To not understand why so many mumsnetters are against people posting pics of children on Facebook!?

[thedavidsons]

I don't get it. Facebook is amazing for memories, everything is so easy to organise and track, I couldn't imagine not having pics of my children on there. I don't understand why so many mumsnetters are against it!?

When you say "I don't know anyone in real life who refuses to allow pictures of their kids on social media" I don't think you have thought that through.

Not one of my friends is aware I fill in the forms that prohibit photos. It's just not a topic of conversation. Why do you presume anyone would have that discussion with you.

Would you believe I am a real life person?! I also work in child protection and could potentially be a target. Therefore I don't even have myself in my profile picture and lock my my Facebook settings down so that I am only searchable to friends of friends. I also cannot be messaged by strangers and use a false surname with families I work with as a precaution. I am one of 'those' parents, although I fail to see why this is in any way bothers you enough to describe those of us that choose to do this as 'those mums'. Get on with your own life.

The trust some of you have in the internet and the web sites you use is quite frankly frightening. The saying 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing' couldn't be more appropriate.

Once those photos are online anybody can access them and they are impossible to remove.

Genuine question - if you post photos on Facebook that are set to be viewable by Friends only (and you don't tag anyone in them), how can anyone access them? Do you mean Facebook employees? Or a friend who would be able to download and/or share the photo?

Firstly:
PLEASE THINK BEFORE SHARING PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHILDREN!
With the School Summer Term well under way, your children will soon be taking part in sports days, school trips, Proms, end of year assemblies and parties. As parents or carers we naturally want to treasure the memory of such events by taking photos or videos - and then understandably sharing these with family and friends. The most common form of doing this is currently via social media.
However, please think before sharing these photos if they include other children because you could be putting them at risk.
Children who are in foster care, are adopted, have fled from domestic violence situations, are subject to court orders or witness protection programmes could all be put in severe danger if their photos are shared on social media. Also by the very nature of these issues, their parents/carers are unlikely to let people know about their situation and rely on others being respectful to their privacy.
Please stop and think before you share any photos of your child that also contain other children.

Becuase Facebook is hackable and they really don't spend much money on monitoring the system

And those that do this are more than willing to share how with others

The live steaming service has provided murders with audiences yet what have FB done about it fuck all and you think they care about privacy

Secondly:
I have a number of friends who are lawyers - at they might post the occasional photo of their kids, say once a year or none at all. The reason is the copyright - that image doesn't belong to you. That photo can be used for any reason and they find complications in that.

My kids image can be used by their school but not by the nursery they went to - the reason being the nursery is part of a chain and my child's image could be used to advertise something which I don't know about (a failing nursery for example) that makes me very uncomfortable. The point being I've thought about it and made a decision based on what I think is right. If you think about it and reach a different decision fair enough but I do believe people should think a bit more about it. I know a number of people who don't allow their child's image to be used by the school - that is absolutely their right and anyone who thinks they are awkward might need expand their mind beyond their own existence.

I put some pics up infrequently but not too much, one reason being I think its pretty dull! I am also very uncomfortable sharing too much about my child's life - I make a lot of decision for my child and this is one I have made.

Anyone who thinks they control how or where a picture is shared on the internet because of their facebook setting is pretty niave.

GhostsToMonsoon

FB is one of the easiest sites to hack.

Privacy settings only go so far. It states on their guidelines that users must be aware that information can be obtained from a third party and privacy cannot be 100% guaranteed.

Employees can access users FB pages yes.

The internet is a scary place! And I'm aware that makes me sound about 100

GhoststoMonsoon a friend of mine was a content reviewer at Facebook and he would send me funny pics that were reported quite regularly.

I don't get this fearmongering about pictures of children online being used as 'targets'. Targets for what? abuse? Why on earth would anybody pick a random picture of a random child on facebook to 'target'? How would they know their address, and why would they bother?! It's not like it's exactly hard for somebody with evil intent to find a child in real life, why would they want to search for one online?!

I had a pic pop up on my facebook as a friend was tagged in it.

I spent 15 mins snooping just to see what popped up, I then phoned friend and suggested her ex boyfriends 14 year old change her settings as I know the town she lives in, the school she goes to, where she was on holiday and with whom.

OK, so if Facebook is easily hackable, is sharing photos on a private WhatsApp group preferable? What about Flickr and Dropbox? What about email - that could also be hacked?

Maybe things were easier in the old days of film cameras!

Sashh well clearly teenagers need to be very careful with their social media settings, as do the rest of us. That's a totally separate issue!

Ghosts
If you use Facebook on a public computer or a friend's computer and forget to log out, they'll have access to your photographs.
If someone steals your phone or laptop, ditto.
If one of your friends doesn't realise your concerns about Facebook privacy and - for example - copies and pastes your picture onto another thread. "Stuck for World Book Day costumes? My friend Ghosts made a brilliant costume for her kid - here it is! Maybe you could do something like that?" And then suddenly that picture is in the public domain. They may not even tag you in the thread, so you might not even know it's happened.
Your account gets hacked.
Etc.

