there consider the potential consequences of putting this much detail about a person growing up online. I am assuming that she will continue to post daily throughout the child's life and that it will go on to be more than just a few baby photos.

The information about social media data is very mixed and contradictory and no one can tell what will happen 10-20 years down the line. I've decided to err on the side of caution and decided and I do not put my kids on FB. I would also feel a bit of a hypocrite lecturing DD about oversharing on social media if I had shared her whole life on FB.

We look at photographs of other people every day in the newspapers and on TV. We resent it if we are told we are not allowed to photograph our children in school plays. We take photographs of our pets and put them on lampposts for everyone to see if we've lost the pet. We hand out photographs of our children if they go missing... Images of our children and ourselves are not always harmful.

What if your child took part in a local tournament and a press photographer wanted to take a photo of it for the local paper? That would go up on the internet...

Ellie, you are verging on hysteria here. I cannot conceive of a situation where one's career prospects would be hampered by (to use rabbit's example) public knowledge the candidate did a record number of poos at six months.

Do we refuse to recruit people on the basis that there are a lot of messy BLW pics of them out there???

Posting something illegal or seriously irresponsible - as an older teen / young adult could be detrimental - yes.

But this is just a Mum posting about (I imagine) poops, banana eating, adorable hats, sleep, big milestones.

Not going to affect career prospects

I'm talking about someone who posts every day in detail every move the child has made, not the occasional picture.

how did we get from posting pics of your child on fb to having your child's identity stolen and their spending years in court????

I agree with you OP.

Sometimes I get a bit fed up with Facebook and delete my account. Once you post something on there Facebook stakes a claim to it too. Doesn't seem very fair that children could have their photos posted and never be able to properly remove them from the Internet.

I share photos with family by email or whatsapp, it's private and only the people I intend can see the photos rather than my whole friend list. But then I'm not into the whole popularity contest and 'look at how amazing my life is' type status' that are rife on Facebook. Much rather keep things private.

Shebird, are these moves illegal or seriously compromising?

Given that it's a baby - I seriously doubt it

But you can send photos to specific people only on Facebook, too. Nothing on the internet or e-mail is trustworthy if you are obsessed with privacy. You shouldn't really put anything on a computer with an internet connection that would embarrass you if it found its way into the public domain.

So maybe the safest course is never to put any digital photos on a computer unless you are happy for the whole world to see them. Best never to take any photos at all that you wouldn't want the rest of the world to see...

Better to get rid of your mobile phone, too... and certainly not use it to take photos with... Big Brother is watching you. And he's particularly interested in your bowel habits.

Or maybe not the last bit.

Hysteria alert.

Do some posters know anyone under 30? They live their lives online. It's normal for them.

No teenager I know would troll other people's parents fb to view pictures of other teens aged 2 in a nappy/ having a tantrum. Don't be ridiculous.

Recruitment agencies may look at fb but no agency worth it's salt discounts candidates for photos of people at a party, if they did no one under 30 would ever get a job.

As for child protection if you are being told by social services not to post pictures of children on fb ( discounting children already at risk) then that really shows how woeful they really are and exactly why disgraces like Rotherham occur.

Posting pictures of children online does not cause abuse. Abuse is caused by real people in real life. Kids going to meet others they meet online.

You can't un invent technology or ban things. Teach your children to post sensibly and use technology responsibly but the main thing is to teach then that online is fantasy and RL is the dangerous reality.

Rabbit or buy masks for your children like poor old michael Jackson.

I dislike putting photos on Facebook and Instagram these days because of the rights of ownership you have.

If you upload them, then Facebook own them. Not you anymore. Which has certain implications for privacy which go way beyond your privacy settings. Check your T&Cs people!

I therefore prefer using Flickr as there policy on the rights of ownership is different and I'm far more comfortable with them. I can also hide photos from public view there too. Its not perfect, but I have less concern over what is done with anything I put there than FB. Its a compromise between family who want to see photos and me not wishing to use FB to do it. I have requested family and friends to avoid photos on FB, which they are fine with once given an alternative.

I also avoid tagging of any kind for myself and family. Your image is one thing, but when it is attached to additional data - like your name - it acquires more value.

I do find it troubling just how few people properly understand what FB is and how it handles your data. It is not there as a free tool purely for your entertainment. It sells you and your connections in every conceivable way you can think of. I do use it daily as I find its the only social networking thing that my friends use, but I do so with a certain amount of caution. I technically am in breech of its T & Cs as my personal details have been amended from what they really are.

But then this ignorance is the same goes for lots of other data collection services. For example, my own favourite scumbags, Bounty. People don't understand that 'free stuff' always has some catch that will hit your back pocket in the end by other means.

The privacy concern for me is not so much about protecting from weirdos and more about data tbh.

I can't stop it being bought and sold, but I can be more savvy about it and what I think is acceptable and what is not.

LaurieMarlow

If any employer in a sensitive position could Google a candidate's name and be inundated with a page or more of links to that person's life, said employer would need to give serious consideration as to that person's employability. There are already professional consultancies specialising in socially profiling potential employees for their clients.

You can bury your head in the sand and pretend that the world is not moving on, because its potential to harm you is practically nil, and in all likelihood the odds of MrsX's son or MrY's daughter every succeeding to the point where information online has an impact is virtually nil. We're not talking about kids applying to the bar here. And no-one in the local hairdresser, or the NHS is going to give a shit what is online about you. And as another poster has already posted, supermarkets want you to have your life online.

But, if MrsX and MrY don't want to make decisions about their children's futures, and think maybe their children should be able to aim as high as they wish, then maybe pulling the ladder out from under them when they're still a baby is not the cleverest thing they ever though about.

And I don't see anyone addressing online security at all. Who gives a shit if all your baby's personal information is online? Its not like they'll need to have security in their life. The government will look after them.

It's not just Facebook, though, is it? Google is just as bad. And when it comes down to it, how far do you think you would get as an individual against Flickr and the like if they decided to breach their own T&Cs? Or were hacked and your private info published to the world? You're really relying on pressure from national agencies to keep these organisations under what you hope is some kind of control. All of them are trying to find ways of making money out of you, and if you won't pay them a fee upfront, then they'll sell your data, more or less secretively.

I also avoid tagging of any kind for myself and family.

ROFL. Like you have any control over the metadata attached to images stored online.

For example, my own favourite scumbags, Bounty.

Most people don't care about their baby's privacy, but they do tend to learn their lesson if they receive birthday cards years after their baby ceases to have birthdays. Yet, everyone they know will continue to not give a shit, because it didn't happen to them.