AIBU to say no you can't

[mydecisionalone]

Mumsnetters appear to be great advocates of personal choice and of the word "no" meaning simply that, so I'm hoping you will take the time to read this and stop doing something which far too many people do without, seemingly, caring about the consequences of their actions.

This may appear to be a minor irritant but it is something I feel very strongly about and I know I'm not alone - people posting images of my children on the Internet.

There are many reasons why this shouldn't happen.

A simple Google search will throw up plenty of forum posts, polls, advice, newspaper articles, research etc. If you want to learn more go have a look.

Want to know my reasons for not posting photos of my kids online? I'm not telling you! I'm not being enigmatic or mysterious, they are my kids, my choices and frankly none of your business.

Too often people argue "it's no big deal", "who cares", "I don't see the problem".

That's not good enough. It is a big deal to some people, they do care and just because you don't see the problem doesn't mean there isn't one.

Think about the last time you went to a party/gathering/event and posted pictures on sites such as Facebook afterwards. Did you ask all the parents there if they minded you putting photos that their kids were in online?

Do you use the argument that you've got great privacy settings?
Congratulations, you still shouldn't do it. Not your kids, not your choice.

I don't know your great aunt Mabel or Bob your second cousin. I don't know who they may choose to forward the photo onto and neither do you.

Think I should waste my precious time contacting internet sites to get photos taken down or calling individuals to ask them to remove photos?

Why on earth should I?!?

Not your kids. Not your choice to pop that piccy on Facebook with them in it.

There are kids across this country who, for very real safety reasons, must not be identified or their location alluded to.

Do you know whether that child sat next to your kid at the picnic is one of them? Are you willing to risk a child's safety simply because you want to put a cute photo online?

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.
Please think before posting and set some boundaries. Common sense should surely suggest if they aren't your children you don't get to make decisions about them.

If you want to put photos of your children on the Internet then that's your decision but next time crop other people's kids out first.

Don't assume they won't mind or that it's no big deal.
There are lots of people who do mind - very, very much.

We shouldn't need to go to a party and announce to the assembled masses that we don't want you to do it or dress our kids in T-shirts emblazoned with a "no photo" slogan.

I shouldn't have to tell all and sundry not to do it. I shouldn't have to explain why either. They aren't your children so don't do it. Show some respect. Think!

A stranger knocks on your door tonight and asks to take a photo of your children...
Do you let them?

I can't imagine any of you saying yes to that but by posting photos of my children online without my permission you are letting strangers see and store pictures of the things most precious to me in the world and you do not have the right to do that - ever.

Please link this, comment, stick it on social media... Please spread the word that it's not okay to assume your choices are the same as everyone else's.

One person changing their actions might, at the least, save another from being upset or it might, potentially, stop something far, far worse from happening.

Thanks for reading and hopefully thinking.

Sent from my iPad

for anyone who managed to read all that

Agree in principle but difficult in practice if they get into other peoples shots in the background. Keep your children away from anywhere photos might be taken or as someone else said - buy them a veil

I'm pretty sure if the OP had just said 'Please don't post photos of other people's children online without permission', the overwhelming response would have been 'Why?'!

maybe start a blog about it OP

Beauty there’s a happy medium between the two!

What Gnome said at 15:20 makes the pertinent points clearly without ranting or redundancy.

I have to admit, I don’t see the big deal. People can see my kids in real life, anywhere, any time.
How is looking at a photo of them different?

Sent from my iPhone.

TLDR version: Don't take photos of my kids without my permission.

Sent from my sofa.

Read part of it and thought "Meh"

I am holding a birthday party for my child at which it is probably that I will take photos of the party to retain as a souvenir of the day. If you have a problem I suggest you decline invitations.

Sent from an old fashioned PC which has a tower and everything!

Can someone decode this for the Currently full of 🍷🍷🍷 Hugger ?

I wouldn't post a picture of someone else's child on my Facebook. I post pictures of mine for friends and family etc. Strangers see them in the street every single day, I'm not about to go all 'Michael Jackson' and cover them in masks and blankets. You can't hide them from the world. You can protect them of course, but I can't see how it's possible for them to be hidden from view for their entire life!

Sent from my phone (the tab is broken)

Talk to the people in your life that do this. They're probably not reading this and the people that don't know you that do this will carry on doing it anyway because they wouldn't have read past the first paragraph.

