That posting children on social media should be banned?

[TartanPaper]

We’ve already seen serious forms of abuse happening and they’re continuing.

The woman who posts her little girl doing handstands in dresses and sucking on ice lollies, the orphan girl who was exploited, the woman who forced her children to cry a certain way when they were already grieving over a pet, the woman who was abusing her kids whilst posting about how to keep them in line, the autistic children whose every move is filmed so their outbursts can be posted…

I think it’s time that all children’s faces were banned from social media till they are 16. The age of having an account should be 16 and social media platforms should be stricter at seeking and banning accounts that posts children’s faces.

I recently came across an account of a small girl and looked at her followers. Nearly all grown men. I selected a few at random and the second one I looked at had no posts and was following nearly all little girls accounts. It’s disgusting, we all know who and what he is but he can stay and watch because the parents and guardians are happy to make money off these small children. Some are literally selling them out to paedophiles in front of our faces and no one can do anything.

I know people will say on here they they post pictures of their kids on private accounts but the things paedos do with the photos of the kids is horrendous, there have been stalking cases, AI generation, children’s faces turned into pornographic images and videos. It’s sickening and surely we need to protect our kids more than we need to share pictures with family or make a few quid out of them?

Powers to go after parents posting inappropriate images is better, along with locked down definitions of what "inappropriate" is.

Hopefully things have improved since 1995... https://www.independent.co.uk/news/julia-somerville-defends-innocent-family-photos-1538516.html

I completely agree. I remember when DS was diagnosed with ASD seeing what some parent bloggers posted about their children on SM was shocking. No dignity or privacy afforded to the children and the parents were not going to be getting more support just because “Billy” was having a meltdown on Facebook.

Whereas when my other friends with children with ASD or my children had meltdowns, we tried to attune to them and help them regulate, we didn’t pull out the camera and start recording them.

So what, we just sit back and allow paedos to continue to stalk kids and take and manipulate their photos because Sandra wants to post pictures of her kids to her 193 followers l? Why is Sanrda’s right to post picture of her kids greater than her children’s right to privacy? To not have their images used in porn?

Sandra is stil exploiting her kids, she just doesn’t know it.

Until they do, and isn't going to be soon, it's up to parents to look after their children.

Parents need to be more tech savvy than they are and have their accounts locked down or their children off open forums.

I think having a permanent and lasting identifiable personal record of your life is very different. Children can’t consent to that until they are older.

It's unworkable. Are you really going to send parents to prison for sharing pictures with their relatives who live overseas?

I do understand what you're saying, but taking them a park is their choice and what they want to do. Social media isn't. And yes the tech companies should clamp down on it, but just because they should doesn't mean they will. It's mainly up to us as parents to protect our children

Agree

The monetising of babies and little kids for social media who cannot consent to this makes me sick 🤢

Posting family pics is different if only shared privately . But also kids should be able to consent or not, I rarely post mine on sm and if u ever want to I ask permission

😱

It's obvious that's not what people are saying 🙄

I think that parents who constantly post photos of their children very scary, makes me wonder why they do it even when they know there are men out there that use these photos, really does make you wonder what these parents get out of it and do they get a kick out of it.

No but as someone else said, AI can identify pictures and ban them and ban accounts. It’s all possible now.

While I understand the sentiment, WhatsApp is social media and our family, who are all over the world, use the platform to share pictures and updates in family groups, as do billions of others. So I just don’t think your approach is practical. The controls need to be on age limits for creating accounts, and identity verificationfor all accounts. Then of course there’s a huge parenting responsibility not to let children have devices that enable this at too you an age.

It's a wholesale breach of trust. Nothing more.

I’m not talking about WhatsApp. WhatsApp isn’t content and it’s private, to a larger degree.

Im talking about the usual suspects of Instagram and TikTok. Where people share for likes.

It’s a different beast.

Obviously not. Photos and videos on social media would be taken down. No need for any further action unless extreme circumstances. Families can still share photos and videos via other means.

I don’t think that’s what the OP is saying.
There is a world of difference between sending family pics via WhatsApp to your aunt at the other side of the world and posting pictures of them on a social media account that is not locked down and anyone could access… nor is it the same as exploiting your own child to earn money from YouTube videos…
I do think all SM should be banned for under 16s as well

WhatsApp is different for several reasons
It's private by default - you have to create a group and add specific people
There's no publicly accessible face to it.
It's more difficult to hack as it's dependant on phone number.
You can't see something on WhatsApp through your other connections.

I came across a photo of my boss in a bikini on the beach through clicking on her daughter's profile when she came on placement with us. Her daughter had no privacy controls (most people don't). There's no way that could happen on WhatsApp. I would have to be added to a group that they were sharing holiday pics on.

This is the problem with an outright ban though.

You ban on social media then that will include things like WhatsApp.

If you name the social media's then people will find loopholes, invent a new site, and find other ways around it.

If you say no under 16s photos online then what about kids modelling clothes, what about actors?

It will be impossible to do. It would be far easier to stop parents monetising from kids online than it would be to ban kids photos being online.

I would definitely agree with this

But WhatsApp is social media…so how do you differentiate?

i think that’s a little naive. Any picture shared by social media, including WhatsApp, can be copied and onwardly shared. You don’t know who has access to your extended families ‘phone. And, given its encrypted nature, I’m sure WhatsApp is used for all sorts of nefarious purposes. From bullying by school kids to people trafficking and porn. So yes, it should be subject to the same controls when it comes to identifying users

I think we should ban under 16s from having access to the internet. I'm absolutely sick to death of hearing about kids being groomed or being exposed to porn by arsehole parents who don't safeguard their children.

I don't think children should be posted on public accounts.

You can easily differentiate between them as one types for public consumption and another isn’t. You could out this in the wording, it would definitely be possible. Maybe it would instead for only private accounts for pictures of children on other platforms but that would be better than the current situation