Not consenting to dc being on school Facebook

[nevernotstruggling]

I deactivated my Facebook account for 5 years. Dds are 6 and 9. The school didn't have social media when dd1 started in 14.

I've activated my Facebook in the last week and been directed to the school Facebook page. I was horrified. Hundreds of photos of children including mine close up not group shots far away.

The school sent a media consent form this week where you could choose yes to photos and website but no to social media. I have said no.

I'm worried that this might mean the dds are left out of pictures when they are taken and this might upset them.

I don't consent to my child being posted on open social
Media accounts I'm not having it. It's totally unnecessary and unsafe.

Has anyone else done this? What was the outcome?

Oh for goodness sake!!!

@StopMakingAFoolOutofMe I get the photo requirement absolutely it's a about whether they publish them. The dds private nursery took them for the summative assessments and printed them in their learning journeys. Obviously I don't object to that but those images didn't leave the nursery! That nursery still doesn't have a Facebook page and it's full to bursting with a long waiting list. How the business survives without turning to Facebook in a sheep like fashion is staggering

At our school the “no photo” kids are either not included (eg in the group photos for the local paper) or if they’re in a photo on the school twitter (eg the football team) they are coloured over/edited out.

I'm worried that this might mean the dds are left out of pictures when they are taken and this might upset them

Well yes they might be but that’s your doing. You can expect the school not to include your children in photos but not to stop taking or posting photos of other children where parents have consented just to stop them being upset.

Do you stick an emoji over your child's face when you are dropping them off in their uniform in the morning in case someone sees them? I don't really understand why people get so worked up about this sort of thing? The only circumstances which it might be valid is where the child is adopted or in some sort of witness protection. I know one person who adopted a child, I assume the child was removed rather than given up as my friend can't reveal the child's face on any social media.

Generally speaking I'm not sure what people think will happen if there is a picture of their child?

@nevernotstruggling
I think a lot of people in this thread don't understand why you're upset about DC being on facebook.
It's not about having photos taken and shared amongst other parents, it's about the medium through which they are shared.
Facebook is a business, and any photos uploaded belong to facebook. Anything and everything you write about on facebook will be used to tailor advertising towards you. Your children's photos, once uploaded, no longer legally belong to you.
It's not about protecting them from "predators" per se, but about sheltering our children from the greedy corporates, and protecting them from the risks that come from having an online "identity" before they are able to consent to their photos being owned by a company.

I'm sure @nevernotstruggling has no qualms with photos being shared via an email newsletter, or physical newsletter, or sharing photos with family and friends via an encrypted message service.
It's the fact that it's Facebook being used to share them.

Has anyone here ever downloaded the data Facebook keeps on you? You can access it in your account settings. Every private message, every post (even deleted ones), every photo, and even an "advertising profile" on you is stored on Facebook's database, and can be used by Facebook for advertising. Makes for very interesting reading, and makes you think twice about sharing anything via this medium.

I have had exactly this issue with my DC's primary school on several occasions (DS1 now at secondary but DS2 in Y2). I have even written in giant bloody letters 'NO FACEBOOK PICTURES AT ALL' on the form! I don't want Facebook owning pictures of my children. If they decided as adults to plaster themselves all over FB, fine. But school clearly can't be bothered to check before they upload images. I keep getting apologies and have reported some pics to get them removed. Then it happens again as soon as they move up a class or there's a school event. I've complained to the governors over it as it could be a massive safeguarding issue for all they know - we'll see if it stops now...

Prose - so are photos of your kids in the local paper acceptable?

PRoseLegend exactly this. No problem with them putting photos on the school website or newsletters. Just not FB. If there isn't an option to opt of of just FB, why offer it on their consent forms? I would just say 'no photos' point blank if they didn't indicate that they could keep pics off FB separately.

It's irrelevant if it's fine for the local paper to have their pics in. The local paper don't use photos/copyright/algorithms/AI in the same ways that FB do. But anyway the whole point is that OP (and I) are perfectly within our rights to say no FB and school is choosing to ignore this or not even check parent's preferences. What else don't they bother checking or doing?

