To ask, if you don’t share your child’s picture on social media…

[FlyingSoap]

Do you still share their name? Just planning what we are going to do after baby arrives. I am reluctant to share baby’s face online but don’t know if this should extend to all personal info about them.

Thoughts welcome either way.

Nothing at all.
We got mocked for it by family members, the same family members who have shared pictures of their own children in the bath/with sick bowls beside them and in push up bras aged 12.

I'd sooner be me thanks...

Would you say the same with the traditional newspaper announcements?

I shared name pictures and date of birth and weight on mine as that's a traditional baby announcement
I have a closed profile though. If I had an open profile I wouldn't show face or give full name or dob
I'd say something like 'October has been full of newborn cuddles with our precious girl' and a photo of her little feet

I absolutely love seeing my friends and family baby pics on social media

No I have no need to share my child's name on social media

Mine is totally private with a handful of friends and family, so I put what I like. Same as I would in a WhatsApp group

No, nothing at all. My children don’t exist as far as my social media is concerned.

I don’t share pictures and I have also read somewhere (maybe on here?) that it’s not recommended to share birthdays or other information. I am always shocked when parents share pictures of their children in school uniform with ties and badges showing.

Nothing. I don't understand why people do tbh

There's another one filming children while they are eating and saying oh look little Jimmy is enjoying the dinner.

Poor child nothing is private.

A person has to consent to have their image published online.

Can parents consent for their children? I don’t know. They can for medical issues of course. But is publicising them on the internet a good enough reason.

Privacy is precious and it is also a human right.

Human data - including names, dates, locations, biometrics from photos - is a valuable currency in today’s world. Don’t give your kids’ privacy away for the sake of a few clicks, likes or views. Is our gratification today worth unknown cost in their future?

Ps one more risk is facial recognition software.

I don’t post anything about DD on social media - name or photographs.

I know some people who post literally everything. I remember someone posting a photo of their kid’s poo in the bath. Each to their own, but I think it’s really off.

Kids poo, thats a new low I hadn't heard of.

I don't put photos of my children online. There are private photo- sharing apps that my parents, siblings and in-laws are on so I share photos that way. Nobody else needs to see them.

That said, my eldest is 7 and is becoming semi aware of social media sites and occasionally asks me to put funny photos up. I still say no. I will occasionally change my profile picture to photos of things they have drawn or photos of things they have made (crafty things or lego builds etc)

Another reminder that Mumsnet is a different universe. I don't know anybody - including parents at nursery and schools that don't share photos of their kids online. But on Mumsnet you'd think the majors don't...

If there is an image of your child on meta, and an image of your child on his school website, then those two images can be matched via facial recognition, and it is then very easy find out who your child is and what school he is at, and from there, where he lives. They already know you are his parent and your full name, from your profile. They can then match images of you from facebook with you elsewhere on the web. It becomes very easy to build a picture of your entire lives from what you think is limited information.

I'd love to the see the stats on how many children have been abducted from school or home because their parents posted their picture on Facebook.

I don't put anything on at all. I don't think there's much harm in occasional posed photos such as first day of school type thing. But it's just easier to have a blanket rule. And there's also no benefit whatsoever to my child of their information being on Facebook, so it's an easy decision. There's no weighing up of pros and cons as there would be with other decisions.

Facebook is never really secure - it only takes someone to get hacked or make a fake profile that pretends to be you or one of you friends. Or one of your friends comments on your post and their friends can see it as a result.

It's better to use WhatsApp or a shared Google album for family photo sharing

It's about a child's right to privacy. And minimising the risk of future online harm. Abduction is only going to be an increased risk if someone is targeting a particular child. There are other bad things beside abduction

I don't do photos or names, or any other references to them, nor did I post about the pregnancies.

For us, that was partly because it's an easier stance to communicate to extended family etc. We don't have anyone in that circle who would deliberately go against our wishes but it just felt more straightforward to say, "We're not putting any reference to them on social media and we'd prefer you didn't either."

A few times they've been in pictures others have shared (mostly in the background of pictures of other people's kids) and I'm not fussed about that (I think you have to be realistic), but I definitely wouldn't want their names attached to that.

Never shared anything about DC on social media. Working in schools and CAMHS was great for putting me off whenever I wavered. Social media was rarely the sole cause of a child or family's problems, but it certainly never made them any better, and was rarely a net positive.

Aside from the obvious safety concerns, "Sharenting" is frequently resented by teens. Children often come to resent being commodified for blogging and vlogging. And the autism parents who film their child's meltdowns and put them online...I have no words.

Nothing at all. As far as my social media goes there is nothing about my child at all. Unless it's close friends or family no one would even know he existed.

I have an issue with primary schools publishing photos of children on their twitter and Facebook accounts as a way to promote and market their school.

Yes the parents have consented, but we’re seeing a two tier system emerge where children with more informed parents have a right to digital privacy, but children from parents who haven’t thought it through do not.

Plus children whose photos are published on school public Twitter accounts are exposed to harmful comments - hate speech etc - in replies to the tweets and posts.

All this data out there - facial recognition etc. - could increase risk of more future harms than we can conceive. Eg health insurance companies setting premiums based on adults digital footprint when they were a child. Not to mention impersonation, digital cloning (credit cards etc), exploitation, scams and blackmail etc when they are adults. And AI models trained on their data.

Why risk it? Why do schools risk it?

The thing is everyone thinks their Facebook profile is locked down but most people's actually have a lot visible.

I sometimes have a trawl through old uni friends who I'm not FB friends with (FB didn't exist back then) and it's amazing what you can find out. Most people you can see their photos or at least their friends list. You can then work out who their parents are and look at their profiles to see pictures of the grandchildren. You can join a large group of professionals (1000s of members) and see people posting about their 8 year old wetting the bed along with photo of said child.
I have no real computer skills and no nefarious intent. I am not actually seeing anything that's not been put there deliberately by the parents or wider family. It's frightening as there are plenty of people out there with bad intentions who can watch you walk past with your child on the way home from school, find you online, view your child in their swimsuit on a recent family holiday, read up on their health or social problems....I am sure this is happening all the time and even if most people never find out I still don't want that to be my kids.
Most people don't understand how Facebook works or they haven't bothered to check their privacy settings are what they think.

Same reason as parents do it. Attention. It should be banned

I agree @DinosaurMunch but so many posts go on about it not being safe; and being identified; and people using the photos for nefarious purposes. Thats talking about inferred risks. That's not about privacy.