AIBU to be annoyed estranged MIL posts pictures of my child without permission?

[Bonnie3944]

DP & myself cut mil off due to her being absent in my sons life, she has only seen him 4 times in his life, he’s 2 & 1/2, she’s been invited to every family function, bbq, birthday party, new years gatherings, Christmas gift exchanges & she either cancels last minute or just doesn’t show up. We had a huge row where MIL told me to “stop barking” & told DH to “put a muzzle on it” & “tell your dog to shut up” after I expressed to her that dh & I were fed up with her constantly letting us & her grandson down. Since then we have been no contact, she’s not been in touch to apologise or to wish her son & grandson a merry Xmas etc. DH, DS & myself have spent Xmas with my parents this year, we took some pics of DS playing with my moms Christmas tree, my mom posted it on fb & hours later I noticed MIL had stolen the photo & posted it herself with ‘merry Christmas from mine to yours’ insinuating that she’s had DS for Xmas. People are commenting saying things to imply they think she has DS this Christmas. I’m livid & don’t know what to do, any advice?

The thing to do is ask family not to post photos online, you can't change what's done but you can stop it happening again

They won’t take it down. It’s open to the public. Meaning I’d the mother in law could use it then it was public ally opened. As in the mother didn’t hack into her daughter in laws computer. They would help then

but legally Facebook are in the clear

Yup

im always so surprised people don’t realise this.

yes don’t post photos!!!!

My brother has done this many times before so we have relatives who assume that he sees them loads.
It's hugely frustrating but not a toxic situation like yours. I'm sorry you are going through this.

Yes. If it’s her cover photo people are well within their rights to use it

cover photos are ‘public’ so I could steal it and post it to groups etc.

If you truly want to cut her out of your life, then why do you care (or even know) what she posts on FB?

Yup. Jobs are now looming easily at peoples digital footprints. We’re now at an age where people won’t be hired because of social media. You’re looked at you are watched. Even if you delete stuff it’s never gone

You might stop posting photos on FB yourself, just a thought.

I think your issue should be with the person who initially posted photos of your kid, if she hasn’t restricted who views it then all sorts of people can access it. You need to make it clearer to friends and family that you don’t want your kids online until they can make the decision (ie when they are 18).

I think in this case the issue is the lack of security of the account that other people could access the photos

I don't think we're missing the point - What's been done can't be undone, but to stop it happening again your mum needs to not publicly post photos of your DS.

Of course your MIL will not only scour all your friends’ and family’s pages for info, news, ammunition etc, but of course she will copy pictures whenever she likes.

‘steal’ is a very odd word to use about something made freely available on internet based social media. It’s hardly ‘going to all that trouble ‘ to c&p a photo.

Anyone close to her will know it isn’t her tree, isn’t her house. Ignore, and lock down security as everyone says

Oh, it’s one of those posts, where OP asks for advice, gets given advice she doesn’t like and then tells people they are missing the point.

I'd just post on mil such a shame you don't come and see him especially as he has such a lovely time at his other nans house

Report photo, tighten up everybody's social media settings especially your mum's and block and in all honesty I would be considering setting a clear message that people are not to be posting photos on social media of any children who are not their own (including grandchildren). I would be cross if someone was without actively seeking my permission.

Some people are so strange defending this behaviour. Taking a photo of someone else’s Christmas celebrations from their personal Facebook page & uploading it to your own is weird no matter how you try to frame it.

I’d say block her but obviously you’ve already done that.

I had thought of this tbh because seeing all of her friends in her comments praising her up when she never sees her grandson is infuriating me.

She hasn’t stolen anything. Your mum made the photo available for any Tom, Dick or Harry who wanted a photo of your child to simply help themselves.

It would be embarrassing for her if you commented on her post, telling the truth about how often she saw your DC but, really, what would be the point? It’s not going to shame her into being an attentive and loving grandmother. All that would happen is that acquaintances would be enjoying you washing your family’s dirty laundry in public. Ideally, you need to stop posting any photos of children on line when they are too young to understand how it may affect their privacy in the future. But if you’re not willing to do this, then you need to have your security at the highest settings.

Thank you for this comment, I finally feel heard, I understand the tighten your security comments etc to SOME degree but I don’t see how it justifies MIL essentially lying that she’s had DS over the holidays when we’re all in no contact meanwhile DS hasn’t seen her in months. & yes myself & DH had blocked her (and FIL & BIL) on all socials immediately after the row we had, I didn’t think Iv have to tell my family to block her because I wouldn’t of thought she’d search my mom & go through her feed for pictures then post them herself. My mom has blocked her since.

If you had already blocked her how did you notice she had put the post up?

You can't 'steal' photos from Facebook - if you post on a public forum without adjusting your privacy settings, you are actually giving anyone on FB access to see and share your photos. Your mum needs to change her privacy settings!

DH wished his Nan merry Xmas & she responded asking if we were at his moms so she could pop in to say hello, he said no & she said “oh? Is it just the baby at your mom’s then?” He said no we’re at other nans & grandads & then she told him she saw his mom posted a pic of him on MIL’s fb and thought we were celebrating with her.

i think you're missing 2 points:
a) your mum really needs to tighten up her security settings
b) you must report the photo that your MIL posted to fb
c) have a word with your mum about what she posts and where (this is generally a good idea, lots of people don't have the first clue about who can see their posts and what might happen with the photos they do post)

Be clear to your MIL (better if her son does it) that this behaviour must stop.

But you said.....

*hours later I noticed MIL had stolen the photo & posted it herself with ‘merry Christmas from mine to yours’ insinuating that she’s had DS for Xmas. People are commenting saying things to imply they think she has DS this Christmas

tbh, OP, you display astoundingly naive attitudes here.

The first thing is: profile pictures and banner pictures are public. That means you can't block everyone from seeing them.

You and your family need to cop on and not post pictures of your DC. At all. None. Possibly you could send them by WhatsApp or similar, with the proviso that they don't share them anywhere with anyone. The only way for them to "share" photos is to show someone on their phone. That is it.

You really ought to do an online safety course. Are there such things?