To think that you shouldn't put naked pictures of your kids on Facebook

[coralpig]

I'm Facebook friends with a mother (we don't know each other in real life but our kids share an activity).
She has 3 kids of primary school age and has put up lots of photos of them completely nude with the way they are positioned obscuring their private parts. The children look really really smiley and relaxed in the photo and I think it's totally fine for them to enjoy being naked around each other. However I do think that it's massively inappropriate and quite unsafe to put these on Facebook. Mother in question has a private profile but hundreds of fb friends. What do you think? Is it my place to send her a message saying I think she should them down for the safety of the children? WWYD?

Three year old takes snap of mum getting out of shower and posts it on fb "don't worry mum I made sure you couldn't see any of your bits" grin

If my "bits" (shudders at the twee) weren't showing, then fair enough. Although of course, the three-year-old would have to wait until turning 13.

If you wouldn't mind naked or semi naked pics of yourself shared on Facebook multivac, that's your decision. Although I suspect you would be in the minority.

Your child can't make that decision.

I'm astounded that there are a couple of posters still on this thread who are still adamant that sharing naked pictures without the other persons consent is ok. It's really not.

I'm astounded that everyone is so obsessed with whether or not the subjects of digitally shared images have clothes on or not.

That really isn't where the key question lies.

(excuse the superfluous 'or not')

I really think children should be taught that their bodies are theirs and nobody has rights over them - you are sending really fucked up messages if you're willing to take away that control over their privacy before they are even old enough to understand - and worse when they are old enough to understand and are not happy about it.

I think this is a very good point actually. Thinking of the first two points in the underwear rule in particular..

P: privates are private
A: always remember your body belongs to you

Uploading naked photos of your kids goes against that completely.

Again. So does uploading any photo, no?

Well no. Uploading a photo of your fully clothed child kicking a ball does not contradict that privates are private. Uploading a naked a photo does.

It's not hard is it. It's odd and naive to post naked pictures of your children on the Internet. Why on earth would you? All the reasons why set out on this thread. Not "obsessed" with it. Also no one of my acquaintance ever been daft enough to do it so rhetorical in my case anyway.

I'm completely astounded that some people feel that it's ok to put semi naked pictures of their children online because doesn't cause them any direct harm

My private cautious 9 year old would be HORRIFIED if I had done this.

The only reasons in favour of sharing naked photos of your children online so far seem to be -

• to get more likes
• to perpetuate the arrogance of 'I want to so I am and you can't stop me.'

I have heard many many compelling reasons for not sharing naked photos of your children online......but NONE so far in favour.

Thats my point, which multi vac refuses to take on board with the strange argument that there is no difference between posting a clothed and unclothed child. Many things in life are a risk and if there is an upside an adult balances it out and takes the risk if on balances its "worth it". But as Thomas says there really isn't an upside here, especially not for the child so why take the (admittedly small but who knows) risk. Just don't get it!

So what are the upsides of posting a clothed photo, that make doing so worth the risk?

Uploading a photo of your fully clothed child kicking a ball does not contradict that privates are private.

It contradicts 'always remember your body belongs to you', doesn't it?

(I don't share photos of my children to 'get more likes', by the way; that's a bit of a dismissive line of argument. I explained earlier why I share photos.)

multivac why are you refusing to acknowledge that there is a difference between pictures of a clothed child am pictures of a naked child? It's like you're trying to argue that black is white.

Here's a scenario - I am fine with school taking photos of my child for the school website. I would not be happy with them taking PE changing room photos for the school website.

I think this is a fairly standard viewpoint.

Clothed and unclothed is so different! Try doing the school run starkers you will soon find out.

Sharing a photo of your son kicking a ball suppose is nice for relatives etc. Sharing a photo of toddler in bath also nice for relatives but downside could be used by peadophiles or - for me the more real risk - mortify my dd when older. Am friends with lots of her friends parents, strong chance of her friends seeing stuff I post.

I only started on fb a year ago. Don't post many pictures of my children (WBD costume etc). Many friends have no child policy and post no pics of theirs. And actually think they are right. Am cutting right back on how much I share, haven't posted pics of my children for ages. My 9 year old doesn't like it. I would always ask her consent now. And the answer is pretty much always no. Toddlers grow up fast.

Exactly Thomas
I really can't understand what is difficult to grasp here.
Whenever I take my child outside there could be a paedophile watching - I will probably never know, however that doesn't mean I'll stop taking him out, but I wouldn't take him for a walk to the park naked. We have lots of naked photos of him, as a newborn, in the bath etc (I assume nearly all parents do?), but for us they are private. I wouldn't have them on my desk at work for example. Whereas some of the nice portraits I have of him I would happily share because, well, I am proud of him and his face is not a private part of his body.

Whatever photos I post on Facebook (which I do occasionally, I admit) are nothing that a stranger wouldn't see if they walked past us in the street. However I don't post many photos of him - I don't continuously update on every single thing he does. I will post the odd picture of him every few months, maybe sat on the sofa with the cat, or having a race around the park, mainly because it's nice for family and friends who we don't see often to see how much he's growing and changing. My profile is set to private and friends only so not even friends of friends can see it.

To suggest there is no difference between naked and clothed photos of children is ridiculous. If there was no difference, then I suppose it would be fine for school photos to be taken in the nude and have naked photos of children published in the paper.

shutup

I am only arguing it in the very specific context of 'whether or not it's ok to share pictures of your children online, without their consent'.

In that context, I simply think it's a tad hypocritical to call other parents 'naive', 'stupid', or 'selfish' for sharing a picture of their child in the bath, genitals covered, whilst happily sharing a picture of one's own child in a swimsuit, proudly displaying the medal she's just won in a race.

Or, in other words, I think "Should I post pictures of my children on Facebook?" is a much more interesting and useful discussion than "Should I post naked pictures of my children on Facebook?"

It's a shame that the latter gets people so much more excited, when the implications of the former are so huge.

Well, the vast majority of this thread has been about naked pictures.

But even the scenario you just gave - the vast majority of people would be happy to share a proud moment of themselves after a sporting victory.
The vast majority of people would not be happy for a private unguarded moment such as bath time to be shared.

I kind of feel like you're arguing for argument's sake now - this is pretty basic Internet safety. Don't post nude or semi nude photos of others online. Why would you?

Bathtime was never 'private or unguarded' when my kids were small; they may as well have been in a public swimming pool.

(and also, could you define 'semi nude' in relation to a two-year-old?)

Bathtime was never 'private or unguarded' when my kids were small; they may as well have been in a public swimming pool.

Except they wouldn't be naked in a public swimming pool

It's been explained now, many times on this thread why sharing nude photos of others online is unacceptable. I'm not repeating it all day.

They wouldn't have their genitals covered with bubbles, either.

It's a shame that the latter gets people so much more excited, when the implications of the former are so huge.

Could you explain how the implications are not as great of a naked picture vs a general picture or have I misunderstood what you're trying to say?

I think before posting anything that people should think carefully - could it be embarrassing one day? Would I (or my son) be mortified if it ended up in a newspaper? I don't think I have posted anything he would be unhappy about and as I say, I post very little of him.

Also bath time might not be a private or unguarded thing when they're toddlers but they'll probably feel differently about the same picture when they're 14.