Separated parents and social media

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

This is more of a who is being unreasonable...

Mum has a new partner. Dad has a new partner. Relationship between mum and dad was short, child born while they were no longer a couple. Dad has been through family court as mum denied access for many months.

Mum and her new partner post photos of child on social media. Pictures including new partner holding child, pictures of her new family with partner holding the child (mum, partner and the 3 children they have between them). These pictures are on mum's and her partners social media accounts and are public pictures.

Dad posts pictures of child on social media. Pictures are of child, or of dad holding child while new partner and children are sat next to them. Mum reports them and they get removed with no right to reply for dad.

So mum and her partner are allowed to post pictures of child on social media.

Dad is not.

Obviously people have opinions on child photos on social media, so please don't debate that here (it's been done to death!).

Who is being unreasonable? And why?

I'm asking because I am struggling to see mum's objections given her own posting history. Both parents have blocked each other FYI, but it's easy to start a new account to find the other person.....

If you have your privacy settings at the highest level, the only pictures that are publicly available are the profile and cover.

He can still share the pics he wants, just ensure he has high settings and isn’t friends with ex on FB. If maintaining a FB friendship is essential, set her to a limited profile

I really do hope they will be able to work coparenting.

I coparent my own son, and know how important that relationship is. My son is 16, and his dad has been invaluable. We made a team so there was never any chance of him playing one off against the other etc. I really hope this settles for them. I do suspect it won't as mum desperately wants new partner to be dad (she calls him daddy, and the little one has been encouraged to think he is dad). Does that kind of attitude ever change?

I just blocked the ex and her family on fb, aswell as other people that may stalk me (like her mates) this worked well for us and hubby, eventually she will give up x

OP she wants to pretend real dad doesn’t exist. She wants the world to think her partner is the father. Probably to impress her friends list. She is perhaps embarrassed (she shouldn’t have to be but some people do judge) that her daughter was the result of a short relationship.

I don’t think it gets better until the kids get older. But it hurts for dads being made to feel they have been replaced.

But you have to put child first no matter what is fair and right, so don’t stoop to mum’s level.

Keep contact via mobile numbers, social media does no favours, it's far too invasive x

He shouldn't need to. If he wants to, sure. But deleting his own pictures to appease someone who isn't willing to do the same courtesy just feels ridiculously controlling.

Bingo!

I was waiting for that.

At the end of the day, one parent has to be the bigger person and grow up, otherwise who exactly is putting the DC first amongst all this childish social media shit?

Me and him have spent a week trying every googleable way to hide profiles. It's no longer possible. Trust me on this.

Well, no, because you're wrong.

You can switch off searchable by email and they've removed searchable by phone number. Mine is that I am findable only by friends of friends, tip out any suspect 'friends'.

You can turn off 'searchable on Google' etc, I've checked mine and it is 'off'. He could also change his name slightly. The profile and banner pic are always public, so change them to something that isn't a photo and change a few personal details so if a search is done, she won't know it's him. If he then puts photos in his feed, not in the profile or banner, she won't see them unless he accepts a friend request from her - I just yesterday messaged an old school friend and he said "there's nothing in your profile at all", there is, but I hadn't added him so he couldn't see it.

But, the underlying issue is, why get into it? Why cause tension for the sake of social media? Just don't. I had a DP with a DS for 7 years and I never once posted a photo of the DS on my FB page. The DM had never said anything about it but I didn't want to wind her up. The DP did post though, but if she had been arsey about it, he would just have stopped.

Social media isn't real life.

Obviously the DM is being unreasonable but you and the DF are also being unreasonable for giving a fig about her. This is not the hill you want to die on.

This is exactly what you can and can't change. You can not change it to searchable by friends of friends. Not any more. I do believe in the past it was possible - I remember seeing it as a setting.

Currently - you can't.

Additionally, Facebook are tossers in the sense that even though we have changed names, we are still showing up under searches for our original names with our new name next to it.

We are obviously at cross purposes. Using those settings, no random person can find you in a search.

There is a function somewhere to show you the profile non friends can see, go to that and view it. I am not searchable except by friends of friends, as per your screen shot. I never get random friend requests.

I'm very careful to check if other posts are global before I comment on them.

But the bottom line is, stop putting up the photos. Plus, you need to get less invested, let the dad deal with it.

Rather then changes names, make a new facebook page and keep everyone locked down. Or use watsapp instead to share.

This sounds like the tip of the iceberg so i suggest for now that he focusses on getting access or applies for custody.

The mother is 100% unreasonable.

Either both parents are allowed to post photos on social media, or neither are.

The mother is obviously being unreasonable, but I think the Dad ahould just post pics of the child in the private ones that only the FB friends can see and not let her wind him up any more.

It's only FB, it's not actually affecting his relationship with the child.

How old is the child? Do they have their own social media?

As for privacy settings I've just checked mine in the iPhone app & it's locked down tighter than Fort Knox... with only friends being able to see anything & no links outside of Facebook's own search.

Set up new Gmails and new FB accounts under different names, don't use pictures of the child for cover and profile and lock everything else down.

Really isn't rocket science.