Mammyoftwo, I'm slightly concerned as to why you feel it's necessary to use capitals and exclamation marks and question marks. Sounds a little bit unhinged, to be honest. But if that's the way you want to convey your point about child protection for the children of complete strangers, well, have at it I guess.
As far as my own way of doing things when it comes to children and social media, my husband (who actually works in a very senior position in advertising, so he's quite aware of how influencers work and how agencies try and regulate them) and I have never, nor will ever use our children for brand recognition or to flog stuff. It's always been our policy. But then again, we've started that ever since we found out I was pregnant (we don't post pictures of sonograms on Facebook, etc.). We don't want to make a choice for our children that they may not want. Does that make me better? No. It's just a different way of doing things in the digital age.
However, a lot of people that are active on social media, people whose families I have come to know, have a different story. They have a 'family brand', so to speak, so that's what they want to do, and that's their gig. A few of them ask their kids if they can use their photos on posts, and the older kids tend to agree because they find it cool and fun. Some don't. They ALL respect what works for their families and how much they want to reveal and they are very aware of the fine lines that they choose to tread. They don't HAVE to reveal how much they earn, just because it makes a lot of people feel better. Taking the ASA guidelines aside (which is an important thing to be aware of and adhere to, I agree), when it comes to the other, smaller stuff, it's almost as if you all want them to be just like you, because you think you have a better way of understanding social media. And like Cadyheron said, would you be so nosey about your neighbours? It's bizarre, sitting around and speculating about someone's earnings and bank balance and job hours and why they take lots of holidays and looking up the address of their house. I have a business and so does my husband and our businesses are registered and it's public information, and you can see our earnings. But is that an excuse to delve into every specific of an IG persona's entire life and parenting choices, just because they're public figures and they've chosen to make themselves available for that kind of scrutiny? Nah. Not buying it. It's an excuse to complain about the haves and have-nots under the guise of "oh but we're just worried about the children! And the dishonesty! And oh those poor children!". Would you tap on your neighbours door and go, 'oh, I saw your daughter on Facebook and I don't agree that she posts these kinds of pictures and you should really protect your child.'
We all have our different ways of navigating social media. Whilst, like I said before, there's a lot of valid opinions and questions on here, it still doesn't make any sense as to why some people choose to really get stalker-ish and animated and heated and occasionally nasty. These are people, and they're trying to earn a dime, and they get to make the choices for their family that they (and their families) feel happy with. End of story. Focus on your own choices for your own family and be happy with them, no need to protect the children of someone on social media that you really don't know.
And remind me again the original point of this post? Think it got lost in version number 2 somewhere...