Instamums 3, 2.0

[blackmirror1]

Seeing as the original 3 got zapped.

Errm yeh "this was given to me" smacks of deception

To be fair MOD hasn't really had the balls to come on here. Not that I blame her at this point, seeing her responses on MP's thread make it blindingly obvious she should just sip her cocktails and not make herself look worse. She was on here only to address namecalling. None of the 'instamums' will address use of children. (Except MP) and now there is a shift to more transparency, but no doubt this is to save any issues for themselves ultimately with money and also to try to keep the sheep sweet. Those followers mean cash.

Baa aa aa

They won’t address the use of children because they don’t see it as an issue. Baffling.

And mumofkids I'm sure if they labelled everything they would also lose followers in droves. Have you had a look back at posts - there are hundreds of potential ads in the posts of the crew I used to look at (not follow) - clemmie telford, dress like a mum, MOFOD etc.

Good luck to them when ASA come a sniffing.

Has anybody on this thread reported any?

Oh dear Mrs Meldrum, there were four separate posts on instagram around Mother's Day of Breton tops and no mention of being sent, gifted or an ad...please can there just be an acknowledgement that you need to be more transparent?

@ScipioAfricanus I 100% agree with this. Not being aware of the regulatory and legal requirements of your own job is a massive failing and one which would get you sacked from any normal job. It takes no effort to google and read the advice that is out there on this topic - there are literally dozens of blogs covering the issues on this thread and the ASA guidance is clear and readily available and it is not, as a pp pointed out, exactly rocket science. If you can't work it out even from all the information you can google, get someone to help you who can.

I'd also clarify I see MP as more of an 'Instaworker' than 'Instamum'. She may have little one with her but quite often she's working and actually I think doing wonders for juggling a young baby, breastfeeding and still doing the Flex and going to interviews. The kids aren't the whole account and taking Mae off now she's in school, shows that.
MOD seems to be keeping the girls less in focus on this somewhat dull holiday. And FOD has managed to not story the girls and do a post with just him in it 😱 The term instamums is for presumably those who use their kids or use the having of kids to make money?

Well this whole debate is certainly creating waves and making a noise in the world of Instagram which I think is excellent. However, I don't like the message from some IGers who have addressed it today along the lines of "well here's how I do it, this is how I run my account, when you see my posts this is I how I'm tagging, disclosing gifts and ads etc.....". I think great strides are being made but, despite the existence of ASA guidelines, we're a long way off seeing uniformity in disclosure across the board. Yes some are leading the way (DMBL40, Erica Davies, MP etc) but I fear that others will always try to break or bend the rules and for the life of me I just can't figure out why. The rules aren't there to be interpreted to suit, they're there to be followed.

As an aside, I really think #spon needs to be done away with...what is that for when #ad or #gifted seem to cover all situations.

No, Heed, I haven't seen a word about using kids in posts. And not even a slow down of doing so (except for MOD - although FOD seems to have trebled his efforts to show the twins - and MP obviously).

Just been catching up on the MP Instagram thread and am at MOD’s comments.

How can she keep missing the point so entirely? Has she no insight or facility for introspection at all?

When she said that it was good for people to feel free to comment on MP’s thread without worrying about being called a troll or a hater I actually chuckled out loud. Isn’t she the worst one for calling people haters and trolls and blocking them just for asking uncomfortable questions?!

I honestly can’t work out whether she’s being deliberately disingenuous and deflecting like mad for self-preservation, or if she’s actually just a bit thick.

MrsMeldrum I only feature things/brands I love - that old chestnut

Use of children...that is something I think most of them can’t address because they really can’t afford to take the children off their photos. For so many people the children are a big draw. Not for me, really - I find it tedious enough saying nice things about friends’ children on Instagram or Facebook, but then I’ve never been fond of children in the abstract. But from many of the comments it’s clear that the cute children are a massive draw and a lot of people enjoy seeing them even though they don’t know them. To use MoD as an example (not to hound her, busy she is someone whose account rocketed after having her twins), would she have anywhere near the followers she has if she didn’t have two identical (?) cute children on there? So if an Instagram mother agreed that this was a breach of privacy, or could be damaging, or unpleasant for the photos to potentially end up anywhere on the internet, or that it was questionable to use children to sell things and thus make money for themselves, they would then have to remove their children from their photos. If they want to maintain their popularity they have to not engage with that issue publicly and probably not even consciously.

It is a difficult issue. I made my Instagram private years ago after thinking about this and have only about 43 followers (nearly all real life friends/family) as I did want to include my son’s image as I use it as a sort of diary/photo album. On Facebook I have high security settings and don’t put up that many photos of him especially as he gets older. I’m aware that even this isn’t going as far as I could (e.g. I could have Instagram with even fewer or no followers). It will be interesting to see how this issue of children’s digital footprints even before they could consent to it develops.

About 43 followers?! That was weirdly specific of me. I think I meant to say about 40!

Gosh how obtuse are they?! Can they not read the ASA rules? I googled it in 3 seconds. Can someone DM them? 😂

Mrs Meldrum often refers to 'kitkats' like they are the food of gods! The poster upthread is called 'kitkat' ..... just made me think it's her. And now she's addressed it on Instagram

Oh.... and she's been on mumsnet before to defend herself so she's no stranger

I still quite like her though!

I'm the same @ScipioAfricanus. I have pretty much stopped posting on FB as it felt a bit braggy and nobody is really that interested in my children, let's face it. I have culled my Insta down to less than 20, locked it, and use it mainly as a private photo album to share pictures with (some) family. I hated having my photo taken as a child and wouldn't want my children to feel they had no control over what photos were being shared to a wider population. I get regular follower requests from completely random people (bots I assume) that makes me wonder what the proportion of real/fake accounts on Instagram really is.

Scipio I have always had private settings and I still stopped putting any further images of my kids because of this thread and removed previous pics. But it did take this discussion for it to dawn on me how unwise it was to have their images anywhere without their consent.

Yeah the featuring brands you love is nonsense, cough zoflora cough Iceland that you never go to without being paid cough

The problem with the ASA guidelines is that they state 'when a brand has control over the content'.

So may gifts, partnerships are made, but the rules are then bent because the person on Instagram/blog can write what they like and say it is my own opinion, the brand had no control.

They influencer keeps the brand happy and nobody knows it is a gift/freebie or actually an ad.

Just saw this post on FT, interesting apt

FT link

I literally added one photo to my Instagram tonight. I had none at all and seen last night some instagrammers saying they won’t engage in convo with people who don’t have a profile as they believe they are trolls. I’ve since had tens of people follow me. A completely blank profile what’s that all about is that bots?

Ah can't see it chocolate, without subscribing. Can you tell us the gist?

There was a kit kat blogger event in London last night or the night before I believe so it could be anyone from there either ...