Do you ever think twice before posting photos of your child online?

[hkstudios]

Lately I've been feeling a bit uneasy about posting pictures of my little one on social media. I love sharing moments but something about putting their face out there publicly doesn't sit right with me, especially with everything going on with AI these days.

Just wondering if other parents feel the same way or if I'm completely overthinking it. Do you post freely, use private accounts, or do something else? What goes through your mind before you hit share?

I don't share photos of my children anywhere online. Try not to even send things on WhatsApp. We don't give permission for the school or clubs to post them either. We have one photo sharing app that we invite family to and that's it.

However didn't stop hackers from creating absolutely disgusting images of my children with a male family member after hacking his phone, then blackmailing him by threatening to post them on his social media unless he sent them money. Police were useless. Knowing those images are out there, even though we know they're faked, is just horrible.

Images from social media are also used by scam artists and fraudsters to help convince their victims that what they have been telling is truthful and not a pack of lies. As well as adults preying on children and persuading them that they are of the same age
They can be used by businesses for advertising purposes without your consent.

I would never post photos of anyone online, including myself and all other adults. It's just not necessary. But we need to be especially vigilant about children, as they are not in a position to consent.

I never posted pics of my kids online

There are many reasons why people don't post pictures of their children and it almost never has anything to do with other people seeing their face.

First of my child has no internet footprint because I don't feel I have the right to create that for him. Once something is online it's there forever. Once he is allowed online he can decide for himself what he wants on there and what not. It's just common decency not to post pictures of other people online without their consent.

Secondly, places like Facebook, Instagram and school website do get mined for pictures. They get used by scammers to set up fake lives. Or they get used for advertising in other countries. I know someone who had their picture used for whitening cream in India.

And then there is the minefield that is AI. Think of the worse type of pornography and you can be sure there will be people out their making things 10 time worse and using ai to make it. And that ai will be using our and our children's pictures to make it.

Not really. I just don't think it's realistic to keep children out of the public realm. They are people and part of society. You could blur out your kid's photo or never post them online but they could still be in the background of someone else's photo, or at a birthday party, or even captured by a street photographer and there'd be nothing you could do about it. I wouldn't post something that could be considered embarrassing or damage her reputation when she's older though.

For a realistic deep fake, a larger body of photos/videos is usually needed - capturing the person from all angles etc. So the odd photo of your child in the background of someone else's shot is not a big concern. It's a large number of higher quality close up photos which are more useful for the worst things.

Obviously a high quality single shot can be used for some things, but that's less likely to be taken of your child by a random person, and if it is at least it won't be associated with their name.

But surely your reasoning is a good reason why none of us should be posting birthday parties etc online with other people's children in the background?

You say this as though life grinds to a halt if you can't update your insta.

I think the whole culture of posting online needs rethinking. Technology has moved and is moving fast and we aren't really a step ahead of it.

We simply cannot control what happens to photos once shared but we CAN control the sharing in the first place.