Please Stop (over)Sharing your Kids

Social Media is really cool. It lets you keep up with college friends you haven’t spoken to in ten years, it allows you to network with people you wouldn’t have met otherwise, it allows you to easily share memories with family that lives far away - it has a lot of benefits.

Unfortunately, there are drawbacks as well.

Those adorable photos of your kids you post last night? Aunt Betty and Uncle Roy loved them. You know who else loved them? That creep you thought was your college roommate’s cousin you met a few times 8 years ago, but is actually someone who has the same name. That creep just saved that photo, the one you thought was only available to your friends, and now you don’t know who has access to that photo.

Well, you think, at least it’s an innocent enough photo. You make sure not to share photos from bath time, so it should be fine, right?

Except you don’t know that. You lose control over who has access to the photos you post online as soon as you press submit. It’s just the reality of the internet and Social Media. Maybe you know that already. Maybe that’s why you only post “safe” photos.

Mama, I wish it were that simple.

There are no safe photos to share of your children. This isn’t to scare you. I just really need you to know what you’re risking when you overshare your kids. There are some truly terrible people in the world, and they have access to this new technology called AI. This technology is being abused. People (creeps) are using AI to create horrifyingly inappropriate images of children - and they’re using the faces of real children. These faces are being harvested from social media.

I don’t write this to spread fear. I’m not asking you to live in fear, I’m asking you to consider doing the bare minimum to protect your children’s digital privacy. Even if something as horrific as that never happens to your children’s pictures - they are growing up in a digital age where their entire lives have been recorded for the world to see, form opinions over, and this digital record is nearly impossible to erase. Which means their privacy is being invaded by the general public and they aren’t old enough to even begin understanding the consequences or outcomes of their photos being online.

“I want to share your kids with family on the other side of the country.” I get it. No, really, I do. I promise you don’t need to share those photos on Facebook in order to do that.

“I’m only Facebook friends with people I know and trust.” Sure, but how often to people get hacked? About 300,000 Facebook accounts are hacked everyday. Even if you have the strongest password Facebook has ever seen, your friends list might not.

“It’s just a photo of us at the park.” Sure, but the faces of your children can be pulled off that photo and placed… anywhere.

“It’s too late, their pictures are out there, so why should I change anything?” Because you know better now. As they age, you can give them back their privacy.

There’s a reason parents who host foster children are prohibited from sharing photos of the faces of the kids in their home. There are security reasons for this that expand outside of AI abuse. The identity of these kids, and yours, need to be protected. Predators can use these images to create targets. No one wants to hear this, but it happens. Predators can also use other information you post, like their extracurricular schedules, to target your children.

You don’t want to live in fear. I know that. I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to be aware of the risks of your actions, and I’m asking you to think about just how easy it is to simply stop oversharing. Refrain from posting the photo. What are you gaining from posting it anyway?

Maybe you’re an influencer and those photos help you gain an audience. If that’s true, by they way, you may be legally required to pay them, but I digress.

I’m writing this as I stare down my second child’s due date. I’m going to welcome my second child into this world soon, and I’ll be reminding my friends and family that we do not want photos shared publicly. His privacy is important, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

Please, friend, consider not posting your children’s face on the internet. There is nothing you lose by making this change, and you gain (potentially, most likely) a very real level of protection for your children.

Cheers,

Kathryn