To wonder if anyone can explain why people do this on social media?

[bellelikesreading]

Why do people post photos of their children with emojis over their faces?

I do understand why people don’t want photos of their children on social media at all; it’s a completely valid choice, and I understand why schools etc need to do it. But if you’re just a regular parent and you feel it’s detrimental for your child to be on social media why add them at all?

It feels so performative and as if you’re doing something wrong just by viewing a photo!

I know a couple of people who do that because they adopted their children and need to preserve a degree of anonymity, but still want to share milestones etc.

Yes, I think that’s perfectly normal. Their children are at risk from some quarter, but they still want to post birthday or Christmas photos etc.

Sometimes it's a group photo so an emoji is used to cover the child's face.

Call me judgemental but I think it’s wanting to be perceived as morally superior while also wanting to share their children. Sharing their life is still an infringement of their privacy before the age of consent in my opinion, even when their faces are covered

Because some people want to still share their childrens lives with friends and family, or people they care about that live far away but understand that in this day and age there's hardly such a thing as digital privacy, and with the advancement of ai, photos of children can be manipulated for pornographic purposes and distributed, or the facial identification of children makes it easier for predators to identify and access children.

We've all heard the cautionary tales of predators identifying the parents through social media, learning about their workplaces, their full names, their birthdays and finding the children, turning up when the children are alone and saying "I'm your daddy/mummy's friend, they've sent me to pick you up" and then having enough information about the parents to convince the children that they are in fact a friend and somebody that can be trusted.

People don't want their children to be identifiable, or to have their face plastered across the internet where there'll forever be a trace until they're old enough to consent.

Why does anyone post anything on SM? Every act is a search for validation ( which I know we all do in life) but it takes it to a level I find so uncomfortable in it's falseness, I had to come off it all entirely.

I like getting a heart on here still. That's a validation search I guess.

Why is it seen as so normal to tell someone how much you love them with an audience who then sends emojis in approval. No one cares at all about other people's kids. No one really wants to see shit pics on FB.

It feels like insanity how this is now. When someone shares appallingly sad news, we have the crying face emojis.for everyone to see.

Please transport me out this world 🤷😆

It’s odd. If your teen doesn’t want their photo on FB (common) then don’t post a picture. I find it really wierd that they post then hide face. Younger children - just don’t post at all

I don't know if I believe this. All I think is how many perverts are potentially getting off on pictures of kids and I think knowing that, some might want to try improve privacy and reduce the thought of that happening in their own minds to an identifiable child of theirs.

You don't know who is watching and seeing anything online. Its often in people's thoughts now I hope to reduce risk of children being identified.

This would make sense if it was compulsory to post photos but it isn’t!

So in that case why post the photos at all?