I'm a former teacher, btw, so I know how useful photos are in schools. It's not even the bloody photos, it's the specifically asking me for consent, then totally ignoring what I've said in answer to that that worries me. If they ignore my request, will they ignore the request for the child who is adopted, or in hiding from an abusive relative? Will they ignore my consent/lack of consent regarding any other issue? It's crappy - plenty of other schools deal with it just fine so it is possible.

So what will you all do in a few years when your children are old enough to have their own Facebook accounts?

@PRoseLegend thank you so much for your post I am copying and saving for every time I have this argument x

I have had exactly this issue with my DC's primary school on several occasions (DS1 now at secondary but DS2 in Y2). I have even written in giant bloody letters 'NO FACEBOOK PICTURES AT ALL' on the form! I don't want Facebook owning pictures of my children. If they decided as adults to plaster themselves all over FB, fine. But school clearly can't be bothered to check before they upload images. I keep getting apologies and have reported some pics to get them removed. Then it happens again as soon as they move up a class or there's a school event. I've complained to the governors over it as it could be a massive safeguarding issue for all they know - we'll see if it stops now...

Exactly this

@StopMakingAFoolOutofMe how is that relevant? They are 6 and 9 right now they can't give informed consent. Iirc the age limit for Facebook is 13. I won't be allowing it any younger if at all. Lots of parents I know didn't allow it until late teens and magically the kids arnt social pariahs!

stop that's not really relevant here. There are lots of things that children can do when they are older, that doesn't mean that we should let them do those things now.

Do you stick an emoji over your child's face when you are dropping them off in their uniform in the morning in case someone sees them? I don't really understand why people get so worked up about this sort of thing? The only circumstances which it might be valid is where the child is adopted or in some sort of witness protection. I know one person who adopted a child, I assume the child was removed rather than given up as my friend can't reveal the child's face on any social media.

Generally speaking I'm not sure what people think will happen if there is a picture of their child?

Bullshit!!!! There are a myriad of reasons as to why posting photos of a child on sm isn't safe and it's not just adoption.

@PetuniaPetunia exactly. Also I refuse to buy into the idea that social media can't be avoided. It's not mandatory and never will be

I would also add that SM has facial recognition technology and ‘closely related too’ technology - it will get more technical

You don’t get that in a newspaper or cctv unless someone is specifically looking

@GreenTulips exactly. Nor does it even happen that often. There are in existence 3 photos of my dds in the paper. Only one is singular. No name no school no area

@nevernotstruggling @greentulips @roomba
We'll just have to start our own club of non social media parenting.
I admit it's tempting sometimes, to want to put a photo on my instagram or facebook of my baby, because he's really cute and it'd get a lot of likes... But I care more about his safety and personal anonymity and identity than getting likes.
It can get hard sometimes, as Facebook is a useful tool to share what's going on with lots of people at once, but since quitting it I've found a freedom from the constant comparisons to other people's lives.
Still have an instagram but i only use it to keep up to date with some friends, and to share pictures of crafty things i've made or sewn.
I no longer worry about taking photos for every experience and uploading them for the world to see. These experiences are now just for me and my family to enjoy.
I still take LOADS of photos of my boy, but share them only with the people that actually care to ask for photos (like the grandparents and close friends).
My old next door neighbour or high school crush doesn't need nor want to see pics of DS, and I don't want some advertiser seeing his pics either.

You are entitled to do what you please regarding your children. It's less clear why you feel you have a say about other people's.

These are such first world problems they're making me move between eye rolling and laughing.

I'm glad though, that advertisements and comparing your lives to others is all you have to worry about. It must mean you're living pretty comfortably which is nice.

I'll stick to not giving a fig about my kids' photos online because it makes no difference to anyone's lives, and worry about the children I teach who do need worrying about. The ones who are hungry and abused.

I remember taking a group of Y5s on a residential, and making sure that I put at least one photo of each of them on the school Twitter while we were away so their parents could see what they were up to. I also obviously ensured that I didn't put any on of the kids who did not have photo consent.

When we got back, one of the parents approached me and said that although she knows that she hadn't given consent for photos, it was really upsetting that she wasn't able to see photos of her DD on twitter when everyone else saw theirs.

I was like 'um, yah, that's what that means, why are you saying this to me'?

Well they could’ve WhatsApp the pictures to that parent couldn’t they? Hardly difficult and it doesn’t have to be SM.

Lots of group photo apps rather than public apps as well