I've been to several birthday/hen parties/weddings where the organisers have just gone onto Facebook, downloaded photographs and put them up all around the venue as a surprise. Without considering whether the people who have access to your Facebook photos are the same people present at the event.

I share pictures of her with face paint, or from the back, never her full face recognizably. It's her choice what to post online. Better safe than sorry.

OP at 19 it's not really a surprise that you have a different view of social media than the average MNer.

Meh, I'm 45, work in a 'sensitive' area and have more photos of DD (12) on my FB than anything else (well, maybe not more than the Mutt). She knows fine well about them, doesn't care a jot (not even about the bare arse one) and she'd certainly tell me if she did!

Conversely she is on Instagram pretty much every day and has a grand total of 3 photos posted - in 2 years. Whereas her friends all seem to post a selfie daily. I sometimes wonder if their parents know how much they post (and how overtly sexual some of these pics are...)

I don't think there is a wrong or right answer to this. And I don't think it's age related.

I'm happy with my FB settings and with the people I have as FB friends. So I'm happy to post whatever is on my mind (or in my camera roll!) Other people will feel differently and that's ok too. DD lives in an internet age and is fine with it. Lots of kids these days know no different.

If the kids are at school PLEASE TELL THEM that you've not given photo consent.

I had to make a formal complaint to my childrens' school yesterday, after I discovered photos of them on the school FB page. I very clearly completed the permission forms indicating that I did not consent to this - I even wrote NO FACEBOOK PHOTOS in capitals across the form to make sure they were very aware of my feelings on this.

Then yesterday my friend said 'It looks like DS2 had a fab time at the farm with school!'. I asked her what she meant and she told me there were about 20 photos on my youngest child on a trip to a farm, all on the school FB page. When I went through the hundreds of other photos on the page, there are a fair few of him from other school occasions, plus several pics of my eldest child too.

I agree, tell the school specifically if you do not give permission. But that only works if school actually bother to check before they post stuff. I am incredibly pissed off as it is a massive safeguarding fail which I don't feel they are taking seriously enough.

I should have also said that my son is very young and has no idea what Facebook etc is, so telling him school aren't allowed to put photos of him on there will achieve nothing but confusing him. I don't mind chool taking his photo for other purposes, like putting on the classroom wall or in his records so how is a 4 year old to know why they are taking a picture of him? It is the school's responsibility to check - why would they ask for permission if they are just going to ignore the response?

Yeah that's shit Roomba, and the Administrator should be disciplined for that. There is a place on SIMS to note all the permissions/non permissions and it's really simple to run a report from it to check who you can and can't take photos of. At the very least the class teacher should check the photos against it afterwards.

I'm against it because I think it's not fair on the children. They don't get a say.

It's one thing having photos in a family album at home, but photos put online are out there, public property.

We don't know how the future will look in terms of the internet and social media, but whatever happens, your children might one day not be happy with you having handed over their photos.

As an adult with a choice I've made the decision to stay off social media. So I wouldn't be happy if my parents had already shared everything.

In extreme cases photos have been taken and used for purposes other than intended.

It's not as bad as fucking Supernanny though (child protection issues excepted). I can't imagine it would add to your life if you were getting bullied at school and you'd been on that aged 2.

Its not just about what we do with photos and oversharing, it's about setting an example for our children when they use social media about what is and isn't appropriate

^
This

I would feel a complete hypocrite talking to my DCs about oversharing on social media if I had posted lots of pictures of them growing up on FB.

NevermindtheBollocks

By the time you've deleted it there's a big chance that someone's saved/screenshotted the picture.

What pisses me off is that the majority of people who don't post pictures of their kids online are so bloody sanctimonious about it. Live and let live I say.

19 nuff said
That's a really nasty cheap shot.
I'm in my 30's. My friends are in their 30's or late 20's and all share pictures of their kids online.
Facebook wasn't around when we grew up so not normal to us.
I don't have fb now but when i did my settings were tight.
I only shared certain photos to some people, so random people couldn't just share them.
Some i only had on there for me, no one could see.
My friends fb are also locked down.
Yes kids may not consent, but then i never consented to my parents sending my pics to all my relatives.
i do think though that it's a choice we all make, there isn't a right or wrong answer.

my FB profile is totally locked down
Whilst this is always a good idea, never allow that to lull you into a false sense of security that your information is private.
Your facebook profile is only ever as secure as your stupidest friend. All it takes is one friend to leave their FB logged in somewhere, have their phone stolen or fall for a phishing attack and your private circle is not private anymore.

Children are people, they are not possessions. They have the right to have a say on what photos are posted of them - regardless of whether of they are tagged.