This is in a similar vein to those 'to the woman who sneered at me in Tesco today because my child was having a tantrum...well I have anxiety because of..... and you've made me feel like...' THEY'RE NOT READING THIS, sort it out at the time or moan to a friend, don't write long, waffly pieces anonymously on the internet when the person/people you're talking about aren't going to read it.

i dont pot photos of my dniece or dnephew without my sisters prmission

oh im posting from my nearly broke laptop :)

We live in a world where this is no longer a realistic request. And to the people who say that there are children out there who cannot be identified for legal reasons because of e.g. Adoption/injunctions etc, unfortunately there is no way to protect those children from being photographed and in some instances even from photographing themselves and posting those pictures on social media.

But the reality is that you are pictured on CCTV every single day of your life, and probably even several times. If you go to a theme park pictures will be taken of your children which you can buy, but even if you don't buy them those pictures will be available for some time and you have no idea who can view them.

And then we get to the part where almost every child over the age of thirteen has access to social media and will likely put video's and pictures of themselves all over it.

And almost every child over the age of twelve will have their own camera phone which they can use to take pictures of themselves and each other.

I don't put pictures of either mine (he's a teenager and would kill me) or anyone else's children on social media but there is absolutely no way I wouldn't put public pictures on social media for fear that one of them may contain a snapshot of an unknown child whose unknown mother may not have wanted a picture of her child to appear on social media.

Taking pictures in public is perfectly legal. The person who takes the pictures owns them, and has the right to do with them whatever they want. Expecting people to consider who might be in the background of a publicly taken picture in case they're not supposed to be photographed is neither reasonable nor realistic.

@LoverOfCake totally agree.
This is why I suggested ops child's wears a mask full time while out doors.
This is the only way ops request will be fulfilled.

I got bored about 1/4 of the way through. I don't post pics of others kids on my social media anyway so can do without a snooty lecture on it on a forum . I doubt anyone who does will care anyway.

I agree with you.

I knew a boy in foster care who had to be moved AGAIN for this very reason. He was actually finally feeling quite settled and had make some friends, but some thoughtless idiot posted photos of him on social media which would have made it easy for his very violent family to track him down - so social services had to move him. So sad.

I couldn’t get past the second paragraph.

If you're in public, you consent to be in the background of other people's photographs -- photos they can do what they want with, as long as it's not for commercial purposes.

To me this is like the people who have children with peanut allergies who insist the entire world around them become peanut-free whenever they like. If your child has a special need for an allergen-free or photograph-free environment, it's up to you to advocate for and provide that environment. Don't expect strangers to change their habits based on your highly unusual situation that applies to, say, 1 in 10,000 photos taken (if that).

I get that some kids have been given tougher lives than others. That doesn't mean everyone else has to act as if every child around them is a deathly-allergic child who is also under constant threat of violence from murderous detectives seeking out their photos on social media.

How far do I take this "treat everyone as if they're in the most dire circumstances imaginable" trick, anyway? Should I also act as if every child has a serious phobia of everything children have phobias about? How about SEN, should I never tell a child off for being rude because they could have a condition that explains it away and I should always assume the worst imaginable circumstance? Should I avoid wearing bright colors or wool garments because it might overstimulate a child with autism if I got too near on a public street?

The number of children being tracked through social media in this way is so low that if we took into account every special interest group of children that occurs at this prevalence rate, we'd hardly be able to live our lives as soon as a child entered the same city block.

I agree with you, but found your OP very hard to read, you could’ve summed that up in two sentences, it felt like reading a blog.

I understand the point that some children from abusive backgrounds or escaping those backgrounds are better off not having photos of them posted on social media or other sites. This is why schools have to ask permission.

However, a) I barely use social media myself because I can't be arsed with it, and b) if I suddenly posted that long winded rant on my FB page people would think I was bonkers.

I don't post pictures of other people's children online, and if I want to post a photo of my own DC with another child/children in shot or in the background, I ALWAYS check with the parent(s) first. That ok with you, OP?

Sent from my bath

Jesus - that was a rant and a half and a rant I do not agree with - as a parent of young children - this stuff really doesn't bother me.

I promise not to photograph your kids if you promise to stop berating me on mumsnet.... Deal?

Sent from Russia with love

Ok.
Sent from my aunty Bob’s sisters dogs arsehole.