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?

I am anti children on SM and never have any of mine. I do use whatsapp though and never understand why people dont use this? It is so common to hear 'my account is private and I use it to share pics with family and friends across the globe'. Why can't you use whatsapp for this? My guess is no public likes...

Yanbu, children need to be able to have control over their own pictures. The fact that they are thrown out to the world is not really fair on them. As you rightly point out some parents exploit their own children to make money, it’s not fair to the child and it smacks of a lack of safeguarding.

I think you’re right

There has been a few replies on this thread that have been thinly veiled attempts to defend the posting of kids online. Ranging from “nah it’ll never work” (yeah ok, so why bother try right??!) to saying people should be able to do what they like.

My guess is because of them being addicted to the dopamine hit of a ‘like’ on social media
People also use their kids to get attention. Hence hospital bed pics, or pics of poorly children in bed. They see their kids as an extension of their egos and a like for their kids is a like for them.

I follow the MLM/network marketing "industry" (pyramid schemes basically). The people involved in MLM are often so desperate for content in order to recruit and sell products that they will seriously compromise their children's safety for engagement.

I have been following one rep who posts her child's every move. From what she has shared in photos and other information she posts it is possible to glean his name, date of birth, home address, see what his bedroom looks like, his school address, grandparents name and address and his love of motorbikes. Her Facebook is entirely open as it's the favoured SM for MLM. He is 6.
This isn't just a privacy concern, it's unsafe.

She isn't the only one who does this in the MLM world. Other privacy compromises are a "humorous" video of a 7 year old boy on the loo, posted by his own mother. A 5 year old girl posing in the shower naked, posted by her own mother to showcase a new bathroom, the sharing of medical correspondence and a child's ASD diagnosis, again, all for engagement, A video of a young child sleeping in his bed. Images of other people's children without their consent or the consent of their parents.

I once attended a CEOP talk about online safety and the journey some innocent images make once they are lifted by the wrong people - terrifying. You can't report any of these images to FB either as they don't violate the rules FB claims to have. So if the parents are attention seeking dullards their children's happiness, privacy and often their safety is totally compromised.

Would the ban extend to using babies/children in adverts? Because surely that's also monetising without consent?

Someone has already mentioned this upthread.
No, of course it wouldn’t extend to this. I would imagine there is far more regulation surrounding children in adverts. And just because it happens, does not mean that every single child should be allowed to be monetised and plastered all over SM for likes